Help with Finding Parts/ Working with Purple Heart

[Jay Knoll]

Hi everyone

Well SWMBO certainly has my number. The other day she said, "I need something to hold my necklaces, can you pound some nails in a board and put it up on the wall"

Well right, I was going to do that and look at it for the rest of my life, I think not!

So I am beginning the design of a wall hung cabinet with mirror. I want some nice pegs for her to hang the stuff on,with a bit more class than dowels. I found a Mini Shaker Peg in the Rockler catalog, but it is still a bit to "heavy" for what I have in mind, I"m looking for something about 1/8" in diameter, with a knob/ball on the end.

Question #2

Any advice on working with purple heart? The guy at woodcraft said to let the wood oxidize for several weeks to get the purple color, he said he put a fan in front of it. What finish should I use to maintain the color?


Question #3

How do you layout/install knife hinges? The doors will be purple heart with an overlay on the cabinet. I looked at the Taunton Furniture and Cabinet Construction book and their illustration of the hinge was for and inset door application. Any thoughts on how to position it on the base so I get clearance?

[Hank Knight]

Jay,

Lee Valley has some specialty hardware for jewlery boxes. Look at necklace hangers here: http://www.leevalley.com/home/Search.aspx?c=1&action=n

I don't think you can keep purpleheart from turning brown over time. It reacts to UV light and darkens with age. I'm not an expert on this, but a finish with UV blockers might prolong the process, especially if the piece is kept out of harsh light.

I can't help you with Question #3

Cheers,

Hank

[John Miliunas]

Jay, I think Hank has #'s 1&2 covered. For #3, there may be others but, I think you may drop Mark Singer a line on that procedure. Seems to me he's the "resident expert" on the knife hinges! He did a beautiful job on his coopered doors cabinet a while back utilizing those.:) :cool:

[Guy Boulianne]

Question #2

Any advice on working with purple heart? The guy at woodcraft said to let the wood oxidize for several weeks to get the purple color, he said he put a fan in front of it. What finish should I use to maintain the color?



Hi Jay.

In my personnal experience, it turns quite quickly from the freshcut brown to the nice purple (leaning toward the blue), a matter of a day or two..... If you use an oil finish.... it will turn pretty quickly to the deep brown-purpleis-reddish you dont want it..... So at least you now know one finish to avoid..... same with Padduk, it turns rapiddly to a nice deep-brown, it is nice (as a top on a beech box on my desk at the office) but it is not Orange (as the interior is.....).

Guy

[Cecil Arnold]

Jay, for overlay doors you use the knife hinges with the offset pin, which as you can guess makes the installation a bit more difficult.

[Jay Knoll]

Cecil

The Taunton book shows straight hinge for overlay doors, and offset hinge for inset doors. At least that is the way I read the illustration.

Jay

[Cecil Arnold]

Jay, see this link. It shows the door overlaying the sides but inset top and bottom using the "L" hinges. I'm currently doing something that calls for this. www.rockler.com/tech/26260-286.pdf (http://www.rockler.com/tech/26260-286.pdf)

[Jay Knoll]

Cecil

Thanks for the link, it got me thinking and I looked for the straight hinges and found a detailed set of directions

http://images.rockler.com/tech/26245-252.pdf

Jay