cockbeaded case construction

Al:
Thanks.  I'm reading you 5x5.  Looking at the pictures on your website of Sam's assembly sequence I came up with another question, for you or anyone.
Do you install the blade blank (dovetailed but not shaped), mark the drawer shape and then remove the blade and work the curves and beads?  

The idea of installing a tightly fit dovetail and then removing it always worries me.

Much appreciate all the help

JD
 
JD- Yes-fit the blade and mark it from the draw then work it. Don't just trace the draw front onto it, though. Use dividers and project the draw shape out by the projection of the bead, usually 3-5/32nds. You need to do this because on a draw front with curves like a blockfront or serpentine the curve of the bead and the curve of the draw are actually like concentric circles, not the same curve. You may have already known this.-Al
 
I was contacted about my comment of cockbeading originally being designed to protect a veneered edge. Joseph Hemingway enlightened me with prior architectural features, which include beading, which is where we develop many, if not most, influences for period furniture design which had nothing to do with protecting a drawers edge. I wish I could do justice to his explanation which he can no longer post himself on this forum. I do still think we originally used this feature to protect our veneered edges in the states. Again beads on the rail would not do this. So it became a design feature replicated throughout the period. Thus scratch or screw beading found on less formal pieces without veneered surfaces.
If possible it is always a good idea to leave yourself an out JD. I might use your idea of gluing up the case but leave the rails unglued, build and fit the drawers with just a little adjustment to your drawer fronts after the rails are finally glued in place.  There are numerous ways to produce this bead and flat with scrapers. I have used old paint scrapers with a bead filed in the surface with a dull edge  to stop your scraping at a certain depth. Simple yet affective. When someone tells you this is the only way to produce a certain feature then you should turn around and walk away. I am always interested in a better way to produce period joints and features.
 
Al:  got you 5 by again.  I'm worried that removing the rail to shape it will try to pull grain out from the case side.  I normally do not ever dry fit dovetails, since it seems to bung up the crispness of the joint.

Jeff:  Reading you 5x4, the paint scraper thing didn't come through clear.  You're describing a stop and I'm wondering what part of the drawer blade the stop would bear against.?  Is it at the apex of the bead?

Thanks and regards

JD
 
Jeff:

I've noticed that the great preponderance of veneered drawer fronts have the bead on the drawer, not on the case.  This has to be to protect the edges of the veneer.  Whether it originated like that or not, it certainly serves this important function.  I'd be interested to know more about Mr. H's information on the architectural derivations.

I live right across the river from you.  Where you are the view is broad and the light shines; a short distance away I'm lost in a thicket of darkness, groping my way around.  Thanks to you fellers here, I'll make it through.  Might be some day I need to cross the river and get me some learnin'!

JD
 
My paint scraper comment is just for the bead.
I have a separate way of producing the flat on the rail (drawer blade). Cut your rail to the desired thickness with your serpentine shape sawn out but left long on both ends. Cut a scrap block out of a HARD wood maybe 1 3/4" by 2" by 7-11" long (all these measurement can be played with). Cut a notch in your scrap as to fit over the face of the rail the exact thickness so it fits perfectly over the rail into the 2" part of the scrap piece. Drill 4 holes into the 1 3/4 side and run in screws. Take out screws then saw the 1 3/4 side in half. Then replace screws and set them in place. Then remove screws.  I have taken a card scraper to our local machine shop ( you can do the same thing with a grinding wheel,  being careful not to remove the temper) and had them cut the scraper into different widths across the scrapers length. (If you want a 1" thick rail with 1/4" bead on either side the scraper width needs to be a shy 1/2") place the scraper between the scrap so it is in the center then screw the scrap( call) back together. You might have to change the depth  gradually to prevent chatter. Then scrap with the grain to your desired depth. Then use my paint scraper to scrape the bead afterwards. Dull the paint scraper.  File your desired bead size ( with this rail 1/4" into the center of the paint scraper ( cheap scraper, Red Devil as an example) to stop the bead when it rest on the dull surface giving you your desired depth. Then fit your rail to the case with a sliding dovetail then miter the beads.
If you can make sense of this than you are doing better than I am.
 
I got that clear!  Did you ever see the old Star Trek episode where the dimwit babe steals Spock's brain and they put the smart helmet on McCoy?  Then he's a genius who can see it all, and declares (referring to a brain transplant) "A child could do it!.....A child could do it!"

Thanks
JD
 
Recently there was a ?what?s in your library? thread. For me the most enlightening books of the last several years are Adam Bowett?s two volumes on the history of post-Restoration English furniture covering the years 1660 to 1740, I highly recommend them to all. It is interesting that from the beginning of veneered carcase construction in the 1660?s and for the next 60 years there are no cock-beads on any case piece drawers. All the drawers during this time are through-dovetailed. Bowett theorizes that the introduction of lapped dovetails at the drawer front was part of the development that allowed cock-bead to be attached to the drawer (you don?t want to plow through the dovetails, though I think there?s a bit more to this story) and states that ?its origins are somewhat obscure? though adds that the principle of protecting a vulnerable edge with a projecting bead was well established. The applied ovolo lip-mould began to be used at about the same time as the cock-bead but was not as popular. Cock-beads first seem to have been used on drawer fronts in the late 1720?s in England, the first documented object being a desk and bookcase dated 1730 that actually has brass cock-beading (the earliest documented case piece with cock-beaded drawers from Philadelphia I know of is dated 1743.)

Cock-beading had been used along the lower edges of several different furniture forms since the early part of the 18th century, presumably for protection of a vulnerable edge that does not have the same protection that a drawer front does when it is closed in its case. Pennsylvania and New England turned leg high chests and dressing tables have cock-beading nailed along their bottom edges, even when the examples with veneered drawer fronts have no protective cock-beading on the drawers. It does protect the edge of the veneer on the case front, however, from damage during handling.

Chris Storb


 
Interesting history there. I had always assumed that cock beading was a design/fashion feature, it never occured to me that it had a function as well. It makes sense though from the stand point of preventing chipping of veneer edges on drawer fronts. I dont think i have ever seen cock beading on early american colonial work say prior to 1750 or so and as i stated, just assumed it was a federal period design feature. Thanks for posting Chris!

 
JD - A correction that by now you've already figured out.  I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote the original post, but cockbeading definitely does not extend out the diameter of the cockbead (or the width, depending on how you're looking at it).  But I do tend to use the radius of the cockbead as the extent of the extension past the drawer front.  Sorry about that...

Jacon - There are examples of cockbeading on colonial furniture that serve only as a decorative feature that I suspect you're already familiar with.  The specific (and famous) example I can think of is the Townsend/Goddard block-front furniture from Newport.  To my knowledge, there are no extant examples of veneered block-front bureaus or knee-hole desks, yet the case sides and drawer blades generally have cock-beads added.

Al could add a heck of a lot more on the specifics of this - I suspect that he's had intimate access to more John Townsend/John Goddard furniture than any other craftsman alive today.
 
I had always imagined cockbeading to be the bead attached to the drawers themselves, but the beading attached to the carcase was just beading, not cockbeading. Is this a proper linguistic distinction, or do I have this wrong? I think there is some confusion in this thread, and it stems from whether the bead is part of the drawer, or the case.
 
"I had always imagined cockbeading to be the bead attached to the drawers themselves, but the beading attached to the carcase was just beading, not cockbeading. Is this a proper linguistic distinction, or do I have this wrong? I think there is some confusion in this thread, and it stems from whether the bead is part of the drawer, or the case."

There are extant examples of true cockbeading attached to the drawer openings of the case itself, "simulated" cockbeading on drawer fronts that is carved from the solid, true cockbeading attached to the drawers, and just about every other variation you can imagine.
 
YEAH! I am goin with dkeller & john cashman on this one, what we need is a clear, concise little history lesson by someone who is familar with this feature as it is bit confusing, at least to me and apparently others as well.

"simulated" cockbeading on drawer fronts that is carved from the solid.... I have always called this "scratch beading", where the bead is cut/scratched into the drawer front itself.

For instance, one sees veneering of drawer fronts starting in american william & mary (1720 or so) furniture with single or double arch moulding on the stiles and rails (drawer blades) of the carcase  where as on later federal era furniture this cockbeading, moulding or whatever its called is on the drawer itself. Whats the deal here?
 
Here is what Merriam Webster has to say.

cocked bead - a bead that projects from an angle and is not flanked by quirks
cock bead - a bead in carpentry or joinery so molded or applied as to project beyond a surface
 
LOL, hey John, hot out aint it. Sometimes this stuff gets confusing and sometimes the terminology itself can confuse things because one guy uses this term & another guy uses a different term and before you know it, i am totally lost.
 
This has always been my version of a cockbeaded drawer. The beading sticks out 1/2 the diameter of the bead, is nailed on with cut brads, and the side beading has been cut/mitered to show the dovetails. Yes, I know that the brasses need polishing:)
 

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English and American nomenclature often collides, so I may not be of much help here, but 'cockbeading' to me is applied, quirk-less beading around drawers. A scratched bead, with or without a quirk, around the peripheries of drawers or drawer openings, is 'scratch-beading'.
 
We also call scratch beading screw beading, because it is scrated in with the edge of a screw head where the sraight slot scrapes the groove.
 
This was done with a scratch stock, the rails/stiles mitered, and is what I think of as "scratch beading".
 

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