I grew up with, and inherited, a bunch of Chinese furniture, primairy in
rosewood, some with carved cedar panels. Until I got into woodworking,
these pieces were just furniture - nice furniture for sure - but not
anything I'd really examined - or
studied.

Eventually, I got beyond Norm and plywood. That's when I started
studying a
few of the pieces I really like. I began to see that despite their
apparent delicate
look, when you examine the inside you see that you're seeing an illusion
of
delicacey - the parts you don't normally see being a lot beefier than
one would
think - and what appears to be several delicate pieces - applied molding
in
"western furniture" is actually an integral part of a structural member,
visually
broken up into more delicate looking parts.

What was most surprising was that almost all of the joinery can't be
seen -
it's all internal - out of sigth, out of mind - nothing to distract from
the
illusion. Naturally I had to find out what they did that I COULDN"'T
see. A
bit of web searching, visits with a woodworker who does a lot of chinese
and japanese joinery, a book or two - and I was hooked. There are a
thousand
and one - or more -ways to stick to pieces of wood together - and keep
them
there. Though "western" furniture makers have come up with some pretty
tricky joinery, they pale in comparison to those done by 10th generation
furniture makers with emperors as patrons and climate changes that can
be so extreme - requiring special joinery to accomodate them.

So here's the first of three examples of Chinese Joinery - the familiar
Frame and Panel - done in a slightly unfamilair way.

charlie b