First Piece

For some reason I’ve started thinking about a project that I’m probably not going to start for 6 months or so. This is pretty common for me. I get an idea in my head and latch on to it like a pit bull. It bounces around in my head and percolates for a few weeks or months until I have fully explored it and then I can let it go. This usually includes a purchase or two. The future project this time is the built-in cabinets that will fill the opening between the dining room and the butler’s pantry. Realistically I probably won’t start building it until October but I can’t seem to stop thinking about it.

In a post a few days ago I mentioned I had bought some burl and curly redwood for the cabinets. The first piece arrived yesterday. This is a slab of burl redwood that I want to cut 4 drawer fronts out of. The cabinets are roughly 8-feet square. I want to have 4 drawers and each drawer front will need to be about 20-inches wide.

Here is the piece of burl I bought. I wet it down a bit to show the grain.




Burl is like a tumor that grows in the wood. I’m not really sure why it forms, but makes large, deformed growths on the tree. Some may only be the size of a basketball while other burl growths can be large enough for 4 or 5 people to stand on. As you can see in the picture, the grain in a burl growth very dense and is uniquely twisted and knotted. Once that piece is sanded smooth and oiled and shellacked it will really look neat.

The slab is 2 inches thick and the idea was to cut two pieces that were 2”X 4” X 20”. I would then split them so I would have 4 drawer fronts that were each 1”X 4” X 20”. However, because of it’s odd shape I think it may be a stretch to get two pieces large enough. I have a few options.

One solution, if I can’t get large enough pieces, is to buy more burl. That is a $50 piece of wood and I really don’t want to buy more. Another option is to cut one piece that is 2” X 4” X 20” and then cut four pieces that are only about a half inch thick. I could then use them sort of like veneer and glue them to the front of the drawer boxes. Another option is to make the drawer fronts a little shorter. I’m pretty sure I could get 2 pieces that were about 18” long. There will be a lot of left over wood that I can use as the stiles between the drawers.

I’ll need to let this percolate a bit more.