Craftsmanship in Wood

Bookcases that I built for my wife's study. These are Sapele with Honduran mahogany backs. The backs are schmeer over birch ply. I cut raw veneers and apply them to the substrate material myself. The joinery is by hand including the sliding dovetails.





Close up of sliding dovetail after rough face jointing.



Here is my own study, which I have made most of the wooden things; walnut bookcase (walnut burl backs), desk is walnut with a leather top, side table is white ash, humidor in Macassar and gaboon ebony, wall hung credenza in walnut with maple burl doors and gaboon ebony pulls and the frame for silk screen in maple.





Here is the frame for the small table, all by hand including dimensioning of the lumber;

Up close of the top of the small table, this is the wildest white ash I've seen. Dimensioned by hand, and hand cut joinery on the Dutchman.



Photo of the corner joinery on the wall hung console. Cut by hand.



Over the past couple years I've been moving from mostly machine joinery to mostly handmade joinery since I can provide good accuracy with handmade joinery in my small shop. In the next few years I will probably add a few good machines to make life easier.

Ugh! All I feel after seeing your work is rage and hatred . . . . or respect and jealousy . . . . I need to get into the workshop.

LOL! That had me rolling.

Thank you! That room has been a good progression of the last couple years.

Very, very nice work. You have a very well kept home and your work looks very good from the pictures. Keep the pics coming, I'd like to see more of the desk, how did you join the leather to the wood, ie - was it glued? Stapled? Did you lay wood over the edges?

Thanks Ad,

I'll post up some more pics soon, I have to edit them down for the site so it takes a little while.

The leather actually sits inside of a wooden frame. I glued it over Baltic birch ply, warped and fit the edges so there are no exposed edges on the surface. I then tacked the leather to bottom side of the ply to keep the edges taunt. I used brass upholstery tacks.

I have three shallow draws on my side of the desk.

Nice space you have created for yourself there - must be quite satisfying to have your own personal domain, a space of expression and pieces that remind you of all that went into them.

Do you find the sapelle to be quite stable? I did a counter top out of it and so far through a portion of a season it has remained stable. Last year while in Mexico i was chatting with a carpenter and he told me it is readily used there. I was watching him build some window frames on a very old table saw which he used with much mastery. The frame was made from sapelle and thats how i came to know of it. Readily available in Vancouver and comes fully dressed/dimensioned thickness wise. I'm not sure if it is responsibly harvested.

Thanks Chris, I do enjoy it as it's like a sanctuary for me.

John, I enjoyed working with Sapele and found it fairly stable. One of the positive aspects of it is that you can still find large boards with ease, which was troubling when doing the walnut bookcases.

As much as I enjoy walnut I find myself deviating from it as often as possible because it's difficult to find excellent quality, wide material.