Way back in the spring of last year the office had a telephone enquiry from a gentleman who wanted to know if we could make some furniture using his timber. Now we are quite use to this, it's usually a local farmer who wants to get a piece of furniture for next to nothing and he feels he is doing us a favour by giving us some boards that he is sure must be very rare and valuable. Consequently, enquiries of this sort usually get a cautious response. However, in this case the gentleman concerned replied with a "Yes, he did realise that timber is only a very small proportion of the cost of a job of this nature and he wouldn't come to David Savage Furniture Makers for cheap furniture anyway". So "Nightmare on Elm Street" began.

The job in question turned out to be a lovely job. A suite of bedroom furniture for a spare bedroom of a very beautiful house in South Devon. The complete set included a wardrobe, tall boy, a small dressing table with mirror and stool, a tiny cabinet for shoes, a chester drawers, and a glass doored bookcase. The timber that my client wished to use was Caucasian Elm which has a rich golden colour and a very beautiful Elm—like figuring. Because the room concerned was quite small and the timber was relatively dark, I suggested that we combined the Elm with a blonde timber such as Ripple Sycamore. This turned out to be a very fortuitous decision for not only did the two timbers work together very beautifully but it got us out of the problem caused by the small amount of Caucasian Elm we had available.

It appears that Caucasian Elm is very rare, or very rare in this country. It's an odd looking tree, it grows with a very short trunk before splitting into several minor trunks or boughs rather like Yew and not at all like Elm. The tree has a pale green, almost white bark which I suppose gives it the name Caucasian. I understand that the particular estate where this tree came from is one of the few sites in Britain. So we were very honoured to have this particular butt in our workshop, that is we were very honoured until we tried working it and then we felt rather different. Caucasian Elm is very beautiful but it doesn't like being machined, it doesn't like being hand planed, and it doesn't much like being sanded. The dust is bright yellow and rather horrid, and I found when we came to using glue for this particular wood that it gave off a bright yellow dye. This was a particularly tricky problem for it meant that we had to be especially careful with the glue—ups because this dye, if it were splattered around the job, could contaminate the Ripple Sycamore very easily. However, half the solution is knowing what the problem is and we were able to get around this one simply by being a little more careful during the glue ups.

The real problem came when David Woodward and Damian Carroll had to decide what piece of Elm went to which job. We all came in the next morning and scrawled across the last board of Elm in Dammo's handwriting was the infamous title "Nightmare on Elm Street".

But the Elm wasn't the only nightmare. The Ripple Sycamore gave us a few sleepless nights as well. This was because my client, bless his heart, had asked us to use solid timber wherever possible and we had, of course, done our best to accommodate his wishes. This gave us some problems with the tall boy. Usually with a solid wood carcase of this size it would be necessary to have cross dividers firmly fixed to the carcase sides holding the carcase side straight and flat. However, I felt that in this design through wedged tenons running down the side of the cabinet would have been quite inappropriate so we had a problem that in the end was only resolved by making the carcase sides from 3 mm thick band sawn veneer. Perhaps I should explain that when you are making a cabinet carcase that is to house drawers it is of paramount importance that those drawers run against straight sides. Sometimes drawers runners and kickers are applied after the cabinet is assembled. In this case the cabinet sides guided the drawers and had to be dead flat. It is also important, incidentally, that the carcase is a shade bigger at the back than the front. By a shade I mean something like a quarter of a millimetre. As the fit of a drawers is always most critical across the width rather than the height this "shade" is quite an important dimension.

I know I complicated matters for the craftsman by insisting that all of the drawers were fitted with cock beads. Now cock beads are interesting little fellows, they are often found on eighteenth century and high quality Victorian furniture. They were especially popular where the drawer front was veneered as the cock bead formed a protective lipping for the veneer. I used it in a slightly different way to delineate each drawer with a contrasting line of light

or gold. I like cock beads on some of my furniture as it means the drawers are finished with a soft edge but I don't think it is very popular in the workshop because it adds quite a bit of time to each drawer.

The success of this job, and I feel it was a success, is very largely due to the role played by David Woodward. David had the responsibility of assigning what small amount of timber we had to each of the craftsmen on this job. He also took on the role of assistant designer, working with me on the detailing and the final workshop drawings. Usually I will do this with each individual maker but I felt with this job it was essential that there was a harmony between each of the pieces and David was there to help me pull all these pieces together visually. David also dealt with the problem of the glass.

 CRAFT OF CABINETMAKING by David Savage

First published in woodworker magazine

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