Spring 2 2012 Meeting Photos

[Bill Minnick]

Jeff Headley begins his presentation by showing the group how the miniature highboy is constructed.

 

[Bill Minnick]

Rather than using one long tenon and mortise for the sides and back, Jeff prefers to use three separate tenons and mortises. This helps prevent the board from cracking.

 

[Bill Minnick]

Jeff explains how to use a pattern to mark the leg stock prior to cutting out the leg with a band saw. This leg is not for the highboy but for a corner chair.

 

[Bill Minnick]

Jeff finishes assembling the outside of the bottom section of the highboy. He then adds the drawer supports.

 

[Bill Minnick]

Jeff likes to cut his drawers to fit tight. He will adjust the size, depending on the season, but generally, he leaves a gap of no more than 1/16 inch around the sides and top.

 

[Bill Minnick]

Jeff starts assembling the highboy's top section, which is basically just a box dovetailed together. The bottom is poplar. The top and two sides are notched for the back.

 

[Bill Minnick]

To cut flutes and beads into a quarter column with a scraper, Jeff built a holding jig. Surprisingly, Jeff does not turn the column on a lathe, but shapes the column using hand planes and spokeshaves. On the stop fluted quarter column, note the flutes and beads. He makes the scraper convex and concave cutters from a cabinet scraper that a local machine shop cut into blanks.

 

[Bill Minnick]

Holes for the cutter have been cut into the holder in the corresponding position for each segment of the column. Jeff cuts the center flute, then the outside flutes and finishes with the ones in between. Then he flips the column around and does the stop fluting. The intersection between the two sections is carved by hand.

 

[Peter Storey Pentz]

I would like to thank Bill Minnick for writing and providing photographs of the Spring 2012 meeting of the Ohio River Valley Chapter of SAPFM.  I would also like to thank Jeff Headley for sharing his method of making quarter columns.  After having looked at a lot of quarter columns on period furniture I have never been entirely satisfied with the idea that they were all turned back in the 18th or 19th Centuries.  Now, I have seen an equally plausible method for making them.  PSP