The Tansu Stairs are Done

Well, I was redoing the jobs list on my office bulletin board this morning and the little clipping above was pasted onto the corner of it. I put it there a while back and forgot about it but today, it caught my eye again. So true .... Most every big project takes 'a little longer' than expected and this one was no exception. But, now we're pretty much done. Shipping to Palo Alto has been arranged and all that's left is the shaping of the wall mounted handrail and a little welding on the mounting brackets for it. We had a few 'last details; to work out this week and they are detailed below. There are two other posts to this project .... here ... and here... Great project ....

The finished cabinet ... Click the photos to enlarge them ..

The boys got a little happy as they were about to put together the back cabinets ...

Tricky post moounting details and

tread to riser joinery

Shows the breakdown for shipping

and the skids with wheels we put under the base cabinets

Assembling the back cabinets ... More info on this project here ... and here ...

Tansu Stairs Update

3/20/09 Trevor made some progress this week on the tansu stair cabinet described in the post on 3/9. It's pretty much his baby, with the rest of us brainstorming with him as needed. He's doing a great and careful job on a complex project. The main cabinet is complete now with the face frames and cabinet backs glued on. Yesterday and today he's been working on the templates for the three steel railing sections that Sam is making parts for. He cut some cardboard railing outlines and mdf post prototypes on the cnc to discover minor corrections that need to be made before cutting the real templates and posts on Monday. He also took a little time out this afternoon to do the butterfly inlays on the walnut plank in the foreground of the end of day shot above .... (click to enlarge it) ... On the face frame. rather than do the half laps the old fashioned way with a manual layout and tablesaw dados, he convinced me he could cut them as fast using a combination of the cnc for marking and layout and the tablesaw for halflapping. I think it took him a little longer than usual as it was his first time, but I want to tell you ... that face frame is perfectly square with not one drawer front off 90 degrees. I'm coming around to his way of thinking ....

Checking the rail to wall and mocked up ceiling fit

Checking the post notch and rail taper angles

Some of the drawer parts with some of the risers and treads stickered in thebackground ... Lots o pieces.

Small two man brainstorm session

The Tansu Stair Project

besides the post below, there are several other blog posts about these stairs. here is a link to the final one and you can work back to this post from that one ... great project !!!

3/9 ... Had it all together around 1:00 today. It's all disassembled now and the cabinet interiors are being shellacked and waxed ....

Proposed railing design including second floor landing

The case taking shape today 3/6/09

The cad drawing showing the three subcases seperated by color

About 20 years ago I made the tansu style stair cabinet above for clients who were remodeling a house up the road in Danby, Vermont. Last spring, I made another tansu style cabinet for a New York City entryway and one way or another, last summer a gentleman from California found my pictures on the internet and contacted me regarding a stairway project he had in mind. We went back and forth for a while, and now, they're underway on construction of the addition to his house and we have started the stair cabinet. Unfortunately, my contract doesn't call for me to install so I'll just wave goodbye to it, and, maybe, by then, it will be spring here and I won't be wishing I was in sunny CA.. It killed me back in January to get pictures of carpenters in shorts and sunscreen while it was zero or so here. Anyway .... More to follow .... This'll be a long one ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

Last summer's tansu cabinet in walnut

A sketch for the cabinet we're working on made by laying trace over the photo in the top left corner in the collage below

Photos from the client (sent in January) with my photoshopped sketching of the railings etc.

Tansu Style Cabinet

This is the second tansu style cabinet we have made. The first. at the bottom of this post, was now nearly 20 years ago and I sort of forgot exactly what's involved in making one of these. There are a ton of parts already and we're still getting started .... (260 pieces of wood, plus the hardware is roughly the final tally).... Interesting project though .. Click the pictures to enlarge ..

Hardware on ... first coat of finish

Waiting for the hardware now

7/3/08 shows the seperate top unit and the back of the base cabinet

The assembled case

Original sketch above and CAD drawing below

First iteration / variation to the right

Final shop drawing ... all drawers

Showing the interior drawer supports

Starting the dovetails for the 17 drawers

Starting the interior frames .... we're gonna count the pieces of wood so far tomorrow ...

The fronts and backs of the case are glued up, but the ends are not yet. We left some pieces out so we can see what we're doing inside while we'e building the drawer supports...

Sanding parts of the top case prior to first rough assembly

The top 3 case 'skeletons' assembled

Showing the crotch cut boards we'll use for the side panels ... They'll be split and half used for each end of the upper cases. I've got a great board for the top panels too.

First assembly with all the panels prior to final fitting and glue up ...

ALL the parts on the two carts are for inside the cabinet ...

drawer sides and drawer supports

The original ... 1989 ... Danby, VT Still 100%