Two For A Friend

The Back Story
A friend of the family had a pile of very special cherry wood. This wood came from trees on the property where he grew up and where his mother continued to live before she passed away. A local sawmill had cut the lumber after my friend felled the trees. For the past 20 years, the cherry was stored on the property of a relative. The storage conditions were far from ideal. They were in a cold (or root) cellar. This is a cave dug into the side of a hill. This is in New England where there are wide swings in weather conditions and lots of snow. The cellar has had no door for at least 10 years, probably longer. The rodents lived there in droves.

The friend has two grown daughters. He had long wanted to build something with the cherry as a gift to his daughters and a reminder of their grandmother. Several years ago, he was injured in an accident, and is no longer able to do that type of work. I agreed to rescue the cherry from the cave and see if I could do the build for his daughters. We decided on a design for two cabinets that we call jelly cabinets.

The Build
This is what the pieces that I selected for the build looked like once the really nasty stuff was cleaned off:

 
I stored the selected boards in the attic of my barn for a few weeks. Then I milled it to rough size and let it sit for another week in my shop:

 
Given the storage conditions, I was surprised by how dry and stable the wood was. I resawed some thicker boards and there was very little movement afterwards.
 
 First I built the front frames:

 
 I attached the sides to the front frame:

 
 I used maple for the sides and backs of the drawers as well as the internal drawer slides and guides:

 
Here are the door pieces before glue-up:

 
I finished the cabinets with Danish Oil and wax.
 
Conclusion
These cabinets were a pleasure to make - truly a labor of love. Today, the friend came to pick up the cabinets. His reaction to first seeing the pieces made this project all that much more wonderful. He was literally moved to tears.

As part of the agreement, I am keeping the remaining cherry, about 100 bf. Building something this important to a friend is worth so much more.

Posted elsewhere Jul 18, 2015