Thumbnail profile on draw fronts

W

wallysandcrab

Well-known member
Under the category of "How'd they do it?" with acknowledgement of the many number of ways to tackle any problem: "How did they used to" form the thumbnail edge on drawer fronts, with particular respect to the problem of end grain?  Was this a common handplane?  I almost never see this kind of handplane, yet with so many drawer fronts produced in the olden days, it must have been a straightforward and almost daily procedure.  This makes me think that standardized, perhaps commercially available tools, would have been developed.
What do you guys do?  I'm thinking of electron free methods, of course.  I've always done this with a router in the past, but in my infinite quest to make an infinite number of things infinitely more difficult, I gotta figure out how best to do this by hand.
Thanks.

JD
 
There are many antique wooden planes out there that cut this profile.  They are not, of course, anywhere near as common as hollows and rounds and beads, since these last two categories are joiner's planes, and are thus much, much more common than cabinetmaker's planes.

You could probably fairly easily pick up one from Lee Richmond at The Best Things, or Patrick Leach.

There are several other ways to cut this profile on the edges of drawers with hand tools.  One is with an appropriately-sized hollow and a moving fillister.  One cuts a rabbet around the drawer first (which estabilishes the fillet part of the profile), then uses the hollow to establish the round.

Another way is to use a fillister to cut the rabbet, then use a small smoother or block plane to round over the remaining square part.  This leaves facets in the round-over, so it must be followed by a profiled scraper.

One note is that on historic pieces, the thumbnail profile isn't really a section of a circle, it's a section of an ellipse.  Unfortunately, modern router bits cut a sector of a circle, leading many reproduction furniture makers to believe what the bit cuts is historically accurate.  But honestly, you have to be a furniture geek to notice the difference....
 
Phil Lowe shows one technique in his article on building a lowboy in FWW.  I built that piece and cheated using a router bit.  I was not thrilled with the result, but its not terrible. 

Tony
 
I've wondered how other guys do it.  I rabbit the back of the drawer first, then I cut a shallow rabbit on the front on the tablesaw with a dado blade to establish the fillet.  Then I use a sharp shoulder plane to round over the thumbnail.  I also have a scraper set up for blending in the flats left by the plane.  I've always figured there must be a better, or at least, more appropriate way to do it. 
Rob
 
I bought a wood skewed rabbit plane and recut the iron and wood body to cut the 1/4" round over.  I added a fence and depth stop.  Works great on end grain because it is skewed.

Dennis Bork
Antiquity Period Designs, Ltd.
 
Mr. Keller:

I'd never heard that the section was elliptical.  My guess is that we'd find both circular and elliptical if we looked real close.  I wonder if that fact alone might help tell us how they did it.  Nah.....

I've tried it Rob Champagne's way, it works ok, but I'm always worried about end grain blowout and am too derned impatient to always be clamping on a blowout preventer block.  I reckon I want hand tool Production.  

The idea of refitting an old skew rebate is pretty good.  I think I'll see if Lee has anything and if not, just make one.  

Dennis:  Two questions: 1.)Did you have to patch in the mouth?
2.) You do this for a living, so I'm curious that you do this step by hand.  Temptation would find a willing target in me if I had to make a living doing this.  I'd also be interested to hear more about the whys and wherefores from pros who do this for a living and how they decide what to use power tools for and what operations should be left to hand work.

Any man who can do this work and make a living at it has my deepest respect and admiration.

JD
 
Tell ya what else........if I'm a colonial cabinetmaker, I want a pair of such planes, right and left.  If I'm that same colonial cabinetmaker I tell my men to take all drawer blanks of same length, clamp them together (up to about two foot) and run the cross grain work all in one go.  And bring me some more coffee while you're standing around.

Maybe this colonial cabinetmaker oughtta send one of the boys down the street to the shops of them fellers Al Breed and Don McConnell, and see how they do it.  But don't let on why you're there.  Tell them you're there to pick up the gar strake board for Mr. Manfren..jinsinjen...and while they're looking around in confusion, you snoop a bit.  And if you see the planes I'm describing, slip them under your shirt and be on your way.  That's a good lad.

JD
 
JD- I sent a long reply to this question ysterday, but I guess I hit the wrong button.....
Briefly, use a LN skew rabbet plane set to the depth and the width- a thumbnail is just a rabbet that's rounded over.
The plane will need a cross grain nicker.Do the ends first. Just run the rabbet and then tip the plane away from the edge and round over the thumbnail part using the fence as a pivot. You may have to screw on a little bit deeper fence to the cast one supplied.
Then do the long sides the same way. Grind a scraper to clean up the long ones and use a file to smooth over the end grain. Done. 10 mins.-Al
 
The profile of any lipped drawers I've encountered from around the mid eighteenth-century were originally eliptical. I say "originally" as I have seen some that were reshaped ? presumably to disguise chipped edges ? which then looked more like a quadrant in profile.

I normally do them with a cutting gauge/shoulder plane and sometimes a scratchstock.
 
Dennis, I am curious about your modified plane as well. I was wondering if you have any pictures you would post.

-Tim
 
I did a thumbnail profile on a desk lid using a hollow and it worked ok on the long grain.  The hollow I used has a skewed blade.  For the end grain, I used a rasp and mill file.  It worked really well.

As a note, the piece had breadboard ends, so the amount of end grain I had to deal with was minimized.
 
Joe
 
I sort of did what Dennis Bork did, but I had Todd Herrli of Mississinewa planes do it for me. He made me a skewed thumbnail profile with a nicker for cross grain use. I get better results and less cross grain tear out on the ends if I first score across the ends with a sharp cutting guage set to a hair wider than the profile.

Howard Steier
 
It would be hard to get good results with a scratch stock cross grain on the ends of the drawer.

Howard Steier
 
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