Come join us on June 4th as we continue work on the lingerie chest. This month we will be covering different aspects of carcase construction, focusing on various current techniques such as sliding dovetails, mortise and tenon, floating tenon (domino), stopped dado, and dowel joints. Additionall discussion may involve overall carcase construction, the materials used (plywood vs. solid wood), the use of floating panels and how these choices affect construction techniques such as drawer mounts.
June Meeting
May 22nd, 2009 by Nathan Fontenot in Meeting NoticesWebsite Updates
April 13th, 2009 by Nathan Fontenot in Website UpdatesUpdate 2: Site is updated, please let me know if anyone has any issues accessing the site or logging in.
Update: The admin server for our site is not responding, I will have to push oof the site updates to tomorrow night.
The website will be down tomorrow night around 9pm for upgrades. Everything should be back within an hour or two.
April Meeting
April 2nd, 2009 by Nathan Fontenot in Meeting NoticesLast month we saw how two pieces of furniture were designed, created and delivered to the cabinet room.
This month we will learn how two different style cabinets are made. In this case European and Face Frame cabinets.
Charlie will share his knowledge on the the different style of cabinets and present the different types of hinges that can be used.
See you Thursday evening at 7.
March Meeting
March 4th, 2009 by Nathan Fontenot in Meeting NoticesMembers,
In our last meeting we discussed Paul Sellers’ and Frank Strazza’s (et. al). ultimate commission for two sideboards that now in the permanent collection at the White House. Yes, the White House. Frank and his apprentice Jonathon plan to visit us Thursday for our monthly meeting and present the work they created followed by a demonstration or two (time permitting).
Tell your woodworking friends. This will be a special presentation.
P.S. Take a look at the current Fine Woodworking magazine for a photo of Frank’s piece that was entered in the Texas Furniture Show.
January Meeting
December 31st, 2008 by Nathan Fontenot in Meeting NoticesAs discussed at the last meeting, we can not have our regular monthly meeting due to the holiday. However, we will have a informal meeting a week later on January 8th at the Ruiz Public Library Branch, This will be a meeting not to miss. Here is why.
John Economaki, president and founder of Bridge City Tool Works, will be in from Portland, Oregon for the Lie Nielsen Tools show event. John will present furniture design.
January 8 2009 - 7pm
Ruiz Public Library
(512) 974-7500
map
This is just down the street from the Riverside ACC campus where the Lie Nielsen Hand Tool Event will take place Jan 9-10. Representatives from Lie Nielsen will also be at our informal meeting!
Special thanks to Cory Krug for arranging the location and speaker.
See you next week and Happy New Year!
Austin Hand Tool Event
December 3rd, 2008 by Nathan Fontenot in EventsWoodworkers of all abilities will have a chance to try new tools and learn new skills at a special Hand Tool Event in Austin. The free event offers fans of woodworking a chance to use a wide array of hand tools and learn techniques such as simple honing methods for razor sharp blades, and tuning a hand plane for optimal performance. The event will be held Friday, January 9th and Saturday, January 10th at the Austin Community College’s Riverside Campus, and is sponsored by Lie-Nielsen Toolworks. The event will feature guest demonstrators including Paul Sellers and Frank Strazza of the Heritage School of Woodworking and Bridge City Tool Works founder John Economaki.
For more information visit: www.lie-nielsen.com or call 800-327-2520.
December Meeting
December 3rd, 2008 by Nathan Fontenot in Meeting Notices
Frank Strazza will be our guest for our December meeting this Thursday. Frank has had several winning pieces at the Texas Furniture Makers Show including this year’s writing desk entry. Frank will detail the construction of his pieces and demonstrate some of the finer details that we might choose to include in our project.
By the way. The Texas Furniture Makers Show ends Saturday afternoon. Don’t miss it!
The Lingerie Chest Project
August 21st, 2008 by admin in Lingerie ChestHistory of the project:
One of the early suggestions was a lingerie chest, since there is often room (and use) for an extra small chest of drawers in a master bedroom or dressing room - closet, and it is something that not everybody already has. This might give club members the opportunity to construct one themselves, as well as giving it a market in a charity auction.
Charlie brought in a large lingerie chest (that he had exhibited in Kerrville and Salado). It had a jewelry box in the top, the sides opened for necklace and scarf storage, and 6 fairly tall drawers … going all the way to the floor. Charlie (or his wife Jenny) recommended that opening the top to get at the jewelry was not convenient, since jewelry and other items often were placed on that top - a separate drawer would be better. There was a lot of discussion about the opening sides, how they should open, or whether they were even desirable. Search of the furniture literature suggested that a lingerie chest normally had 7 drawers, often of different heights (from 2 7/8 to 7 7/8 inches high in our ultimate plan).
After much debate and use of computer modeling tools to explore options, this design, proposed by Bob Denison and modeled by Daniel Tagtow, was selected

3D rendering of the Lingerie Chest
In the July 2009 meeting the decision was made to make the sides from floating panels using walnut or similar dark for the rails and stiles. The sample discussed had a moulding in the opening, like many cabinet doors - although that detail wasn’t discussed, we will assume moulding in the rails and stiles with the option to change when construction begins.
The decision was made to use flat panels as the panels for the sides, probably plywood, veneered with a highly figured maple (birds eye, curly, etc) - in part to learn the veneer techniques.
If the back would be against a wall, a rabbet and simple (plywood) panel would be sufficient for the back, but that was rejected, and a floating panel similar to the sides will be used on the back of the case, to make the final piece of furniture attractive from all sides.
The design includes a divider between each drawer, coming out flush with the front vertical trim pieces. This “web” crossing both front and back, and along the sides also supports the use of a dust panel. The drawer fronts appear to be flush with the dividers and side panels (inset/flush drawer fronts)
Support for the drawers was also discussed in the July meeting. First decision was “wood on wood” - no metal glides. One option is wooden rails on the side of the carcase, sliding in a groove in the side of the drawer. Good choice for small to medium size drawers. Another option is letting the drawers slide on the rails of the dust panel - with the dust panel above each drawer functioning as the kicker. This approach is suitable for moderately heavy drawers. A third option is a center rail to support the middle of the drawer (often used as a supplement to other supports for wide, heavy drawers). Since we already have the dust panels and dividers between the drawers, this option was tentatively chosen.
Choices for side-to-side support, with the drawers resting on the dust panels, are A) pieces glued on the top of the divider below each drawer, and B) the center rail to guide the drawer (whether or not it carries any of the load). This will be discussed further.
The drawer fronts are still under discussion - might be a solid wood with or without a veneer.
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Television personality and noted woodworking author was impressed with our plans, and commented on the project:

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