Articles

Five Ways to Make a Drawer Box

Drawer boxes must be the most time-consuming component to make. Peter Sefton offers a few solutions that might get the job done more quickly.

Drawer making can be a time-consuming job, but it is a very rewarding part of furniture making with so many design and construction possibilities.

In this article, I cover five different methods that involve varying levels of complexity and different construction techniques. Successful traditional drawer making relies on the carcass or table frame being made square and true, only then can successful drawer fitting take place.

Traditional carcass construction relies on the accuracy of the drawer runners, kickers and drawer guides to ensure a smooth piston-fit drawer.

Furniture & Cabinetmaking Magazine

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Making a Bench stool

Peter Sefton’s students share the trials and tribulations of making a workshop stool project full of tapers and compound angles.

I’m Garry Rowberry, a full-time student at the Peter Sefton Furniture School in Worcestershire. This is my account of constructing what looks like a simple workshop stool and how I deal with some of the issues and challenges along the way.

The workshop stool project introduces us to compound angles, using full-size drawings and we work as a group to make a small production run. We get involved with setting up machines and jigs for repeated tasks, and all the students use the same settings to mill and construct their own workshop stools. The brief gives us latitude in selecting timber and the final finish.

Furniture & Cabinetmaking Magazine

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Ultimate-Bandsaw-Set Up & Maintenance DVD

Ultimate Bandsaw Set Up & Maintenance DVD Review

For many woodworkers, the bandsaw is often the first machine they buy. Not only is it less intimidating, safer and quieter than other workshop equipment, but it’s pretty versatile. From cutting accurate joints such as dovetails, bevels and tight curves to simply sawing logs for firewood, there’s not much it can’t do as a saw. Like any machine it needs to be set up correctly to get the most from it, though. Following on from his excellent range of hand tool DVDs (Series 1), furniture maestro Peter Sefton has progressed to Series 2, focusing on woodworking machinery. Starting with the bandsaw, I should point out that this is the first of three DVDs dealing solely with this machine, the subsequent pair concentrating on Advanced Techniques – we’ll take a closer look at those in a future issue.

The Woodworker Magazine

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Ultimate Bandsaw Set Up & Maintenance DVD

Gauge it

I recently wrote about my Swann Morton scalpel as being the tool I can’t do without but one other tool came a very close second; my digital angle gauge. I often wonder how I did without it. Transferring angles from drawings onto machines and setting up sliding bevels are now so much more straightforward and accurate. It’s got a myriad of uses and I have come up with 10 practical ways of using my digital angle gauge.

Furniture & Cabinetmaking Magazine

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Selecting and Using Hand Planes DVD Review

These days there’s no shortage of information out there for woodworkers that just wasn’t available when I were a lad. Unless you had college training you either had to dip into books, enrol in an evening class or work it out for yourself. Early instructional videos could be painful to watch, a fast track to an afternoon nap, and even now some YouTube demos can be a bit dodgy. A happy exception is Peter Sefton’s series of Fine Furniture Making DVDs, which are professional and certainly absorbing. Admittedly this is the first one I’ve watched, but if preceding discs are of the same standard (Andy King assures me they are), then you may want to reserve the DVD player for an evening or two.

Good Woodworking Magazine

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Selecting and Using Hand Planes DVD

Fine-Furniture Making Series DVD

Fine Furniture Making Series DVD Review

These two volumes from Peter Sefton’s new Fine Furniture Making DVD range are very well produced and the professional and authoritative delivery instils the viewer with confidence throughout. As part of a five-volume series (Series 1), I selected these two as they cover similar areas to the David Charlesworth DVDs I reviewed back in GW320. There are certain similarities within them, which I guess is to be expected as the areas of flattening and preparing stock, as well as the hoary subject of sharpening, are age-old, and the principles are essentially the same. However, for me, Peter has a far more hands-on approach that makes the time fly by as you watch, accompanied by excellent little nuggets of information that explains the reasoning and methodology as you move on through.

The Woodworker Magazine

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Timber Preparation DVD
Chisel & Plane Sharpening DVD
Fine Furniture Making Collection – Set of 5 DVDs

Making Mitres

Peter Sefton shows us how there is more than one way to shoot a mitre joint.

At first glance, the mitre is one of the easiest joints to make but getting it right and well fitting can be a little trickier than expected. Two of my students have just been working on some constructional mitres that can make or break their projects.

Woodworking Crafts Magazine

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