The manufacturing of solid wood furniture.

The process of manufacturing solid wood furniture at Burgoon Furniture Company combines artful design with old world craftsmanship. We design and build a simple yet elegant line of furniture that lets the natural figure of the wood standout in a way that is beautiful, functional, and timeless. Our furniture makers are self taught and use the antiques of the last two centuries as direction when building our present designs.

Although our company manufactures solid wood bedroom furniture, the use of our Oak and Cherry dressers and wash stands is not limited to just bedrooms. They can be used as accent pieces in foyers, dens, kitchens and dining rooms.

The following is an overview of how we construct our solid wood furniture. We hope you find the information useful and that it gives you better insight into our manufacturing process.

Harvest of trees

Our process begins with the harvest of American Black Cherry and Red Oak trees from the Alleghany Plateau primarily in Pennsylvania. The trees are then transported to one of Bingaman & Son Lumber Company’s four Pennsylvania facilities to be cut and dried. We purchase trees harvested from the Alleghany Plateau because we believe, as Thos. Moser and many others do, that this area is home to some of the finest hardwoods in the world, most notably the Black Cherry. The wood color and narrower tree growth rings produce lumber of exceptional beauty.

Another reason we purchase from this area is because Burgoon Furniture Company is located in Bradford, Pennsylvania—in the middle of these precious forests. Not only do we believe in supporting our local economy, but the sawyers and lumber mill employees are our friends and neighbors.

Aligning ourselves with the best people and materials available enables us to produce heirloom solid wood furniture that will last generations.

Manufacturing process:

Every piece of furniture is made of solid wood. Plywood is NEVER used. We begin our process by drawing up blueprints of one of our unique furniture designs. We then develop process sheets to control how and when each part is built and assembled. Using primarily wide boards—both 8/4 and 4/4—that are selected and matched for both wood color and grain symmetry, we then mark each board for location where they are to be used in the furniture.

Selected boards are then rough cut on the table saw and radial arm saw to obtain the approximately one hundred parts required to build a single piece of solid wood furniture. We then take the boards to the jointer where two sides are squared and jointed flat before planning to take all four sides square. Some pieces are at final size here while others will need finished at the table saw.

The next several steps take the parts to different specialty machines. The posts head to the mortise and tenon machine and table saw for open mortise operations. The floating panels are run on the table saw with dado blades to make their rabbit edges. Case sides and backs are also on the table saw for all open mortise operations. Case sides and backs and cabinet makers buttons are back on the table saw with a tenon jig to cut their tenons.

Appliqués are cut to size, their angles routed and designs hand carved. In between all of these steps the four piece top is glued together as are the floor bottom of the dry sink and all drawer bottoms. The drawer sides, fronts and backs head over to the crescent and pin jig to have the router machine them .This joint was invented in 1870 by Charles Knapp and was the first mechanical made joint for drawers. It fell out of vogue about 1900 with the invention of a jig to mechanically make dovetail joints.

This takes us to dry fit up and glue up. After the pieces have dried for a day, we move on to the sanding phase. The color coat is then applied and a clear coat added. Lastly, the hardware is installed and we can now ship the product to you. Shipping is handled by Clark & Reid, experts in the delivery of high end solid wood furniture. Their white glove in-home delivery will exceed your expectations.

Physical description

Drawers

• Drawers are made of ¾” fronts, ½” sides, backs, and bottoms
• Each drawer is hand fit and numbered
• Fronts/sides/backs are made from one wide board
• Drawers are joined with crescent and pin joinery
• Each drawer is finished with 3 top coats of satin polyurethane inside and out. This gives the wood the best scratch and moisture resistance

Tops

Tops of our solid wood furniture are ¾” thick and are four 5” boards glued together from the same highly figured wide board to control grain and color match. We only use Titebond III wood glue and alternate cup up, cup down “growth rings” to help maintain flatness.

Cabinet makers’ buttons, a traditional method using tongued wood blocks, are used to attach the top to the case. The tongue fits into slots in the case which helps keep the top flat and enables it to move freely with seasonal moisture changes.

A flat sawn red oak top 17 ¾” wide can move .327” or over 5/16” from 6% moisture content (winter) to 12% moisture content (summer). Under average conditions the polyurethane top coat keeps your furniture at 8% moisture content. But if the extremes did occur, Burgoon Furniture pieces are built dimensionally to handle the change. When possible, having your home’s relative humidity settings at 45% at 70 degrees F will maintain 8% moisture content of your solid wood furniture.

Case construction

• Uses mortise and tenon joinery, a time proven method for maximum strength. The mortise and tenon joints maintain a .005” slipfit for optimum glue bond.
• Case sides and backs are ¾” thick and floating panels are ½” thick, both made from one wide board
• Case backs are fully finished to match in color and the entire case is top coated inside and out with 3 coats of satin polyurethane

Corner posts are 2 x 1 ½ in the dressers and 2 ¼ x 1 ½ in the washstands giving a sturdy anchor point for case sides and backs to be attached

Appliqués are hand carved

Hardware- Handles, casters, coasters, towel rods and brackets are made of solid brass

Wood color – we use both natural and dyed wood in our manufacturing. To color our red oak products we use a water based dye to give maximum depth of color while maintaining wood grain clarity. A gel stain is then applied to highlight the open grain pores. This is a labor intensive 10 step process that results in unmatched richness and depth of colors.

Sustainable forestry

We believe and are committed to the responsible use of our forests. In order to fulfill our part in the chain of responsibility, we have selected Bingaman and Sons Lumber to supply our lumber due to their proactive stand on sustainable forestry. Read their environmental policy under about us on their web site. Another important link in the chain of responsibility is you, the consumer. You not only must choose a manufacturer that incorporates sound views, but you also must select products that are durable and will last, giving our forests the opportunity to regenerate. Buying Burgoon furniture or Burgoon boards from Burgoon Furniture Company will ensure that sustainable forestry happens. Our products are made to order, built to last and are beautiful, functional and timeless.

At Burgoon Furniture Company our products are proudly Made in the U.S.A.