Walnut wall cabinet

The wall cabinet started last week is finished and I'm very pleased with it.

The walnut is just fantastic and reminds me of chocolate being poured. But it was a pig to work, the grain kept reversing and tearing out and even my scraper plane didn't work as the wood was too soft. My random orbit sanders earned their keep! I finished it with shellac to hold up the background colour, oil would have made the wood too dark.

The door panels were carefully book matched to give the piece balance. For stability the panels were veneered, these were cut on my band saw to a thickness of about 1mm. Both doors were shot (on my shooting board) to fit at both ends, they also had to be a perfect fit at the middle which all took care.

The back panel was also veneered and book matched to correspond to the door panels.
The routed door pulls were nerve racking to produce with the doors being lowered onto a coving bit on the router table and then moved between two pre-set stops. All went well although there was more tear-out which needed patient hand sanding.

The client had particularly requested dovetails as a feature of this piece, although in practice the black lines and swirling grain prevented them from standing out. They were however totally necessary from a strength point of view as the cabinet will be hung with a hidden French cleat.
An article with dimensions and full construction details will be appearing in Furniture and Cabinetmaking magazine in the coming months.