Ancient hand-made wooden cabinet finds a new purpose.

February 5, 2018

#230

Gentle reader,

We had outgrown our white Ikea cabinet which we had used to store DVD and Bluray discs. It was filled wall-to-wall and double deep. Yes, I know, we do still have movies and series and documentaries on plastic discs in plastic cases. Having had a this computer's hard drive stop working, I know what will happen should we have had a DVR which stores your digital "collection" on a hard drive. I do not have any media except photos stored on hard drives. I prefer to have things I can hold in my hands. In other words, REAL things.

Research narrowed our search of new cabinets to one that would cost more than $400 and weigh 160 pounds and have to be assembled. The latter did not bother me, the former two did. 

I had loaded our 21-year-old Ranger pickup with donations and suggested that since it was a Saturday, let's take them to Salvation Army rather than the store we usually visited on Sundays. So we did.

Since we were already there, we went inside to look around. My wife spotted a tall cabinet and called me over. It was obviously VERY old and hand made. It had two doors with two glass panels in each. The glass had visible ripples in it. Each door had a skeleton key lock and they were locked. Inside the bottom we could see some shelves.

Off she went to get the key from the cashier's desk. We opened it up and looked it over further. They wanted $99.00 for it. It measured 44 inches wide and 70 inches tall. We decided that we were meant to find and buy this piece. 

Our truck, which is rarely used, would hold it, and we had it with us. Plus, I had rope in it. Bought it we did and carefully loaded it, securing it with this 1" rope I have had for decades and never used. By the time we got home, it was dark, and rain was forecast, so we slid it out of the truck and removed the shelves and doors to lighten it. Then carefully carried it into the family room.

This image is actually after I had started working on it. We found that a piece of wood from the bottom front was long gone and felt it needed some sort of feet to keep the ancient wood off the floor. You can see the feet test-fitted in the photo. Plus the three shelves are inside it. They are 1" thick, and do not match each other in length as they had been cut with a hand saw who knows how many years ago. 

Constructed of mahogany, whatever glue they had used had long since let go. The only thing holding it together were tiny iron nails. We could make it move back and forth and side-to-side simply by pushing on it. So, some sort of bracing was in order.

Below are shots of the piece showing construction, finish and other details. I have worked with wood, and all kinds of other materials, all my life, so this was a challenge I readily accepted.

Above shows the gap from the missing piece from the front on the left. Also missing is some sort of  trim along the sides and possibly the front too.

Every nick, scratch and missing finish has a story we will never learn. Plus they add character.

Better seen above is the area where a piece of wood once resided below the doors.

Decorative rosette(?) trim on each side parallel to the pieces of wood separating each piece of glass in the doors.

Looking up shows the slap-dash finishing of the back wall and separate pieces of wood that make up the top. Note the saw-tooth trim and crown mouldings.

Speaking of saw-tooth, the supports for the shelves are like none we'd ever seen. Two on the inside of each side wall. Oddly, the shelves are too shallow to reach the front supports. Note also the heavy decorative trim on each side at the bottom front.

Left side has a crack most of the length of it. Saw-tooth trim continues on each side on top.

Doors are set in place for the photo, but not attached.

Yes, The locks are offset. Remember, this cabinet was made a LONG time ago. I wish there was a way to find out who, when and where it was made.

The two-tooth piece shown above was missing on the left. So my wife used this one to make a template and reverse engineered it. 

The feet we chose are large wooden balls. Which are flat top and bottom. With a threaded stud on the top. So I attached these brackets to the bottom. This would be the right rear when upright. At first I attached them squared with the two walls. Then realized that mounting them this way would add some rigidity. The bolt with nut is to make sure the bracket is exactly centered over the hole for the stud. Note how thick the walls are and the tongue and groove construction. Every hole I drilled was done so carefully to protect the ancient wood.

I kept the front brackets squared to help secure the new front bottom trim piece I was making out of a piece of oak. Mahogany, except Luan plywood, is pretty hard to find. I stained and finished the oak to match.

This view and the one below shows the back panel made up of nine separate pieces with tongue and grove construction lengthwise. Also note they never finished the inside of the top nor the outside. People tended to be much shorter than 70" way back then. I stand 75" tall, so I can see it.

Decorative pieces at the bottom, right is above and left is below. The left one took a hit or two. See how dark the wood is? When I drilled any the dust was very red. I suppose it could be cherry too, now that I think about it.

Iron nails are visible in the image above. Once hidden behind the missing trim pieces.

The back now squared and reinforced with large steel brackets. Looks as though it was against wainscotting at some point, based upon the scratches.

Here are the ball-feet prior to being finished. Thick and heavy and just the right height.

Here it is temporarily put together prior to being carried upstairs. The new bottom trim piece is visible and matches very well. The feet were finished the same but came out darker. I don't know what kind of wood they are made of.

Now upstairs, with two of the shelve installed. I could not figure out how shelve attached to those saw-tooth wooden brackets. So I removed all four of them and carefully measured and marked where to drill holes for shelf brackets (below).

Brackets in place, but have to be out to install the shelves, there is so little room to maneuver the boards. I found Ikea had shelf boards of solid pine already finished a dark brown. I had to trim 3/8" from the back, 8" from one end and notch each to clear central door frame.

I'm glad I chose to not finish the inside to cover where the saw-tooth brackets were. As installing the shelves was so tricky and left scratches on the inner panels on the sides.

All seven shelves now in place. They are all 8" apart, even though it doesn't look like it. Bottom one is secured by iron nails that once held the saw-tooth brackets on to the walls.

My wife found metal knobs that are a close match to the wood and she wanted to make the glass less translucent. So she got some smoke-tint and installed it.

Finally filled with all the movies with plenty of room to spare. The locks aren't quite so obviously misaligned once the doors are installed.

It was a fun project and it goes with the acacia wood floors and other types of wooden furniture we have.

Thanks for looking,

Scott

February 5, 2018