Scotch Cabinet on a Stand

[Darren Almeida]

After reading a few of James Krenov's books, I had to try making a cabinet on a stand. By far, this is the most complicated piece I have made. The project had a lot of firsts for me - dovetailed drawers, veneer, hand made pulls, and knife hinges to name a few. I learned a lot making it. There are some mistakes, but again I learned from them.

The case and stand are solid african mahogany, the pulls are walnut, the interior drawer fronts are curly maple. The doors and back panels are ambrosia maple veneer. I started with rough cut lumber.

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This is my first serious (for me) piece of wood working, so comments are welcome.

- d

[Michelle Rich]

wow! that's a beauty

[Rich Colvin]

I think would be oh so much nicer if it were a bourbon cabinet! That would make it perfect!! (Btw, REALLY Nice wood working)

[Rob Luter]

Lots of firsts? Nailed them. Well done.

[Jim Becker]

Excellent craftsmanship!!

[Phil Mueller]

Very nice, Darren. Love the wood choices. +1 on the excellent craftsmanship!

[Charles Taylor]

Superb work. A beautiful cabinet.

[glenn bradley]

Beautiful. I really like the pulls, both styles.

[Darren Almeida]

Thank you for all the comments. I appreciate the positive feedback.

I don't work very fast and I spent over 200 hours on this piece. I spent a lot of time doing mock-ups of different parts in pine before I worked on the expensive wood. I'm happy with the end result and I'm glad I took the time to do some trials.

Rich - maybe I will sneak one bottle of Basil Hayden in there.

Glenn - the curved pulls on the doors and the stand drawer is a design I came up with. The design of the inset pulls on the interior drawers came from FWW June 2016 - No 254. I modified the design slightly by raising the center of the pull and curving it down to the ends

To make the curved pulls I used a round nose router bit for the inside curve and then used a plane to shape the outside curve:

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They attach with a mortise and tenon joint.

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The Stanley 4 1/2 getting more of a workout:

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Enjoying a fine single malt during the build process:
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Now I just need to fill the cabinet up.

[Marty Schlosser]

Nice job, Darren. Now... let's see you do one of your own design, using what you learned from this one! I'll just bet that you'll nail it, too!!

[Christopher Charles]

Beautiful cabinet! How did you do the dovetails?

Best,
C

[Darren Almeida]

Christopher - Thanks. I tried cutting them by hand and after a few joints I realized that I need a lot more practice. So I used an old Craftsman jig that was my father's. It was very temperamental and I made several mistakes with it. I lucked out with the drawer in the stand and the dovetails lined up perfectly with the top and bottom edges of the drawer. On the interior drawers, the dovetails were cut in half at the tops of the drawers. I don't like how they look, so I picked up a used Leigh Superjig 18 that I will use in the future. The Leigh jig lets you vary the spacing of the pins so they are fit the drawer properly.

I'd like to keep practicing hand cut dovetails, but my time in the shop is very limited. The only benefit of all my mistakes was that I heat my house with them.
http://www.viewsfromthetop.com/gallery/scotch-cabinet/burn.jpg

[Anthony Albano]

Great job! I bought my first set of knife hinges to build a small display cabinet. Were they difficult to get installed correctly?

[Tom Bain]

Fantastic work. Love the pulls.

[Darren Almeida]

Anthony - Thank you. I was apprehensive about the knife hinges. I made a mock up of the cabinet in pine so I could get the layout and dimensions right. The top and bottom of the cabinet and the top of the stand all have a matching curve on the front edge. I wanted to make sure I got the placement of the cabinet sides relative to the doors correct before I messed around with the mahogany. I then used the pine mock up to do a practice installation of the knife hinges. It went surprisingly smoothly. Just line up the side of the door with the center of the pivot pin and everything falls into place. I will certainly use them again. I really like them.

Tom - thank you for the compliment.

[tom lucas]

Very nice. Clean euro-look. Love the drawer pulls. Great job!

[Bill McNiel]

Darren,
Very impressive design and execution.

[Cody Pierce]

Love it!
So many complimentary pieces and skills combined.

[Bill Berklich]

Nice work, I need to drink more scotch.

[Mark Stutz]

Beautiful. Very nice design and execution.

[John TenEyck]

Mistakes? All I see is beautiful wood and superb craftsmanship. Very well done.

John

[Tom Sontag]

Everyone is understandably complimentary so my nature wants to find a flaw or two.

The overall design is very nice and the wood combination is one of those rare blends that feel just right. Repeating the veneer on the inside back is a nice touch.

Aha! I found it, the thing I might change! I think the grain direction on those walnut pulls might be better 90 degrees off what you chose only because that thin long grain where it is gripped might easily break. Well, it would break easier than if the grain went the other way.

I recently found myself in a fancy home with art objects all around, including a cabinet on stand so I went up to it to see if it might possibly be my first Krenov in person. It wasn't, in fact it was not even as nice as yours is. You got yourself a keeper.

[Jon Grider]

J.K would be proud. Nice workmanship.

[Darren Almeida]

Thank you all for the compliments. I appreciate it.

Tom - great tip on grain direction. It makes sense, and I will try to pay attention to that in the future.

Thank you all again.

Darren