Queen Anne HighBoy

[Don Brillhart]

Hello Woodworkers: After 40 years of working in industry and making furniture as a hobby(fueled by economic necessity), I retired and decided to make one last large piece of furniture. The result is a Queen Anne HighBoy, which is a composite of various designs I have collected over the years. It will some day reside in my daughter's home.
I will have visiting rights if I babysit!

Don Brillhart

[Tyler Howell]

Don your years of talent and experience show. That is awesome.
Thank you for sharing:cool:

[Michael Fross]

Wow Don. That is really impressive. I'm sure your daughter will be thrilled.

Thank you for taking the time to post this. It's very inspirational.

Michael

[Lars Thomas]

Don, that's a nice piece of work. Congrats. Lars

[Jim Becker]

Very nice execution, Don! And congrats on your retirement. Enjoy! (And do make some more big pieces... ;) )

[Mike Henderson]

That's beautiful. What wood is that made of?

Congratulations on your retirement - enjoy yourself.

Mike

[Don Brillhart]

"Unfortunalely" my wife is a Oak fan. It is solid red oak and weighs a ton. Thank God for two piece construction!
Don

[Brad Hammond]

great great work!

[John Timberlake]

Really nice piece. Give us more pictures of the construction details. Always love to see different ways to do the same thing.

[lou sansone]

nice piece and as others have said, how about a few more photos
lou

[Todd Solomon]

Hello Woodworkers: After 40 years of working in industry and making furniture as a hobby(fueled by economic necessity), I retired and decided to make one last large piece of furniture. The result is a Queen Anne HighBoy, which is a composite of various designs I have collected over the years. It will some day reside in my daughter's home.
I will have visiting rights if I babysit!

Don Brillhart

Beautiful piece, Don! Your daughter is very fortunate. I second the request- more pictures please.

Todd

[Fred Voorhees]

All I can say is

[Carl Eyman]

Great Piece. Let's see more of it.

[Gilbert Vega]

That's a beautiful highboy. I'm certain your daughter will love it and treasure it forever.

[John Schreiber]

Congratulations on retiring and on finishing that piece. It's a beauty. More details and pictures would be great.

[Tom Hamilton]

Great piece, Don, thanks for the photo. I second the motion to share a few more pics and construction details with us.

Tom

[Don Brillhart]

I do have more pictures but they were taken with a film camera and scanned into my computer. The files are too large for uploading to this site and I do not know how to shrink them to the 100K level. I would gladly email them to interested parties.
Email me at mohawkdon@sbcglobal.net and I'll send them to you.

Thanks for the interest and the kind words.

Don Brillhart

[Mike Henderson]

I do have more pictures but they were taken with a film camera and scanned into my computer. The files are too large for uploading to this site and I do not know how to shrink them to the 100K level. I would gladly email them to interested parties.
Email me at mohawkdon@sbcglobal.net and I'll send them to you.

Thanks for the interest and the kind words.

Don Brillhart
Google for a free program called Pixresizer. You can use that to resize them down to about 100K.

Mike

[Mark Valsi]

Don,

Sorry to say that I don't like it at all !

To my eye, that choice of OAK ruins the piece and distracts from the great design and skill of execution!

Your talent is obvious, but that bold grain ruins it !

[Mike Shoemaker]

WOW, that is very nice.

[Don Brillhart]

Mark Valsi: My "commission" was to build an Oak highboy to match other furniture in our families' homes. It happens to be the wood of choice for me and my kin. I find the preparing of cherry and walnut to eliminate all vestiges of grain variation to be an affectatious waste of time. But, to each his own.
Don

[Ben Grunow]

Don, this cannot really be your last piece after just retiring. THis should be the first piece of the "retirement" collection if you ask me. Nice work.. too nice to stop doing it.

Ben

[Don Brillhart]

Ben: Thanks for the encouragement. Unfortunately, I have had a mitral valve replacement and a couple of pacemaker operations coupled with arthritis of the spine. I just cannot muscle the big boards around anymore.
But, I have a 23 year old son who, I think, will carry the torch for the family. He won the prize for best project in a Michigan High School in 2001 so I'll post his work as he progresses.
Don

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Nice job! That molding at the top of the piece looks awfully tough to make.
-Jeff :)

[Scot Ferraro]

Don,

Beautiful job -- as others have said, it would be great to see some more pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[Don Brillhart]

The top molding is not too tough to make. MCLS sells two router bits and has free instructions on how to make the molding. It is done in two pieces.
Don B

[Mike Henderson]

I'd like to add to the request for more pictures, especially if you have any pictures during construction. If the pictures you have are too big, and you can't shrink them yourself, I'll send you my e-mail address. Send them to me and I'll shrink them for you and e-mail them back to you.

Great work. If you can't build any more because of your health, you should consider teaching, either in person or in writing. There's a lot of younger people who would love to learn the techniques you already know.

Mike

[Zahid Naqvi]

Don, wonderful work, your experience shows

[Joseph N. Myers]

I do have more pictures but they were taken with a film camera and scanned into my computer. The files are too large for uploading to this site and I do not know how to shrink them to the 100K level. I would gladly email them to interested parties.
Email me at mohawkdon@sbcglobal.net and I'll send them to you.

Thanks for the interest and the kind words.

Don Brillhart

Don,

I use pixresizer to reduce the pictures. Do a google on name and download the free software. You can either do a single file or a whole folder. I usually take the folder that the camera software creates and have pixresizer reduce/copy to a new file.

Try it, you'll like it. Any problems, feel free to e-mail me at dbwoodworking@verizon.net.

Regards, Joe

[Jerry Olexa]

Don, that is brilliant!!! Very fine work AND Congrats on your retirement...You should be happy and proud of this new heirloom..

[Charles Fernald]

The top molding is not too tough to make. MCLS sells two router bits and has free instructions on how to make the molding. It is done in two pieces.
Don B

Tom, Ive been over the MCLS catalog and can't find the bits you referred to. Could you please give me part numbers? Also are you duplicating Norm"s gooseneck molding or do you have another design? Thanks, Charles

[Charles Jackson III]

Very nice work, Don.

[Pat Germain]

I saw a Queen Anne Highboy just like that in aisle 12 at my local Wal-Mart yesterday. It listed for $37.88. Oh, but yours is nice too, Don. ;)

Seriously, that is a fine piece of art and furniture. I'm no expert, but I think the grain looks fine. You have much talent and I'm glad to hear you're passing it on to another generation.