The Technique of FURNITURE MAKING

HANDLES, KNOBS AND PULLS

It is axiomatic that handles can make or mar a piece of furniture. The first essential is that they should provide the necessary grip, strong enough for a direct pull on heavy drawers or doors, but discreet enough not to usurp more than their fair share of visual interest. There are no golden rules and good taste alone must decide their selection and placing. A flamboyant piece of furniture might require flamboyant handles, or handles so unobtrusive that they are hardly noticeable; plain, utilitarian furniture, utilitarian handles or some added richness to relieve stark surfaces. One thing only is certain: the designer must visualize the handles as part of his total conception; they must grow out of and not be added to his design merely as an afterthought.

BOLTS

Cabinet bolts can be flush sunk or the open type screwed to the face, with the latter either necked or straight. Necked bolts (275:1) are used where the door fits against the shoulder of a rebate/rabbet (275:1 A), but the flush type or the extruded open-face fixing type (275:2) are usual for light cabinet-work. Various forms of automatic self-closing or self-aligning bolts are

Number and placing of handles

Here again there are no rules. If one handle will open a drawer without having to rock it from side to side so much the better. If two handles are necessary, they can be placed in the usual positions, i. e. on the quarter and three-quarter division marks in the drawer width and central in the depth; but this is not compulsory and the placings can be symmetrical on the quarter lines or asymmetrical, if the design composition calls for it, always providing the handles perform their proper function.

Wood handles

Hitherto bought wooden handles were invariably clumsy and in stained common woods, but ornamental knobs and pulls in palisander, teak, walnut, mahogany, etc. are now obtainable, or they can be very easily turned on a suitable lathe. Kingwood is beautiful for turned knobs, if it can be obtained, but ebony, rosewood, satinwood, Indian laurel, walnut and box are all excellent. Sycamore can also be used, but care must be taken and the knobs gloss polished on the lathe immediately after the final sanding or the end grain (all

277 Metal handles

knobs are turned out of long-grain stuff) will take on a grubby appearance.

Representative examples are illustrated in 276:1, 2 and 3, while 276:4, 5 are hand turned. Methods of fastening are shown in 276:6 where a pilot hole is drilled for the screw, and the short stub dowel inset into the drawer front prevents the knob splitting as the screw is driven home; while in 276:7 the dowel-pin is taken through the thickness of the drawer front, saw kerfed and wedged from the back. Large wooden knobs can have the dowel or spigot threaded with tap and die as in much Victorian furniture, but the methods already described can be as effective. Figures 276:8, 9 are wood pulls worked in the length and cut off as required; they are screwed from the back. Figures 276:10, 11 are typical sliding flush door pulls, the former routered out, but the latter can be turned in a lathe, while 276:12 is an oblong routered version. Recessed cabinet handles for door and drawer fronts are shown in 276:13-16, while a simple method of forming a grip recess to a drawer front is shown in 276:17, 18.

Overlapping holes are bored at an angle, cleaned up with file and abrasive paper and backed with a piece of thin veneered plywood glued and screwed on (276:18).

Metal handles

Reproduction brass handles of good quality are obtainable at most architectural ironmongers. The back plates of these are usually pressed, as distinct from cast in the best antique examples, but the similitude is fair enough. Modern handles in brass, alloy, electro-plated plastic, clear perspex, etc. are available in bewildering variety and some manufacturers' lists contain many hundreds of varieties. In selecting these handles for hand-made furniture it is advisable to exercise restraint, for the more elaborate examples can advertise the fact that they are production-made by the very excellence of their finish, thus destroying the subtle appeal of an individually made piece of furniture. Representative examples are shown in 277. Figures 277:1 and 2 are extruded metal alloy pulls, 277:3 a spun-metal pull for sliding doors, 277:4-20 various types in brass, alloy and plated plastic. Figure 277:21 is a flush pull in two parts recessed into the door or drawer and screwed together from the back. Types of finishes for all these handles vary with the pattern, and the particular catalogue from which some of these examples have been chosen lists no less than 95 distinct finishes, from "polished continental silver anodised' to 'matt black coated plastic'.