a spessart oak bookcase

'long post ahead' warning applies to this one ....
well, ok, we finished one up today. it's been in the works for a while and involved a lot of precise hand and machine work, and considerable back and forth with our client on the design details ... we left the hard choices up to him and he was, in hindsight, on the money 100%.
it's made from a wood we have not used before, fumed spessart quartersawn oak from talarico hardwoods (great wood story at that first link) in mohnton, pennsylvania ... my client selected the wood type for this bookcase from the website and i was only too happy to try it out ... it was beautifully sawn and dried, and a pleasure to work with ... we used a natural varnish finish and the brown black color and figure is extremely beautiful, yet at the same time, not easy to capture in a photograph ...
you can sort of see the mix of tones and figure if you click on this photo above and enlarge it... the 'saturns' are an element i had used on an earlier piece for this client and one he always liked .. one of the design quandries that was debated up to the final end was 'where do they go, and how many of them are there?' we eventually figured it out by photographing a sample inlay, cutting out a bunch of the actual size pictures and double stickying them where we thought they might look good. the thought of 24 of them seemed like overdoing it but when we looked at the photo of the piece with the little pictures taped on, it all made sense. what i feel it did for the design was to #1., accentuate the through tenon joinery details and #2., draw the viewer's eye from the top pediment and abalone of the front of the case around to the side, up and down, and back to the front .... there is a lot to hold your interest on this piece ...
we started with a 'phases of the moon' theme ...
the joinery was precise and fussy, yet masterfully accomplished by trevor on the cnc. housed shelf ends and through, very nicely clearanced tenons that had no play, yet hammered together relatively easily and with just enough room for glue.
close up .... we debated squaring up the mortises and tenons, but realized the handwork involved would probably actually take away from the precision of the fits and we decided to go with the 1/8th" radiused corners, right off the router. .. glad we did; we would still be chiseling and fitting...
the bordered star vs. the solid star ... the 10 piece border and green abalone center star won out. we actually did the front inlays on quarter inch thick strips so that the inside, outside, and face edge of the verticals all show quartered figure ... the wood is so straight grained, the joint there became virtually invisible.
trevor and will had a nice time laying in the green abalone lines from our new favorite supplier, andy depaule, at luthier supply. imho, the best source for abalone and other shell, both raw material and precut patterns ...
trevor also worked his magic on the 9 piece multi level main pediment inlay above and below.
the moons are cut from the back side of gold abalone blanks ... not gold, but not really white either... moon color, actually ...
this photo shows the pasted on pictures described above ...
as we were finishing off the pediment, it occurred to us that we had an excellent place for a 'secret compartment' ... it's a dead simple mechanism. the ends of the supporting side cleats are beveled back for the last two inches so that when you push down near the outside of the case, the center pops up and you just lift off the top. as they say, 'i could tell you where the piece is going, but then i'd have to kill you' ... pretty spacious in there ... and you can see the cleat bevel in the photo below ...
we debated leaving the tenons a bit proud, but in the end, flushed them off; another completely correct client decision in hindsight ...
this is the 'tahdah' photo before the finishing started. we completely disassembled the case, completely finished all the shelves and interior of the case and backboards before glue up; to the outside of the verticals and the last 1/4" of the tenons with the inlays already on them, we applied one coat of finish so the inevitable glue squeeze out could be cleaned off, glued up the case, resanded the tenons perfectly flush, and final finished the outside of the case. good to go ... a challenging, design, nicely executed by the boys in the shop ...