A Coopered Door

or curved if you'd prefer.
 

two becomes four...

Thanks for the comments and questions on my last post,
the following series will chronicle the process in making a coopered door.
This is not the only way to make curved furniture parts and in my next post I’ll show you how I made the match to this door using a bent lamination process.
I’m working with six pieces approx. 7/8″ thick x 1 1/2″ to 2″ widths. These are random as the hemlock has many checks, cracks and splits making much of it unworkable for cabinet making but great for wall paper!
The overall length is about an inch longer than needed on paper although I honestly don’t know that exact final measurement at this point nor do I need to. It’s all about the curve right now and to achieve this I need to bevel each of the six pieces. Once glued they’ll become the convex shape I’m looking for.
It’s funny, as one composes a cabinet in this manner instead of working off a cut list, whenever the wood pile dwindles the over all size of the cabinet does as well. ?? Hmmm..
Proportion is essential to maintain but I have no worries about the over all size being effected.
I liked the shape of this design when I first scribbled it into my sketchbook a few weeks ago and that was only a few inches tall!
So back to the coopered door~

full scale drawings. parchment paper works great. 

...additional uses on bottom of box. ha !

a suggestion?

scribe the lines. 

plane down to scribe lines to establish bevel 

glue bear says, 'that's half a dozen if anyone's-a-countin'.

out of the clamps it needs some love.

getting closer.

marking the length. yikes!

scribe line set up

finest x-cut. 24" saw. 11 ppi. perfect for this application.

hold fast. deep breath.

'just' to the line.

fair the curve.

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