Plans for Small Secret Drawer Box

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Don't exist surprised. Behind the prospectus of a fall-front desk is a great secret area. Sympathise how the lock works and a earth of secrets might be divulged – if, that is, the prospectus is made to remove.

Secret drawers and hidden compartments are as much fun to create as they are to discover.

When I was a teenager, I met a cantankerous one-time lumber guy. You know the type – a little too disgruntled to actually have the term "customer service" use, but with enough raw instinct to look deep within a log to find that special board. I had amateur and professional woodworkers akin tell me they just couldn't deal with him, but I just kept going dorsum. The forest was too skillful, and I liked the sometime guy.

Over the years I saw the quality and quantity of his lumber increment at a rate that far exceeded that at which my skills were developing. Nosotros became friends through our common appreciation of wood, but he was nevertheless cantankerous. Equally my skills developed I began to make him a few pieces of furniture. He did, after all, appreciate wood and expert adroitness. Ane day I showed him a movie of a Chester County spice chest on frame that I was going to build for a customer. He took the bait and signed on for one himself.

This was my adventure to pay him back for all those years of being somewhat less than affable, in a proficient-natured way of course. Spice chests are known for their underground compartments. These wouldn't be the first hole-and-corner drawers I'd ever made, but this was my take a chance to show off how far my skills had progressed. I planned the complex series of locking mechanisms that somewhen led to an entire bank of hidden drawers. The all-time part of the scheme was that he didn't even know spice chests were well-known for their cloak-and-dagger compartments.

Information technology's Not Wasted Space If You Use It
Most furniture forms will accommodate a hidden compartment or secret drawer somewhere. A few forms have had them with fair regularity such as spice chests, fall-front desks and blanket chests. Throughout the ages, craftsmen have tried to take advantage of the "wasted" space occupied by structural elements and mouldings by including a hidden compartment or cloak-and-dagger drawer.

If you've ever really opened a cloak-and-dagger compartment on a period article of furniture, you probably noticed they generally aren't meant to concord very large secrets. In fact, most secret drawers are so small as to seem fairly useless. And so why, and so, did all those flow furniture makers invest then much fourth dimension in creating them? Why practise they yet fascinate united states of america today? The answer is simple: They're only patently fun.

Every bit a cabinetmaker, they're fun to plan and execute. Having seen my clients poke and prod their article of furniture in search of the locking mechanism that would reveal the hush-hush, I can tell yous they're even more fun afterwards they're complete.

Historical Perspective
For thousands of years people have been making cloak-and-dagger compartments. We've all seen the movie where the hero dusts off a decorative element then carefully twists that element to appoint some sort of mechanical lock that allows the hidden compartment to bound open. The thing that fascinates united states about subconscious compartments is the ingenuity of the creator. Information technology's the petty bit of mystery, the puzzle to be solved to achieve the goal.

From the viewpoint of the maker in that location's the challenge of creating a compartment that's so carefully hidden, with a locking mechanism that is then artistic, that the secrets contained within are secure from all but those who know how the lock works.

It'due south that cleverness that has kept the popularity of the secret compartment alive amidst the builders and users of furniture for all these years. When we look at underground compartments historically, we observe that they were never more pop than during the 18th century – the Historic period of Enlightenment. People and so, equally at present, had a fascination with the latest technology. For them, information technology wasn't electronics, it was things mechanical. This interest in mechanical, mathematical and scientific thought permeated many aspects of their lives. Tall case, or grandfather, clocks were an example of that involvement. They were mechanical in that they were a machine and scientific in that they precisely kept the time.

Know Where To Await
And people carried this mechanical interest into their furniture. When nosotros examine period pieces we fi nd hidden compartments in every imaginable type of furniture and in some of the about imaginative places in those pieces. There are examples of the decorative valances of the pigeonholes of a fall-front desk being made into minor drawers.

You fi nd panels on the forepart of tills in blanket chests that slide open to reveal hidden drawers; backboards that drop down or pivot out to reveal compartments; hollow dividers that create minor spaces for drawers; table and chair aprons that hibernate drawers. Removable dividers and leap-loaded push button buttons – these are just some of the different secrets that have been incorporated into furniture over the years.

When one looks at the locking mechanisms used in these early pieces y'all fi nd that cabinetmakers primarily used their cleverness in combining simple locks rather than inventing new, complex systems for keeping their compartments airtight. In an early on 18thcentury highboy I copied, the crown moulding conceals a hidden lace drawer. Part of the crown is actually the drawer front. This is a fairly typical identify for a hidden drawer in an early highboy.

If this undercover drawer design had a locking mechanism, it would accept most likely been a simple spring lock, also called a Quaker lock. This mechanism can be used in combination with other spring locks to provide an infinitely variable series of locks that keep a compartment closed.

Another common locking mechanism was the sliding dovetailed fundamental. This amounts to a pocket-size slice of woods set into a dovetailed groove that slides into a mortise, which locks the hidden drawer or secret compartment.

These two elementary locking mechanisms account for the bulk of locks on secret drawers in 18th-century furniture. They were popular because they could easily be made in the shop, and, more important, they were easy to use. Creatively applying them in combination allows the article of furniture maker to create a hugger-mugger compartment that is not hands opened.

Both locks beginning out using the same basic dovetailed key. They were usually made from a difficult, springy wood. I used white oak in my examples. The spring lock would commonly be a fleck thinner and longer than the sliding cardinal. This allows the spring lock to be fl exed enough to allow it to be unlocked. The sliding fundamental was usually a bit thicker and shorter in length. It relied solely on its ability to be completely removed from a mortise, thereby allowing the compartment to be revealed.

Lock Mechanisms Made Easy
Let'due south examine, step by footstep, how to make these 2 very common locks. First is the bound, or Quaker, lock. This lock has many applications but is particularly good to use in conjunction with hidden compartments. The photograph to the near correct shows all of the tools necessary to brand this lock. Although only hand tools are pictured, a router tin can also be used.

The almost common place to find this lock is on the bottom of drawers in chests. In antiquarian piece of furniture, iron or brass drawer locks were expensive and took a lengthy period of fourth dimension to acquire. A furniture maker might apply a few metal locks for the lower drawers of a chest and a couple Quaker locks on the smaller, upper drawers. The spring mechanism is fiddling more than a piece of hardwood attached to the lesser of the drawer using a sliding dovetail set at an angle. This allowed the front end of the spring to take hold of a drawer blade (as well known equally a drawer divider) just below the drawer; that kept the drawer closed and locked. One would need to open the drawer below in society to admission the spring on the upper drawer.

I commonly offset with a piece of oak about 1⁄8" thick (depending on the application) and a few inches long. Utilise a handplane to bevel the edges of the oak so it tapers toward the top. Brand certain to go on the sides of the oak key parallel as you lot work. Check the angles to brand sure they are planed to similar angles.

Once you have the oak key cutting, it'southward time to transfer the dimensions of the key to the piece in which the key gets installed. Ready a bevel square to the angles of your cardinal, and then saw into the drawer bottom. The idea is to create a dovetailed channel that slopes upwardly from its back and reaches a vanishing bespeak about half the length of the central.

Once you have the channel sawn, use a chisel to remove the waste product. If you discover information technology difficult to saw the sides of the aqueduct, chopping the side angles with a chisel is acceptable. Use your handplane to adjust the key; make the key fit into the channel snugly. As you can run across in the picture at the height right of the side by side page, the oak key now protrudes from the surface of the drawer bottom.

If yous want to utilize this Quaker lock with a hole-and-corner compartment, say the prospectus of a fall-front desk, the spring is mounted in the desk interior with a corresponding catch in the prospectus lesser. To complimentary the unit from the desk, remove the lower drawer of the prospectus to gain access, so through a small hole placed in the lesser console, use a pivot or paperclip to depress the spring and slide the prospectus from the desk interior.

The side by side blazon of lock is the sliding dovetail cardinal. Information technology is very similar to the Quaker lock except that the dovetailed cardinal is positioned fl ush with the surface into which it is being set. Unremarkably the dovetailed primal slides within a dovetailed channel and is captured in a mortise in an side by side piece.

Commencement with the piece into which the dovetailed aqueduct is to be cut. Install a dovetail bit into a router with the depth of cut set up to the thickness of the key (in my case, a piece of iii⁄xvi" oak), then prepare a fence to guide the router and run the channel into the slice, which is normally a example side or bottom. I seldom make my dovetailed keys longer than a couple inches, and so be sure to plan the length of the key earlier you run the slot with the router.

After the channel is cut, use a chisel to square up the end. At present it's time to fi t the dovetailed cardinal. You can either shape the key with a router set up in a table, set a table saw with the appropriate angle or just utilize a handplane to cut the cardinal to size, similar I did on the Quaker lock. Remember that the key needs to taper toward the pinnacle along both edges just similar the Quaker lock; this keeps the key from falling out. Fit the key into the slot using a handplane until yous become a nice slip fit. Utilize a carving gouge and a demote chisel to add together a finger grip to the primal and so the key is like shooting fish in a barrel to slide.

This is i of the favorite locks of the spice chest builder. You'll commonly find them holding up the back of the chest. One merely needs to remove the appropriate drawer from the chest, slide the lock forward and the backboard slides downward to betrayal the secret compartment. For the lumber guy'south spice breast, I used a series of both types of locks to keep the interior of the chest from being easily removed. One but needed to remove the proper drawers, in the proper sequence, and release the lock within to eventually remove the entire interior of the chest. That accomplished, another complete bank of subconscious drawers behind it was exposed.

The sliding dovetailed key can be used to stop a drawer or an entire interior case from moving. In the photograph at right you lot can see a sliding dovetailed key protruding from the side of a desk prospectus.

These two mutual locking mechanisms are very versatile. If you lot use a little imagination they tin help yous create secret compartments in nearly all your furniture projects, as long as you lot plan for it.

Cloak-and-dagger drawers give you the chance to expand your skills and show how clever you can be. You'll take fun planning and making them. Your friends and family will accept fun hunting for the locking mechanisms and discovering the secrets. You'll accept even more fun watching them in the pursuit. If yous're like me, withal, you'll notice bully pleasure in the secrets themselves. This is particularly true in the instance of my lumber guy'south spice breast. You run across, I never told him at that place were any locks or subconscious compartments in his spice chest. To this day, I don't know if he's discovered every secret. Pw

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Source: https://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/its_a_secret_drawers/

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