Townsend Kneehole Bureau - Top & Butterfly Keys Step 7

The next step is to make and mount the bureau top.  This has to be completed before I can mount the crown molding under the top.

The drawings that I have display the detail for the top edge.  It is not very complicated.  It has a filet and then an ogee and a 1/4 round on the bottom. 

I am going to see if I have some router bits to make this or else I will use my hollows and rounds.

I forgot to film when I put the molding edge on the top. So I went back and did it again on a piece of scrap.  Here I am putting a fillet and a partial ogee on the molding.  This bit makes most of the shape that I need. But it is too large to complete the shape, so I set the fence to cut it off short.

Next I need to put a 1/4 round on the bottom and at the end of the ogee.

Using the 1/4 inch round over bit I put the round over on the bottom of the molding. 

Then I raise the bit and turn the molding over and put the 1/4 round on the inside of the ogee.

And this is what you get.  This shape is what I put on the edge of the bureau top.  It matches what is on the original piece.  I put this shape on three edges of the bureau top.  Nothing on the back edge.

Here is what the top currently looks like, I had put aside a piece of mahogany when I started the project.  It is 20 inches wide by 37 inches long.  I flattened it and sanded it to 150 grit.  Then I put the molded edge on it as I just showed you.

Next thing to do is to mount it on the bureau. Townsend glued the top in the front to the sub-top and attached it in the back with butterfly keys.  I am going to use screws in the front through the sub-top and put the butterfly keys in the back like Townsend did.

You can see that I have them drawn on back.  They are two dovetail sockets.  I will saw and chop them out by hand. They are 3/4 inch wide and 5/8 inch tall, the slope is 13 degrees. They are 3 inches deep.

Using a wood block as a guide I make two cuts along the lines of the dovetail socket.  It is 3 inches long.

Then I chop out the waste between the saw cuts just like making dovetails.  I used the router plane to flatten the bottom of the socket as I got near the bottom.

Now that I have the dovetail sockets, I need to make the butterfly keys to hold it together.  I started by milling a block of poplar to the correct thickness to fit exactly in the two sockets. That would be 1 1/4 inches.

This is the shape that we are going to make with the help of the table saw. I measured the dimensions on to the block of wood.

Then I set the tilt of the blade to match the dovetail slope with the sliding bevel that I used to mark out the dovetail sockets.

First I ran it threw on one side. Turned it over and ran it through again.

I had to flip it over to get the other angles, the blade height is set to one half of the distance through the block.

That's all there is to it. If you are careful in chopping out the dovetail and making the butterfly  it should fit right in.  The key way is  1/4 inch longer than the butterfly blocks to allow for expansion of the top.  The butterflies are glued in on the sub-top but not on the top.  This allows the top to expand an contract without cracking. I cut off the excess with a flush cut saw.

I put screws in the through the sub-top in the front to fasten the top to the case after I had slipped the top on to the butterflies in the back.

The top overhangs the back by 1/2 inch to allow for the back panel.

Now that the top has been mounted I can start to work on the crown molding that goes under the 1 1/4 inch lip created by to top overhang.

Here is today's video:

Townsend Kneehole Bureau Ogee Bracket Feet Part 2 - Step 6

This is part two of the ogee bracket feet. In the last episode I made the bracket feet by shaping and carving first before mitering and gluing them together.

This worked ok but there are other ways to do it. So I thought I would try something different.
This time I cut them out, mitered and glued them together.  Using the back corner as a reference for the miter and glue up. The front foot is 1 1/2 inches thick and the side foot is 1 inch thick. This left a 1/2 line in front of the side foot.  This is the line for reference in carving the front.

This seems to make more sense to me. So I carved a practise foot. One advantage to doing it this way was I am able to check for square with carving.  The carving should go straight back, when I was doing it the old way, the only way to check was by eye.

I am carving cross grain here just as I get to the miter line of the side foot. I still use files and scrapers to clean up the carving.

I like this method better, so I used it to make all of the front blocked bracket feet. Here is the first one I did when using the mahogany.  When selecting the stock for each foot I cut two pieces facing each other.  This makes the grain run across the front to the side foot.

I cut out all of the feet at one time. All of the parts of the feet were cut at the same time so I would be sure they were the same size.

Then glued them up as I went along with the carving.  I preconditioned the end grain on the miters with glue sizing before final gluing.  I wet each side with glue and let it soak in for about 5 minutes.  Then wiped it off and let each half dry.  Then I applied glue to both sides and taped the two halves together. I made sure that they were on a flat surface on wax paper. 

The two outside feet have been made and fitted under the bureau. They are not glued on yet.

The inside feet in the kneehole are even more challenging.  I need to make a piece of molding that looks like a false foot in the back of the kneehole.  I made a practise one out of pine. It will be glued here.

The edges are mitered at a 45 and the side feet need to be mitered to match it.
This will be fun. NOT.

To make this, I use a piece of 1 inch stock. I made a template and traced it out and then added the curves on a router bit and some carving.

Next I had to make the rear feet.  These are different than the front feet.  There is no mitering but there is a recessed dovetailed bracket foot for the back.

The back of the rear foot is made of secondary wood poplar. It is dovetailed into the rear side foot.

After cutting the dovetails I pound them home with a dead blow hammer. They fit nice and tight.

Also, they need to be square and flush on the top, so they match the front feet.

Cleaning up the surface with a fine file for remove the bandsaw marks.

One finished rear bracket foot. One more to go and all the feet will be made.

Now that all the feet are made I dry fitted them under the bureau on a flat surface to make sure that all the feet were level and any final adjustment before I glued them on.

I don't have any pictures but the bottom of the bureau needs to be flattened also so that the feet meet the bottom flush to make a good glue joint.

Adding the reinforcing glue blocks.  There are alternating 1 inch blocks to add strength and help prevent cracking.

I will also add more glue blocks behind the wings of the feet which will add glue surface to help them stay attached to the bottom of the case.

Glue up day. I nearly used all the clamps in the shop and a lot of glue.  I used Old Brown Glue hide glue. Almost all of the bureau is put together with hide glue.  The only place I used yellow glue was with the sizing of the miters on the bracket feet and the gluing of the miter on the foot.

All glued up.  I am glad I am finally finished with these feet. They were a lot of work. 

The miters in the kneehole came out well. I think they were the most difficult to make accurately.

I also added the small piece of molding between the front bracket feet.  This is as the original is.   It is suppose to make it look as if the two feet were one piece.

This completes the blocked ogee bracket feet of the bureau.  Next I will work on the top.

Here is today's video:

Townsend Kneehole Bureau Blocked Ogee Bracket Feet Part 1 - Step 5

Before I get started on the Ogee bracket feet, I forgot to make the molding/cockbeading around the door in the knee hole.

It consists of a 1 1/2 inch piece of cockbeading on the bottom which is cut out to match the door and  the same for one side and the top.

The left side was a special piece with cockbeading and a 1/4 inch door stop.  So the hinges will be on the right.

With that out of the way I can now concentrate on the blocked ogee bracket feet.
I did a bit of research on the feet since I have not made this style before.  There are a number of ways to make them. This is the method I selected.


I made one for practice to show what the finished one would look like.

I started by making lots of templates from the drawings that I have.

I made a thickness template of the blocked part and the thinner part of the foot.  That was so I would know how much to carve away in the front to make the blocking.
The carved portion of the foot is 1 inch thick along with the side foot.  The blocked portion of the front foot is 1 1/2 inches thick.

The small thickness template is used to determine how much to carve away on the front blocked feet. It is also used for the side feet since there is no blocking or carving on the side feet.

 This template is used to bandsaw out the basic pattern.

The large thickness template (1 1/2) is traced on to the side of the front foot. This is the thickest part of the foot.

There are 2 ogee curves to bandsaw the side curve and the front curve.  Just like a cabriolet leg you have to tape the cutoff back on and then cut the other side.  This will be clear in the later pictures and the video.
 

Once they are cut out I will trace the side area which needs to be removed to create the blocking.

First Step is to cut out the curve (ogee) on the front and then tape it back on.

I taped the cutoffs back on and mounted it on this stand which keeps the foot perpendicular to the table and parallel to band saw blade.  I made this stand years ago for making bracket feet, the pattern was in a magazine.  The foot is attached with a screw through the back.

I have the large template traced on the front of the foot.

Now to band saw it out the second ogee curve.

The matching side foot is cut out in a similar matter only using the smaller pattern on the front since there is no blocking on the side foot.

Now that I have two halves cut out it is time to carve. You see that I have traced the smaller template to the front of the thicker piece. This is how I know how much material to carve off.

I will put the front foot under the bureau and trace the molding on top of the foot so that I get the shape correct while carving.

I use the front template to trace a line where the blocking begins.  I could also have used the back template to trace the same line and little button on the bottom.

You can see I traced the molding curve from the bureau bottom on to the top and used the square to make a line where I want to stop carving.

This is what we want it to look like when we are done.

I used a couple of screws from the back to attach it to a board that I clamp to my bench for carving.

I set in with my 1 inch #3 since it follows the curve nicely. I use a 1/4 inch #5 to set in around the little button on the bottom.

There is a lot of material to carve off in the beginning so you can take some pretty big cuts.

I am making some progress here. I use a number of different chisels, but you can do it all with a #3, #5 and a flat chisel.

I use one of my small templates to check the depth along the back.  The line that I drew on the front is my reference on the front. I am about half way here. You can see the line on the side as well.

Well I am just about there with this part of the carving. I am smoothing out some of the bumps here taking small shavings.

I can also use files to smooth out the bumps, when I am done I can scrape it and sand it to get it to a finish surface.

Now I have to round over the blocking. You want a smooth transition from the lower part to the upper part. I am using a 1 inch #3 here, but I could use a flat chisel.

Once I get close to the top line I will use a file to finish rounding over the blocking. I carve the veloute in the button with a small V chisel but you could use a small #9 vainer.

Once the carving is complete it put a 45 degree miter on the edge with a sled that made that cuts right to the edge.  This makes it easy to line up where you want the cut to be.  I put a 45 degree line on the top of the foot and line it up with the edge of the sled.

Then I make the cut. Keeping my fingers away from the blade. Again there is a small screw holding the foot in place from the under side.

I glue up the two halves. I precondition the end grain on the miter by sizing it with glue and let it dry. This prevents the glue from being absorbed into the end grain and weakening the joint.  I use blue and green tape to hold it together when I do glue it. The finished foot will have glue blocks in the back with alternating grain. I show this in the next video and post. 

Looks good to me.  But I want to try a little different method, so I will make another foot in part 2 of the blocked ogee bracket foot.

Here is today's video: