Stickley Style Tall Cabinet

[John TenEyck]

Yesterday I delivered a Stickely style stereo cabinet that I designed to fit the space available, and to complement the many Stickley pieces in his house. This was a particularly satisfying project for me since I milled the quarter sawn white oak myself from logs given to me by an arborist friend. Also, this was the first time I have made true divided light doors or done any inlay work - the bow ties in the lower doors, in this case. I did quite a bit of research into the details of how Stickley built their furniture, even visited the Stickley store in Victor, NY, and used as many of those as I could in building the piece.

Here are a few pics.


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You can find pictures of the whole build process at the link below, if you have an interest.

http://picasaweb.google.com/JohnTenEyck54/StereoCabinet2012?authuser=0&feat=directlink

John

[Dave Lehnert]

WOW! Looks great.

I will check out your link.

[Scott T Smith]

John, that really turned out nice; thanks for the link to the construction. If you don't mind my asking, what dye colors and finish did you use?

Thx.

Scott

[frank shic]

beautiful job.

[Dave Ray]

Looks great, I like the build pix. Thanks

[Ray Newman]

Nice design and very craftsman-like work.

The link to your construction pictures is the "icing on the cake" and really shows the attention to detail that you put into this project.

Again, very nice work.

[Stewart Crick]

John,

Beautiful design, and the execution looks excellent as well. I'd be interested in hearing more about the milling and particularly drying process you used with the logs. I've just started air-drying two curly, QS logs of white oak.

[Jim Foster]

Nice job! Well executed! I suspect it's the nicest piece of Stickley style furniture the owner has.

[Brian Brightwell]

Thank You for taking all the photos and sharing them.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

The finishing process was essentially that given by Jeff Jewitt on his website except my dye recipe is different because I was trying to match some other furniture the owner has:
1) Sand to 180 grit
2) Dye with 5 drops Transtint Dark Mission Brown + 5 drops Medium Brown in 1/2 oz of denatured alcohol, which is 320 drops of each in a quart which is what I made up and it was more than enough for everything.
3) Seal with General Finishes Seal-A-Cell
4) Stain with General Finishes Antique Walnut Gel Stain, wiped off very well with a clean cloth.
5) 3 coats of GF's Arm-R-Seal in Satin, applied with a Scott's Rags-in-a-box paper towel. These paper towels do a great job for applying Arm-R-Seal. Nice even, thin coats with no lint.

I got 4 or 5 white oak logs from my arborist friend 2 or 3 years ago, about 10 - 12' long and 18 - 22" diameter. I mill logs with a chainsaw on an Alaskan Mill, which is wasteful but the cheapest way I know to have your own rig. I have a Husqvarna 385 XP with a 28" bar, and mostly use Oregon ripping chains on it. I can cut about 20" wide with it, but almost never do because it's incrediably slow plus my jointer is only 10" wide. (I have cut them that wide for a few live edge slabs.) To mill a log, I hoist it up in the air with a chain fall under a tripod and put a couple of log rounds under it, which gets it up to a comfortable work height. Then I attach a 12 foot length of aluminum ladder to the top of the log, shimming as necessary so that it's parallel with the center of the log. Next I set the mill to take off a slab that will give me a cut width of around 12" on the exposed log, and set that offcut aside for now. Then I take the saw out of the Alaskan Mill and attach it to a mini-mill that rides on a 2x6. I screw the 2x6 to the open face on the log and cut off the two side slabs, which leaves me with 3 milled faces. Which ever face looks best I rotate to the top, put the saw back on the Alaskan Mill, and begin to make my cuts at whatever thickness I want. If the log is clear I just keep milling until I get to the bottom; if not, I rotate the log as necessary to get the best clear yield I can. When you are doing this by hand, there is a lot of incentive not rotate it too often. After the main log is milled, I go back and mill one or two boards from eachg of the off-cuts, which often have the clearest wood although they will always be plain sawn. Then I take a small saw and trim off any bark sections and also split the boards that came from the center (which are the ones with the true QS figure), to remove the pith which usually will cause those boards to split and warp if it's not removed. I sticker the boards on a bunk of 4 x 4's on cinder blocks and put a sheet of corrugated plastic on top and tie it down. If I mill in the Spring, the boards will be dry enough by Fall to bring into my shop, where I have a dehumidification kiln that I built loosely following plans in FWW several years ago, to complete the drying process. White oak, apple, cherry, and hickory are probably the worst woods I've encountered for drying. They love to split, twist, and generally misbehave during initial drying. The dehumidification kiln was actually pretty easy to build. If you have the room it is a great way to save money. Even if you don't mill your own wood, you can buy green or air dried lumber and dry it yourself. Mine holds about 275 BF in a load. If the wood is air dried to around 14 - 16%, a full load takes around 2 weeks and costs about $20 to dry down to 7 - 9%.

You can find pictures of my milling process and drier at the following links.


http://picasaweb.google.com/JohnTenEyck54/LogMilling?authuser=0&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/JohnTenEyck54/Drier?authuser=0&feat=directlink

John

[G Douglas Fowler]

Great figured wood and excellent execution.

[Steve Meliza]

Thanks for sharing your amazing work and techniques, it is very inspiring.

[glenn bradley]

Bootiful piece in a great setting.

[David Peterson MN]

The finishing process was essentially that given by Jeff Jewitt on his website except my dye recipe is different because I was trying to match some other furniture the owner has:
1) Sand to 180 grit
2) Dye with 5 drops Transtint Dark Mission Brown + 5 drops Medium Brown in 1/2 oz of denatured alcohol, which is 320 drops of each in a quart which is what I made up and it was more than enough for everything.
3) Seal with General Finishes Seal-A-Cell
4) Stain with General Finishes Antique Walnut Gel Stain, wiped off very well with a clean cloth.
5) 3 coats of GF's Arm-R-Seal in Satin, applied with a Scott's Rags-in-a-box paper towel. These paper towels do a great job for applying Arm-R-Seal. Nice even, thin coats with no lint.



This is the process that I use to stain the stickley furniture that I build. The finish is overall easy to apply and it turns out very nice.

Normally I stain the parts separately and then glue together after all the finishing is complete. How is it to use this stain process after the glue up?

[Van Huskey]

Very very nice!

[John Gregory]

I like it A LOT! :D

[Jay Jolliffe]

Great job...I like the rays in the oak....

[John TenEyck]

This is the process that I use to stain the stickley furniture that I build. The finish is overall easy to apply and it turns out very nice.

Normally I stain the parts separately and then glue together after all the finishing is complete. How is it to use this stain process after the glue up?

I normally would finish at least the panels of the frame and panel doors prior to glue-up, but the owner and I were still working on the color choice, so I had to do everything afterwards in order to meet my time schedule. But it actually wasn't too hard to do. I was fortunate that I was building the piece in the Winter, so the panels were at their smallest width and there won't be any ugly white unstained lines in the future. If I were building it in the Summer I think I would have waited until I could finish the panels completely. It wasn't hard to wipe off the GF gel stain uniformly. The only real problem I had was getting it into the ends of the corners and similar nooks and cranies. I actually found a couple corners I missed after I got it out into the daylight after the finish coats were on, and found that I could touch them up with the stain only and it looked perfect. And it was nice not having to tape off the panels to dye or stain the rest of it. I just wiped on the stain, working from the top down, worked it into the inside edges and corners, and then wiped it off with a clean Rags-in-a-box paper towel.

And you are right that this finish process is easy to apply and looks good. I originally thought about spraying everything, but I think the Arm-R-Seal actually was easier to apply and looked and felt just as good. It is baby butt smooth. Very efficient on material usage, too; I did everything with well less than 1 quart.

John

[Pat Barry]

John, congratulations. Thats a very nice piece! The proportions are right on, and the color / wood grain is awesome.

[Michael Peet]

A very handsome piece, John. Thanks for sharing -

Mike

[James White]

John,

What do you use to monitor your humidity? Is the humidifier for adjusting RH or for conditioning? Is it enough for conditioning?

Do you have a link to the FWW plans?

I love the cabinet. How thick are the top and sides?

James

[Scott T Smith]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

The finishing process was essentially that given by Jeff Jewitt on his website except my dye recipe is different because I was trying to match some other furniture the owner has:
1) Sand to 180 grit
2) Dye with 5 drops Transtint Dark Mission Brown + 5 drops Medium Brown in 1/2 oz of denatured alcohol, which is 320 drops of each in a quart which is what I made up and it was more than enough for everything.
3) Seal with General Finishes Seal-A-Cell
4) Stain with General Finishes Antique Walnut Gel Stain, wiped off very well with a clean cloth.
5) 3 coats of GF's Arm-R-Seal in Satin, applied with a Scott's Rags-in-a-box paper towel. These paper towels do a great job for applying Arm-R-Seal. Nice even, thin coats with no lint.

John


John, thanks for the detailed info. One question - why alcohol based? Most of what I've read and heard indicates that water based dye is more forgiving. Are you spraying the alcohol, or just really good in applying it consistently?!

Scott

[John TenEyck]

John,

What do you use to monitor your humidity? Is the humidifier for adjusting RH or for conditioning? Is it enough for conditioning?

Do you have a link to the FWW plans?

I love the cabinet. How thick are the top and sides?

James

The FWW article was in issue #91. If you decide to build his control system be sure to look at issue #92 or #93, because there is a correction to a wiring error in the original article. Humidity is controlled with a humidistat that cycles the dehumidifier on and off. You manually set the humidistat and monitor how much water is extracted every day. If you stay on the drying curve all is well. It's better to go slower rather than faster. The humidifier is for conditioning at the end of the drying cycle. I used it once or twice after I first built the kiln, but frankly don't feel it's necessay if you dry conservatively and can wait a couple of weeks after the drying cycle is complete until you use the wood.

Thanks for the compliment on the cabinet. The top and sides are both 1" thick. You can find a fairly complete SketchUp drawing at the bottom of the page at this link:

http://sites.google.com/site/jteneyckwoodworker/current-projects/and-more

John

[ed vitanovec]

Very nice work, a lot to be proud of. I see the doors are recessed within the face frames. I was wondering how you do this and allow for expansion so the doors don't rub when the humidity gets high?

Thanks!
Ed

[John TenEyck]

Very nice work, a lot to be proud of. I see the doors are recessed within the face frames. I was wondering how you do this and allow for expansion so the doors don't rub when the humidity gets high?

Thanks!
Ed

Yes, the doors are inset. Since they are frame and panel construction, of QS stock, there shouldn't be much expansion/contraction during the year. I think the 3/32 - 1/8" gap I left will be enough so that they don't interfere with each other this Summer. The owner has central air as well, which should help to moderate any spikes in humidity. If we find an issue I'll either set the hinges a little deeper or trim the center stiles and install a strip behind one door to conceal the direct sight line between them.

John