(upbeat playful music) - Well, you've gone and done it.

Somebody challenged me to make this highboy and so here it is.

Out of American black cherry, and today we're going to get into what makes this high boy Chippendale style.

So stay with us.

This is gonna be fun.

- [Announcer] "The American Woodshop" with Scott Phillips is brought to you by: - Woodcraft, since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

(upbeat music) - Pro tools for tool pros.

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- Woodcraft Magazine, projects, plans and web links designed to help you make wood work.

- PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf, Swedish Silicon Steel Bandsaw Blades, and Super Sharps Scroll Saw Blades.

- A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home.

The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio, providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- Today's show is about making a Chippendale style highboy.

This is the uppercase, that's the lowercase, and they get married together.

Now what makes Chippendale its period form?

Carved shells, accents, adornments.

The earlier period, Queen Anne, it was less ornate, the finials.

And, of course, the legs.

More on the legs later.

We're working on the case right now, and we're going to get to this shell pattern, and that's hand carved.

But I've developed a way of using a scroll saw, and this is really neat.

You start with a good pattern, and you use spray adhesive on the back of the pattern.

And then, just like we showed you in the scroll saw show, three shows back when Suzy made her tiger, you put down contact paper, the type that's removable on top of your wood.

This is cherry as the highboy is, and then you can put your pattern centered up on top of that paper.

That way when it comes time to peel everything off after you make all the cuts, it all pops out beautifully.

Now these are bevel cuts where you can see that piece comes all the way out, right?

But it actually drops all the way in and locks in because this arm tilts down at an angle.

And let me show you what I'm talking about here.

This is a sample board, and if you tilt the arm, sometimes the table tilts, but this one, the head tilts to give the blade an angle to the left, and you cut counterclockwise.

It drops down like that or completely out.

(laughs) The parts are interlocking.

Obviously one degree tilt is not enough.

So we're tilting this down to two degrees and locking it in place.

And there's a trunnion on there that shows you how to do that.

So that's tilted now.

I release the blade, raise the upper arm so I can pierce this number five blade through the tiny pilot hole.

I'll get set up with that hole, drill that, and pierce the blade through, lock everything down.

(wood whooshing and clattering) Now, you want to be thoughtful about how you drill these holes.

You want to drill it on the edge of the pattern in a way that once you make your cuts to make these pieces drop down, and wherever it says S on the pattern, that is scroll saw for S, that gets sawn out and that will drop down.

So I'm going to pierce this blade through that tiny hole, and it takes some doin' to line everything up.

And the reason you do this, is so (chuckling) the pieces lock together, and you want to use scotch tape to hold the pieces up.

Right now, they're all falling out.

Let me bring that around like that.

Okay, and back up and on, and we'll find that hole.

Here we go, which is right there.

And we'll pierce the blade through, and then we'll make the cut.

(wood clattering) And so that comes down locked in place.

And what's the number one thing on a scroll saw?

You definitely want to add plenty of tension.

And by the way, the guard has been removed so you can see me make this cut.

Always use your guard.

Remember this is tilted down.

It's actually at two and a half degrees for the best cut for this blade.

And I'm going to add some more tension on that.

Okay, that looks good right there.

So you turn it on and you pivot on that hole, and you want to hold the work piece down to the table, and you give that number five blade plenty of time to carry away the sawdust.

That's where people lose control.

They try to go too fast.

And this is on dust collection.

Whatever you do, be sure to read, understand and follow all the instructions that come with the tools and products you use in your wood shop.

Work safely.

Now, I come right up to that profile there, the circular edge.

And when you do come to a turn that's to a point, you really want to use the back of the blade to help create a pivot, especially when this head is filtered down.

It's what really amounts to be two and a half degrees.

I'm using that back of the blade to lightly have back pressure, and then I can pivot around that.

And again, the guard is removed now so you can actually see this cut going on.

I always use my guard, otherwise.

So we come around to the front edge right up here, (scroll saw buzzing) and the tension is perfect on this.

There's no drift on the blade, gives me good control.

Then I just pivot out, and that's all the way through.

Now, let's turn that off and bring that up, and I wanna show you what's happening here.

And I have already spent a bit of time cutting out these other pieces, but here, this one, you can see how that, it's caught up on some tape right there, is loose now and it can pop down, and because it's cut into bevel, it locks in.

So now, when it comes to carve out these profiles, you just need to round over the top parts that are sticking out.

Now I need to cut this one out, and then you'll see the magic of this whole form come together.

(scroll saw buzzing) So now, again, I'm cutting on the outside edge of the line and be consistent with that.

And when all these parts lock together, it's magic.

I'll complete this.

Imagine my surprise.

I actually put that pattern on a week ago, and it wanted to stay on.

And the trick is heat it up with a heat gun, and you can make that glue release itself.

You wanna be careful here.

You can use a chisel with the bevel down to remove it.

And you go, what's going on here?

Okay, now watch, this is pretty cool.

So you swing this around, and you tilt that up, and you see these areas where it locks in and down, and then the areas that weren't cut, stay proud.

And then this delicate little form right here, it's hard to get that to do what I want it to do.

Let me use that point of the chisel, the edge right there to press that in like that.

And that's bevel cut.

And all these cuts that dropped down are counterclockwise.

And look up here.

That is how I created that shell.

The cuts are so fine that you glue that together, then just round over the lobes, little bit of carving here, and you've got your form and you just glue that right onto that fascia board.

Now let me show you the other piece of this magic, and that is this frame board right here.

I'll peel all that off and you go, "What's going on?

I don't understand."

Well, that's again the magic of using creative cutting techniques.

Now this was cut clockwise, same two and a half degree bevel.

And that drops it in to create this tray for the shell.

And this is the overlay here, I just routed the edge here to make it more graceful.

And then, what we can do is bring this shell up and being very careful to keep all the parts together.

Again, all these pieces would be glued, but now, this pops in the back edge, and you ease that through like that.

And everything has to be a perfect fit because it's all one solid piece.

We've got one little area right here where that key just doesn't wanna drop down.

Right there.

Perfect.

And now you press that forward, and that raises the shell right out of the wood.

Ain't that cool?

So much fun to come up with your own way of making your own period pieces more yours, more unique.

So that's a great tip on scroll sawing shell patterns, one for the ages right there and more on applying all of this and putting it all together.

But look up at the top of this broken arch pediment right here, that's what that's called.

You have finials left and right.

We need to turn an apple wood from a very special tree finial out of the top that I saved years ago.

Over to the bandsaw.

(panning sound) This is a piece of apple wood from that orchard that I grew up next to as a child.

And when I bought the property and built a house next to it, I saved some of the wood.

Not known what I'd use it for.

This is Apple Macintosh species.

I have a blue line on there.

I'm going to cut this into some turning blanks of which one will become the main finial, why?

Applewood turns great, and it looks a lot like cherry.

Okay, let's get the dust collection on, make the cut.

That's a 3/4 inch blade, three teeth per inch.

Let it come up to speed, turn on dust collection and make those blanks.

(bandsaw buzzing) And I'll just use that blue tape as my cut line.

(bandsaw buzzing) Rings are off, sleeves are rolled up.

Time to have some fun.

Now that billet or blank is spinning right around 800 rpm, 840, and we're going to create a finial, a little bit bigger than this one but same basic form.

And the easiest thing to do is use a roughing gouge, make sure that's locked in place, marry that chisel to your body, and drop the handle so that you are taking a better cut.

And I know from experience, it's there to stay and it's balanced.

So I'm turning up the speed a little bit to get a better cut.

So I'll rough this round.

And some people say, "Well, you should have knocked the corners off on the bandsaw."

No, this is too much fun.

Woo-hoo.

Here we go.

Take your time.

Get it into a round cylinder.

(wood rasping) Okay, that's the quick job of creating that nice and round.

And you don't wanna reach in there until it comes to a stop because your fingers could roll around, get pinched.

No, thank you.

So there's the sapwood, there's the heartwood.

We've got a check here that I think's gonna go away.

We're gonna find out.

And then, what we do to do the layout is we bring up the other finial and make sure that, yep, this is gonna be the top, this is gonna be the base.

Okay, that's the form.

And what we do without touching it, we turn it on, and we lay in the key areas that you want.

(wood marker screeching) That's gonna be the top.

And there's the first shoulder, and there's a cove down to the second shoulder right there, that's a shoulder.

I'll shade that in like so and everywhere that there's a major form, by eye, I lay in marks.

That's a double bead right there.

A bead's a bump, a cove's a cave And then that goes down to a big cupcake form that's on a pedestal base, that's coved out.

And then, I've got this nice little flare right here.

And then.

I need a little tenon on the end which is gonna be right there.

So now, I'm just going to use a series of chisels to create this next finial.

What's the first one I'm gonna use?

I love this little cove cutter.

It's, oops.

That tool rest is a little too high.

The cutting edge of this cutter, it's a carbide cutter, tiny little cutter but it moves mountains of wood.

That cutting edge should be right at or slightly below the center line.

So that's locked in place.

And let's make some rough form.

Too much fun.

If you've never turned, take lessons.

And usually, one time round of doing lessons and you're gonna be hooked for life.

So much fun, and it's very easy to do.

Just want to use sharp chisels, and you wanna take a light cut.

So this is the top, (wood rasping) and I don't wanna take it down too much right now.

Okay, and then what we've got is this is gonna be a shoulder right there, then a cove is right in there.

So I'm gonna start cutting the cove in and just take your time.

And remember one thing, it always works better to go from the top of the mountain down to the valley.

What's that mean?

Try to go downhill with your cuts.

It's gonna treat you better.

What that means is do it whatever way you wanna do it.

But I've learned from experience that, okay, now this is a major cove area right there, you just learn that certain cuts are gonna work better than others.

Now this is really balanced and I know one thing, watch what happens.

We're gonna take this up.

How far do you wanna go?

I've got it up to 1500 right now.

(wood rasping) And you can tell when you start to get ribbons of wood off of this piece of bone-dry wood that you're doing things the right way.

(wood rasping) And when the work piece starts talking to you, lighten up, take a lighter cut.

(wood rasping) This is just too much fun.

(wood rasping) (wood clattering) So I'm going in with this on edge, and I'm defining certain areas.

So that's gonna be the top of the flame of the finial.

And this is called the cupcake form right there.

And on the underside of this, I need to take that down to my finished diameter of about an inch, and then I'm going to take a shoulder below that just like that.

(wood rasping) And that will be the finished diameter.

And I can go back to the bowl gouge to take that down.

(wood rasping) I checked the moisture content on this, and it is right at 10%.

Not bone dry but pretty dog on close to it.

This is captive between the drive spur and the live ball bearing center, and I like the form.

And now, after I turn this down to put the chuck on it, I want to make sure I have all this sanded when it's supported.

So, on that goes.

Tool rest is off, I'll sand this down, dust collector's on.

(dust collector humming) And I'll sand this, and once this is perfect, then I can part this end down, turn off the lathe, put on the four-jaw chuck and chuck this so I can finish this end of the flame.

Lots of little steps, boy, it's gonna be worth it.

(sanding) (wood clattering) Okay, take a deep breath and hold it because that's what's required at this phase of the turning, because that tenon right there is sized perfectly, two or half-inch Tenon.

And then on this end, we've just got a little bit to go.

But before we do that, turn that off, let it come to a stop cuz you need to see what's hidden in that piece of apple wood.

You go, what's he talking about?

Oh, I don't know.

Let's bring up a piece of scrap to stop the finish from spraying all over everything.

And this is a pound and a half cut of Garnet Shellac alcohol based.

And this is what I used on the highboy, on the cherry, so this is going to match.

You have to make your own garnet out of flakes.

Next week on our episode, I'll show you how to do that.

This week, it's all about adding the Chippendale details that make it the ornate piece that I'm drawn to.

So it's the little things in life that make a big difference.

So I'll friction this on and then, at a very slow speed, I'll part this tip off, then we'll go do the assembly.

(wood rasping) (panning) I oversized the tenon which is better than making it too small.

And now, I'm going to marry that home.

And the cool thing about that is, it's there to stay.

No glue required, but I'd say that completes it very nicely.

Let me hop down here and show you the rest of the story.

Now, next week we're going to do a finishing workshop so you'll get to see how this is completely finished.

This just has one wash coat of Garnet Shellac on it right now.

I did that before I put everything together.

And you marry the upper case to the base, and they're always two pieces because they're so heavy.

Okay, now what you do is you line up the top case, and it does not need to be fastened.

There's enough weight here to hold into place.

But once you have the finish done that we're going to do, then we apply the molding left and right, and to the front and glue that to the base.

That way when you set the top case, everything lines up, and it makes it look like the masterpiece that it deserves.

And a good home.

Now on the legs, this is distinctly Chippendale, the ball and claw.

That's the pearl of wisdom, dragon talon.

Some say, "Stork," but how do you make that beautiful cabriole leg?

Well, I'll show you.

On the bandsaw, you do a compound cut.

I'll open this up, hopefully like so.

And you'll see, you start with a rectangular piece of wood, and you make a cut on a bandsaw on one side, that's this side, and rotate it 90 degrees.

Make a cut on the other side, and you end up with a cabriole leg.

This happens to be for a Chippendale chair I'm making.

So the beautiful cherry form, distinctly American.

Normally the high end pieces were made out of genuine mahogany.

But being an American, I'm gonna use American black cherry.

So next week, we'll finish this to perfection.

We're out of time for today, but this is my magnum opus, and this is for the love of my life, Suzy.

I hope you love it.

And I promise there is a secret compartment here.

And you go, "Where is it?"

'Cause they always have 'em.

Well, I'm not telling.

See you next time.

In "The American Woodshop."

- Woodcraft, since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

(whimsical music) (upbeat music) -Pro tools for tool pros.

(upbeat music) RIKON tools.

- Woodcraft Magazine, projects, plans and web links designed to help you make wood work.

- PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf, Swedish Silicon Steel Bandsaw Blades, and Super Sharp Scroll Saw Blades.

- A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals.

A house that feels like a home.

The furniture bank of Central Ohio, providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- For more information on tips behind "The American Woodshop," and watch free episodes 24/7, check us out online and like us on Facebook.

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