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This project is submitted by Tom. Let’s see what he has to say about it:

“Dresser is primarily Honduras Mahogany with Beech internals, Philippine Mahogany drawers and Walnut pulls. A mongrel design (I mean hybrid?)
Sources of design: Began with a Will Neptune article, Anatomy of a Chest of Drawers (2003 May/June Fine Woodworking). From the Summer 2008 Woodwork Magazine I loved Christopher Schwarz’ article, A Better Blanket Chest Design. That supplied inspiration for the plinth. I used dovetails rather than finger joints. Mark Edmundson wrote about NK-style drawer construction in A Better Way to Build Drawers (The New Best of Fine Woodworking). I decided to give it a try. I haven’t seen them mentioned in any other articles, on-line or in print. After making these I still haven’t decided if I like them functionally or from a construction standpoint better than others I’ve used. Any thoughts on this from Wood Whisperer fans?

The November/December 2008 issue of Fine Woodworking arrived just as it was time to figure out the door pull treatment. One of the Four Custom Pulls that Please the Eye by Michael Fortune struck me as perfect. Lastly, the top molding. Trying to decide on basic size/proportions, I held a scrap of drawer runner against the case, below the top. Eureka. I modified the “drawer runner” with chamfer and round over and was very pleased.

Two disasters: Just as the plinth was completed it fell and bounced on the rough concrete of my driveway. Ouch! The structure survived nicely. Thank you, Christopher. But a corner had nasty gouges and tears as well as a few other bashings. At that point I knew this would be a “country” piece. Later, as I foolishly stacked drawers on a rolling cart, one of them fell on that same nasty concrete. Direct hit to a drawer front corner. More sanding and acceptance of “the process being more important than the product.”

Problems?: Of course! When selecting the Mahogany, I liked the look of the 8/4 offerings much better than the 4/4. So this seemed like a good time to try resawing. I used a 3/4-inch Wood Slicer. As soon as the blade exited the wood, that lovely wood sprung to open up huge cups (and/or bows) in each half. Of course I proceeded to cut all of my stock with similar results. By the time I milled the material true it was 5/8-ish rather than the 3/4 I had planned on. On the positive side this saves weight if I ever have to ship it by air. Just doing my part to lessen the carbon footprint.”

Construction Details: The plinth is a dovetailed box with two horizontal supports that are glued into rabbets. Case is screwed into those pieces (no glue). The half-blind dovetailed case has a full top and bottom allowing the show top and plinth to be created without considering case integrity. Case has dadoes for horizontal and vertical dividers with exposed dovetails the three front most inches. Horizontal dividers are mortise and tenon frames, Mahogany for front stile and Beech for other pieces. Vertical dividers, same depth as horizontal stiles on top row are separate pieces, glued in place. Beech dividers float in dadoes since the grain runs opposite of other case members. Bottom molding is simple bevel with small lips at top and bottom. Top molding, mentioned earlier, is a bit more detailed but still rather clean. Finished with five coats of 1:1:1, semi-gloss poly:linseed oil: mineral spirits and then waxed.

You can view more of Tom’s work on his website.

This Viewer Question come from Rob. He writes:

Hey Marc, thought I’d take advantage of my Guild membership “red phone” for the first time. I’m building a wine cabinet out of Honduran mahogany, and would like the finish to mimic the antique mahogany pieces in the same room. I am testing out a bunch of different finishing layers right now, and was wondering if you have any special recipe you’ve used. I have a whole assortment of water-based dyes, stains, shellac, oil, pore filler, and even asphaltum at my disposal for this experiment, so give me your best shot. Thanks in advance.

Hey Rob. Oddly enough, every time I have tried a finish that’s in the ballpark of that sort of “classic mahogany” look, I have tried something different. And each time the results were acceptable. So I don’t really have a favorite. But some of the techniques I used involved toners and lacquers, and it doesn’t sound like you have those on hand so I will skip them for now.

I would start the process with a dye or stain that gets your color at least 90% there. A good mahogany gel stain would be my choice (like General Finishes). Test on scraps until you determine which product gives you the best color. As an alternative, you can play with different dye ratios and make your own water-based dye stain. Once you apply your color, seal it in with some dewaxed shellac. That will lock the color in and protect the color from the next step, which is pore-filling. I would use an oil-based pore filler that has some color added to it. Something in the dark dark brown/red arena. Use Transtint or even a mix of UTC pigments (if you have them on hand), to achieve the dark intense color you need. Its also a good idea to let a small sample of the pore filler dry so you can see what color it takes on. In general, I like to match the wood color and possibly go slightly darker. I don’t like bringing too much attention to the pores.

When you apply the pore-filler, do like you normally would for any other piece. Apply it across the grain and wipe off the excess, let it set for a couple minutes, then buff it out using burlap if you can find it. Get as much of the excess up as possible. Then let it sit over night. Come back with a very light 320 sanding to clean up any remaining filler that might still be on the surface (but be careful not to cut through the shellac).

Now you can seal in the filler using another good coat of shellac. By this time, the color should be pretty much where you want it to be. You can always add some dye to your shellac sealer coat to tone the color one way or the other.

At this point, some people will even take things a step further an use a mahogany glaze to further deepen to intensity of the color. But if you got the right amount of color in step 1, this won’t be necessary. So just throw down several coats of your favorite finish and you should be good to go. I suppose you could also skip the pore-filling step but then I would recommend going with a matte finish. Maybe its just me but I hate the way a gloss finish looks on un-filled open pore wood. Good luck!