Tag: french

A Unique French Plane

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools2 Comments

I was going through my tool collection yesterday when I stumbled on this little plane. It looks like any other coffin smoother with a convex sole until I took it apart to look at the blade.

When looking at the back side of the plane, you can see where there is a screw mechanism to advance the cap iron up and down.

I took a brad awl and stuck it in the hole spinning the screw all the way down  hoping I could remove the cap iron, but it didn’t work. My thread got stuck underneath the nut and I couldn’t turn it anymore.

Then, as luck would have it, when I wiggled the cap iron a little bit, it came loose off the blade. My tool oil I used must have loosened up the rust that has been sitting in the blade for decades. You can see a little nib at the top of the blade where  the cap iron mechanism lays into.

After doing some research, I found the company Aux Mines De Suede that made the plane. I downloaded their tool catalog and they produced a lot of interesting woodworking tools.



The body of the plane looks to be oak. You can see the scribe marks on the side as a guide where to cut out the inside. There is no makers stamp on the body so it may have been custom made plane by the owner.  It’s a really interesting plane I have never seen before.

Repairing a Desk’s Legs

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture5 Comments

My wife Anita won this desk at a local auction a couple of weeks ago. She loved the curves of the desk and wants to use it for sewing. What she’s going to sew I have no idea but that ‘s what she wants it for. It was in decent shape with a few spots where the veneer needed to be glued down and the leg needed to be glued back to the frame but that’s easy stuff to fix. What really needed attention were the two legs in the back that were missing part of their feet.

More than likely, sometime in the past the desk sat in some water and both back feet became unglued from their leg. I knew Anita was planning on painting it so I just grabbed some straight grain cherry about 1″ thick and glued it onto both back legs.

Once the glued dried, I started filing away the wood trying to recreate the swoop of the pad. Since the bad legs were in the back, it wasn’t entirely necessary to make perfect matching feet with the ones in the front since no one would really see them while the desk was against the wall but I still wanted to give it my best shot.

I used a variety of rasps and MicroPlanes to shape the curve into the foot. I’ve made cabriolet legs before so I had a basic understanding of how to shape them. Once the general shape was created, I drew the bead onto the blank and used my Dremel to carve it in.

After shaving was completed, 80 and 150 grit sandpaper finalized the foot. I was quite pleased with the results.

One foot down, one to go. It took about 30 minutes for me to finish one foot listening to the Bengals game on the radio.

After I was done with both feet, I flipped over the desk to see how it looks. Not too shabby. Once the desk is painted no one will know that the feet where redone. Anita was impressed as well. She didn’t think I would have been able to match the two in the front. I guess I’m good for something.

French Style Bookcase

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture2 Comments

My French style bookcase is painted and done. It turned out really well. My wife loves it which is all that really matters. I decided that I will build a few more and have my wife paint them with different colors to see if we can sell them on Craigslist. I posted these pictures on Facebook with a little bit of a description and an asking price of $450.00 which is cheap considering hand-made bookcases sell for over a $1000 in furniture stores. I’ll see if I get any offers on Facebook but even if I don’t, I won’t let it be a deterrent from building more because I feel that people will really like these bookcases.

The bookcase measures 59″ Long x 16″ Wide x 34 1/2″ High and is made from poplar. My wife did an excellent job painting it with two coats of semi-gloss black latex paint and a primer underneath. It’s turned out really well but I’m considering painting the next ones with a lacquer paint for durability. I’ll have one black, one white and one black with white stencil, or vice versa, whatever my wife decides to do.

The side shot shows the detail of the crown molding that I cut with an old molding plane and the cross bars that hold the case together. The crossbars are strong but make the whole bookcase light. The crossbars also imitate the sides of the Eiffel Tower which puts it in the French Style.

This morning my wife and I decided to fancy up bookcase by decorating it. We searched all over our home for trinkets and stuff to stick on the shelves. I used a picture of a bookcase from a furniture catalog to act as a guide on how to decorate it. After we were done, my wife didn’t want to put the stuff back from where we got them since the bookcase looked so nice.

Hopefully I’ll get good feedback from my friends on Facebook. Maybe I’ll even get an order or two.