Backyard Birds – Part 5

One of the padauk boards that my dad had looked like it would be the perfect size for my cabinet.

Ideally, when making a piece of furniture, you want to all the solid wood parts to be made out of a single piece of wood, or at least all the solid wood parts that will be visible from the outside when the piece is finished. That’s because even if two boards are made of the same type of wood, there will be differences in their color and texture because they came from different trees. Using a single board reduces the amount of variation and makes the piece look more cohesive.

If you’re making a big piece of furniture, that means you need a really big board. And that’s what I needed.

This board measured 99” × 10.5“ × 2.25” (251 cm × 26 cm × 5.7 cm, or 16.242 board feet).

I made a lot of diagrams to figure out the best way to cut my board. This not only involved figuring out which parts of the board would become which parts of the cabinet, but also involved figuring out the precise order in which the board would be cut.

I initially cut the board with the big band saw in the shop. The band saw doesn’t do very precise or clean cuts – for that, I usually use the table saw or sand things down on the drum sander – but it works well for getting the basic shapes cut out. Because the board started out so big, cutting it required a second set of hands, so I got my dad’s help to stabilize it while I ran it through the band saw.

As large as the board was, it still wasn’t quite big enough for a couple of components of the cabinet – at least not without some extra steps. For instance, the front of my drawer needed to be about 24” long and 5.5” tall, and I didn’t have a way to make that work. What I could cut out was two pieces that were 24” long and 3” tall. So I smoothed the edges of those pieces and glued them together. Since the wood came from the same board and the grain was going in the same direction, the seam between them would be pretty much invisible.

Once I had all the pieces roughly cut, I left them to acclimate to the surroundings while I got to work on the rest of the cabinet. Freshly cut wood can expand, contract, and warp as it’s exposed to the air, so you don’t want to start working with it until it’s had a little time to settle.