I made a small sculptural cabinet as a gift for a dear mentor/friend, and wanted to share it today! It’s a ridiculous cabinet since it’s so small/impractical to use. It’s more of an art piece than a functional object.

This sculptural wall-hanging cabinet continues an exploration of stone with wood and features a fully hand carved soapstone sculpture and pull, a dovetailed piston fit drawer, and a book-matched veneered back panel. It’s crafted from Swiss Pear and Indian Soapstone.

A few pics show the process of the cabinet. Some lessons learnt:

I tried a housed dowel joint (think haunched tenon, but dowels instead of an integral tenon). I think this will make the cabinet far stronger and allowed me to put more glue on the joint.

Sculpting with a gouge is satisfying but takes a LONG time. Touching it up with a strop every couple of minutes saved me from having to take the tool back to the grinding wheel.

Cut my first half blind dovetails for the drawer.…