Making Classic English Furniture

Book excerpt: Classic designs, beautiful crafting, and fine details: traditional furniture making has them all. A fifth-generation cabinetmaker and restorer shows how today''s woodworkers can create timeless pieces while exploiting modern techniques and equipment, as well as those used since the 18th century. This proven blend of past and present approaches to producing period furniture, including constructing dovetailed drawers and hand veneering, reaches its apex in five highly detailed projects, each exhaustively illustrated with plans, explanatory drawings, and color photographs. Fashion an oak mule chest with broken-arch paneled doors, using a biscuit joiner; a tapered-leg dressing table; a sofa table, which demands calculating rule and finger joints; an extending table with telescopic runners and a platform stretcher; and a breakfast bookcase.