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Western Piedmont Woodcrafters

The ONE club for ALL woodworkers

17th Century Secretary

Jack Adair is one of the club members seen regularly at monthly Woodcrafters meetings.  He is retired now, but was a dentist in Newton, NC for forty years and served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War.  Since retiring he took up woodworking and has built many decorative boxes and pieces of furniture.

This 17th century Pennsylvania Secretary Style desk began in Jack’s.  He read an article in the magazine Fine Woodworking by Lonnie Byrd on how to build it.  The construction of the desk was a feature article in three consecutive issues with pretty good pictures, drawings and measurements.  Jack decided to make one himself.  The wood came from a single walnut tree that grew on the north side of a little creek that crosses his land.

The tree was cut in 2001 along with some red oak and poplar, and the logs were dragged up to the house and picked up by Pete Lee who owns a small home made saw mill in Eastern Catawba County.

Pete invited Jack down to help with the sawing of the lumber.  The boards were then stacked in Jack’s shop for curing.  On some summer days his garage shop felt like a dry kiln, and after two years the boards tested to about 10% moisture.  Near the end of construction Jack had to purchase a little extra walnut; otherwise the majority of the wood came off his land.

The actual construction was started in August of 2003 following the instructions in Fine Woodworking.  There were many steps that Jack did not know how to do or that he had not done before.   He took each step one at a time concentrating on that particular phase.  On many of the more difficult parts he made a sample part or cut with the table saw, band saw or router in pine lumber before doing the same in walnut.  Many of the pictures show various stages of completion and many of the smaller components needed to complete the whole project.

The lower section was completed and the finish applied (walnut stain and nine coats of wipe-on polyurethane) in February of 2004.  The top section was completed in November of 2004, giving a total time of about sixteen months.  Jack took a lot of vacation time.  Art Carney, currently the Western Piedmont Woodcrafters Vice-President and master woodworker, helped Jack with the installation of the desk lid on the bottom section and with the hanging of the doors and crown molding on the top.  Jack says that without Art's encouragement and advice along the way he doubts that he would have attempted this large project.

Jack normally enjoys building many attractive varied size boxes, so this was definitely a large project for him.  All in all it was a labor of love. Now Jack and his family have a piece of furniture to be proud of and will last for many years to come.

Jack says he learned many valuable lessons about life as well as woodworking:

· Seemingly impossible tasks can be accomplished by breaking them down into doable segments.

· If you don't know how to do something, study all you can tolerate and then practice.

· Measure twice or even thrice and cut once.

· Absolute perfection is rarely achieved.

· When you turn on your table saw think pure thoughts!

Project 2

Date Posted: 2/2/2005