David Walters, Qld

Wine Cabinet
American walnut, American maple
630 w x 360 d x 1630mm h

My wine cabinet’s design was originally influenced by an article in the book Building Fine Furniture by Glen Huey c2004. I have kept the original parameters of a rectangular carcase with horizontal and vertical partitions, a drawer, two doors all supported on a rectangular base.
I have made several design changes to reflect my own aesthetic sensibilities. These include the following. The vertical partitions have horizontally curved front faces, the bottle shelves have arcs cut into their front edges with shallow grooves in their top faces to keep the bottles centred, the drawer and work shelf are bowed, the cabinet back has an extra vertical partition and a rectangular inlay, the doors have floating panels as per Roy Schack, the drawer and door handles are of my own design, the front rail of the base is different, the bases’ legs curve out in two directions and finally there is a gap between the top and base creating a shadow line in this area. I was originally struck by the fine lines of the piece and the changes I have made were designed to both accentuate these fine lines and also to add further visual interest to the cabinet.

Construction
The cabinet is constructed of solid American walnut and solid American maple. The carcase, in maple, employs biscuits to join top, bottom and sides. The bottle shelves, in walnut, slide into stopped dadoes cut into the maple sides and vertical partitions. The shelf slides into stopped dadoes cut into the vertical partitions. The drawer is constructed using hand cut dovetails with maple front and back, oak sides and walnut floor. The back is constructed of walnut panels joined with biscuits with floating maple panels in the centre. The topmost horizontal walnut panel has an inlaid rectangle of maple on its inside face. The door frames are maple with slip joints, the door panels are book matched walnut with floating tenons at the top and bottom. The door and drawer handles are walnut. The base is constructed of walnut with mortise and tenon joints with a back and two side foot rails. All joints were glued using Titebond 3. The entire piece was finished with many coats of Feast Watson buffing oil.

Photos: David Walters