The Woodshop Shed

Koa Credenza

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


This is my credenza. It was so hard to make that I decided to never sell it. This piece was inspired by a picture in a woodworking book. I absolutely love laminating wood and decided to give it a go. My first adventure was to create the form for my sides, which was 6 3/4” in width, and it had to be perfect. Then I wanted koa, but I had to have koa that had a straight grain to bend well on the form. The credenza is 18 1/4” deep. I needed six laminations, 3 for each side. They had to match perfectly, so I had purchased 8/4 lumber to resaw and have a seamless look. This took some time. (prep work is everything). I used epoxy as my adhesive and tried to not add too much, since I could only remove the 1/4” from each side before edge joining the laminates together. On the inside of the cabinet, I also had to support the bent sides with wood that had been shaved to match the laminate angle, but flat on the cabinet side to support the construction of a tradition cabinet.This all took time, then came the joinery for the top, which seemed a little overwhelming, but I came up with a plan: I added a traditional dado to the underside of the top, which was wider than the thickness of my sides. I took another piece of wood, the same width and length as the dado in the top, to create an insert. I measured the angle of my bent sides to the top, and used my mortising machine (matching that angle) to create a angled dado in this extra piece of wood. Then I glued this to the top of the side. At that point, I was able to glue my sides to the top quite well. There is always a work around :)The rest of construction was basic cabinet making.Best Regards,Cathy

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