Working out the first of a series of headboards in ash and walnut.
What relationships work?
Fitting the scribed pieces.
Possible locations for butterflies.
Detail of scribed “joint”.
Below are some pictures of the main carcass for the headboard-chest of a black walnut bed underway in the shop right now. It was dry fit for the first time yesterday. It was quite a challenge to get the nearly eighty hand-cut dovetails to mate properly.
The tops of the boards are still rough- they will be shaped a little- softened- but mainly left as is. The lid will “float” inside the top of the chest.
A foreshortened side view. Here one can see all the dovetails- yet to be trimmed- th chest will be taken apart and re-assembled a few times before final assembly, where after the pins and tails will be trimmed flush.
A detail of a Q.S. white oak butterfly- decoratively and hopefully functionally placed in a knot with a small split. There are quite a few butterflies throughout the piece for the task of securing splits and abnormalities- the joys of screwball Kansas walnut.