CAN I MAKE A LIVING AS A CABINETMAKER?
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
The most pressing question for any would-be cabinetmaker is almost certainly this; can I make a living as a cabinet maker? Here at Rowden, we have had the benefit of thirty years of experience in training students to become professional, working cabinetmakers. Of course, not every student comes with the desire to work full-time as a cabinetmaker, but with regards to skills, we treat every student the same. We consciously and deliberately set about training them with the techniques necessary to become a fully rounded maker. One that is equally capable of operating their own profitable workshop ..read more
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Hand tools for a cabinet maker part II
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
This month we will be looking at chisels and marking and measuring tools. A few years ago now for another magazine, I did a test of all of the brands of chisels available in the cabinet makers bevel-edged pattern. The objective was to find the best-branded chisel for apprentice cabinet makers. In doing this, I found out that although chisels vary enormously in the quality of their grinding, the shape and the quality of the handles. However, most of the manufactures are using a very similar grade of steel, so the edge holding capacity of certainly European made chisels were very similar. What w ..read more
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Hand tools for a cabinet maker part iii
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
In this article, the last of the series of three, I am talking about the last section of tools that a young apprentice cabinetmaker would need to start their collection of handtools. In previous weeks I’ve spoken of planes and chisels, marking and measuring tools and all that remains now are two areas of hand tools that have changed most for the modern European cabinet maker – those of saws and routers. There was a time when a cabinet makers toolkit would have half a dozen hand saws. He’d have two or three back saws, dovetail saw, a tenon saw, maybe a coping saw. He would also have several lon ..read more
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BENCH END VICE
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
Last month we talked about making a cabinetmakers workbench. This month we are going to make and fit a cabinet maker’s end vice. The end vice is a little different from the usual carpenters front vice. This is usually metal and in our case, fitted with wooden jaws to avoid bruising the work. These are quite useful vices, but they don’t fulfil the need that a cabinet maker often has of laying a job on a perfectly flat benchtop and then securing it in such a way that one can work on it unimpeded by clamps and fixtures. The End Vice does this by a system of dogs. These are pegs that can be placed ..read more
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Let’s hear it for PVA
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
Good old PVA Now, I don’t know about you but until I became a cabinet maker the only thing I knew for sure about PVA glue was that it was excellent at sticking nothing to nothing! Many a primary school project came a cropper due to the complete inability of this glorious white glue to keep a toilet tube attached to a cereal box. Or to fix paper triangles to a cardboard cut-out of a dinosaur. Absolutely rubbish! And yet, and yet, I can tell you with nearly absolute confidence that there are now literally hundreds of pieces of our furniture all around the world literally standing on their own le ..read more
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Woodworking Techniques – Parnham Fitting
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
Parnham Fitting. This is a jointing method that in many small workshops is replacing Dowelling as a stronger more easily achieved joint. This method is credited as being developed at Parnham Workshops; run by John Makepeace in the 1980s. Dowel joints are common in woodworking, however, they require very accurate drilling and registration of the holes. Not only must the holes be at 90° to the joining surfaces but they must be positioned, dimensionally, very accurately and drilled with a diameter drill to match the wooden dowel. The Parnham fitting eliminates the problem of drilling so ..read more
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Using cabinet scrapers
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
Scrapers are tools that you would use in the finishing process but are used after cleaning up with a hand plane, but before the application of abrasive paper. We tell our students that the careful use of a scraper can save them 80% of their sanding. That’s 80% of the time spent on sanding and 80% of the cost of their abrasive paper. We tell them to keep this mind but still see them laboriously sanding out deep tears in surfaces. Finishing and especially sanding is often one of those parts of the job that takes much much more time than you think, so this is a consideration, by learning how to u ..read more
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Grain
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
Right, I am going to try to explain open and closed grain, once and for all. Why? Because it has taken me far too long to get my head around this, and it really isn’t that complicated! Now, the difference between open and closed grain sounds pretty obvious, the clue might well be staring us in the face. But let me explain. The first thing you need to know is that grain isn’t either open or closed. It is better to think of open and closed as a scale… a visible scale. If the individual grains of the wood are visible to the eye, then the wood can be described as “open grain”. This is typical of w ..read more
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Constraints…
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
Constraints: Possibly the first and most fundamental constraint that anyone involved in craftsmanship experiences lies at the heart of the arts and crafts debate. I.E. that art is utterly useless whereas craft is, at its core, useful. Switch this around and you could say that as soon as you take the usefulness out of the craft, what you have left is art… which has no real use. That fundamental constraint means that tables tend to be more or less flat and parallel to the ground, that chairs can be sat on and doors opened.  For any designer-maker, and particularly those in trainin ..read more
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Oak and Stainless Steel
Rowden Atelier | Wood Working Articles
by Matt Lacey
3y ago
We recently had a question from an enthusiastic woodworker and former student at Rowden, about a coffee table he is working on. Head Tutor, Daren Millman was able to give him a succinct answer and now Harm (said enthusiastic woodworker) is well on his way to making the table. I hope I may bother you with a practical question. I am building a small coffee table with an oak frame and a glass top.  The glass top will be glued to the frame. I remember from one of Daren’s Dimbleby’s to not directly glue the glass to the wood but to use a stainless steel plate in between. I am thinking of usin ..read more
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