The Technique of FURNITURE MAKING

Solid board carcass construction

This method of carcass construction is rarely undertaken by large manufacturers, and, when it is, the wood is usually strip laminated for stability and uniformity of colour and grain in production. Figure 185, for example, shows a solid wood top made of 18 in (45 cm) sections glued together with a resin adhesive to form an 18 in (45 cm) board. Ercol of High Wycombe

186 Carcass shrinkage

are the masters of this form of construction, which they developed many years ago with the notoriously unstable wood, English elm.

Solid wood carcass construction is otherwise predominantly the province of the designer - craftsmen and the small workshops working largely on one-off commissions or small batches.

Grain direction

Carcasses built up of solid wood boards must have the grain directions continuous, with the side grains vertical and the top and bottom grains parallel to the leading edges, so that all the shrinkage across the width of the boards is from back to front, as indicated by the arrows (186:1). If the grain of the sides were horizontal, and the top and bottom from front to back as in 186:2, then a moment's reflection would show that any pronounced shrinkage across the width of the boards would lower the carcass top, close in the sides and jam the doors or drawers; more­over such cross-grain wood would have little bearing strength. Horizontal - or cross-grain effects can be achieved with plywood construc­tions where there is little if any shrinkage and approximately equal stiffness in either direction, but such effects should be an integral part of the design or they will appear unnatural from the viewpoint of custom and usage. Solid wood carcasses which are to be face veneered will have the groundwork as 186:1 and the veneers laid the same way as the grain.