First piece built entirely with hand tools

[Dave Diaman]

A little while back I had a customer visit my shop and see two ball and claw feet I had carved for a Newport lowboy. He told me he would like to buy it but really wanted it to be built entirely with hand tools. The one exception is I used a bandsaw to rough out the front two legs before I carved them. Other than that everything was done entirely using hand tools. I actually had to barrow quite a few tools for this piece as I don’t own a set of hollows and rounds or a handsaw that was large enough to resaw the top. While I use a lot of hand tools in my shop I am far from a purest and typically use the best tool for the job that will accomplish the task without compromising the authenticity of the piece. When I started this piece I was pretty good with hand tools but I will admit this experience has made me a much better woodworker and I would really recommend it to anyone who hasn’t tried a total hand tool build before.

The piece is a Newport Lowboy based on a piece built by John Goddard. The construction is figured Honduran mahogany and poplar for the secondary wood. The finish is a dilute mixture of pot di, tung oil/varnish and shellac.

You will have to excuse the distortortion from my camera that mahes the top look bowed

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k316/eoddave/Furniture/DSCN0395.jpg

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http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k316/eoddave/Furniture/DSCN0398.jpg

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k316/eoddave/Furniture/DSCN0399.jpg

[jason thigpen]

That looks amazing! The carving on the feet is so smooth and life-like. You have a real gift for handwork!

[gary Zimmel]

Another beautiful piece Dave.
But what sets this one apart from your others is the fact this one is done entirely by hand.
My hat is off to you.
How many hours are in this piece?

[george wilson]

A great piece of work!!

[Frank Drew]

Excellent work, Dave; I particularly like your shell carving.

"The finish is a dilute mixture of pot di, tung oil/varnish and shellac."

Does that mean you put the shellac on after the tung oil/varnish?

[Jim Koepke]

Very nice. I hope you were paid well for the work.

jtk

[Johnny Kleso]

Wow thats super.......

I love the air space between the claws..

[Scott MacLEOD2]

Lovely work, very impressive.

Did you work from drawings, a plan or pictures?

Scott MacLEOD

[John Fabre]

Very nice work, you should have your own show. I would love to see the joinery, do you have any pictures? My dad and I built one of these by a kit years ago. How many hours did it take you with hand tools?

[John Keeton]

David, you are a master craftsman!! Just super work, and a pleasure to view. I am sure your customer was more than pleased!

[Pam Niedermayer]

Beautiful piece, great work; but what would you have preferred using power tools for if given the choice. Maybe the top?

Pam

[Sean Hughto]

Really really great work.

I believe I would have been able to have identify it from the pictures as made largely by handwork even if you had not said so. There really is a different feeling that a hand made piece has. A factory just couldn't so that.

[Joe A Faulkner]

David, you are a master craftsman!! Just super work, and a pleasure to view. I am sure your customer was more than pleased!

Thanks for posting. I always enjoy seeing your work.

[Dave Diaman]

Frank,
Yes I put shellac over a coat of tung oil/varnish blend. I use the same finishing method on probably 90% of the pieces I build although a lot get a top coat of lacquer based on customer request.

Scott
I worked from photographs I scaled and an original on display at Winterthur.

John,
Probably not nearly as many hours as you would think. All the panels and drawer fronts were left thick to reduce the amount of hand plane work. It is also a fairly simple piece that required a small amount of material to be milled by hand. All and all the piece already required so much hand work the addition of the moldings and hand planning just didn’t add that much time. I think total I only had about 75 hrs in it.


Pam,
The one thing that really kicked my but and had me really thinking about using a power tool was the top. resawing a 12” wide board by hand was a bear.

[Roy Lindberry]

Dave,
I always enjoy looking at your work, but this - with hand tools - this is amazing!


Perhaps someday, when I grow up and get big I can be like you.

[Van Huskey]

First, incredible work!

Second, amazed that there are customers aware enough to care that a piece was completely handmade! That was as interesting as seeing your work.

[Steve Branam]

Gorgeous! Exactly the kind of work I aspire to! In a few more years...

What did you use for resawing? Just a plain old ripsaw, or some kind of frame saw? Any other interesting details resawing such a large piece?

[James Owen]

Beautiful!!! The carving on the shell and the ball & claw feet is exquisite!
Just a really lovely piece!

[David Weaver]

Really great work, Dave. I'm impressed with not only the work, but also with the client. I only wish I could do work half as good as that.

[john brenton]

I would have liked to see a pic with the drawers open...not that I'm complaining about what you're posted! It would just really show the full monty.

How are the drawers installed if I may ask? Mechanical sliders, sliding dovetails etc?

[John Timberlake]

Great looking piece. Sounds like a lot of fun and work to do it by hand, but would give you insite to how they built them 200 years ago. Maybe when I retire.

[Dave Diaman]

Steve,
I just used an old Disston rip saw. The board I started with was 10/4 which gave me a little room for error.

John,
The drawers are just installed on poplar runners and kickers as is true to period. There were not a whole lot of full extension ball bearing slides in the 1760's :D

Here are the drawers pulled out. The pins taper to about 1/32" at the small end but is blocked ot in the photo due to the angle.

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k316/eoddave/Furniture/DSCN0400.jpg

[john brenton]

Yeah, it sounds like kind of a stupid question...it just kind of popped out as I couldn't think of the names of any other methods as I was writing it. Thanks for the pics, they look great.


The drawers are just installed on poplar runners and kickers as is true to period. There were not a whole lot of full extension ball bearing slides in the 1760's :D[/SIZE][/FONT]

[Dave Diaman]

For all you guys commenting on people appreciating hand work on furniture believe me there is no shortage. One of the biggest reasons people come to me seems to be the large amount of hand tool work that goes into every one of my pieces. They understand that for someone to work wood by hand it is a true labor of love and know that care was put into every aspect of the construction. Building a piece totally by hand is another story though. While I am sure a lot of my customers would like to say they own a piece built totally by hand the additional labor cost just isn’t worth it to them. In the end it is very hard to tell that my pieces were not built using totally hand tools anyway. The trick is to use power tools where it will not compromise the authenticity of the piece and hand tools where you need to make it look as authentic as possible.

[Frank Drew]

I built pieces one at a time and considered the furniture I made to be hand built, although I used machinery in the process. I've done a very limited amount of exclusively hand work (which is different), but not when I was trying to come in on budget.

[Don C Peterson]

Beautiful work.

[Dan Sink]

That is a piece of art. Amazing.