wrote in message
ups.com...

foggytown wrote:
I know there's no hard and fast rules on this subject but I think
common sense should have some bearing. The other week Norm built an
absolutely gorgeous highboy from tiger maple. ...

Then Norm pulled out a drawer and you got a good look inside. It could
have passed as a crude example from a pallet factory's seconds pile!
How can anything so lovely have such an ugly and utilitarian interior?

... OK, using good hardwood for cleats and dust frames and
runners, etc. will cost more than ply or poplar. And maybe the
economics of putting the NYW show together are tighter than we think.
But I just feel that an exceptional piece should have exceptional (but
not necessarily the same) standards throughout.


On _The Antiques Road Show_ I've seen many antiques with poplar or
white pine secondary wood appraised at several tens of thousands
of dollars. But any part that showed in normal use, like drawer sides
were well-executed.

I've also seen antiques in a store with quarter sawn sycamore for
the interior drawer sides and one had birds' eye maple plywood for
drawer bottoms.

I've read that at one time bird's eye was considered to be a defect
and sycamore has poor dimensional stablity--it would almost
have to be quarter sawn to be acceptable for drawer sides. So
maybe both of those were examples of 'cheap' wood being used
where it wasn't usually seen!!

--

FF


Antiques are generally considered to have been made before 1830 . The reason
being production machinery for the most part was not available before then
so pieces were basically hand made .

By the way plywood [drawer bottoms] surfaced a long time after 1830