_Panels._ A panel is defined as a board with a surrounding frame. The word is derived from the old English _panel_, a piece of cloth, Latin _pannus_, "a cloth or patch"; from the same word we have _pane_. In wood-carving we practically apply it to small boards intended to be set in furniture, or walls, or ceilings, or made into book-covers or box-lids. The uses of panels are without limit, as they may be introduced into almost every kind of furniture, such as the backs and sides of chairs, chests, bedsteads, caskets, window-garden boxes, doors, or wherever a flat surface can be adorned. When surrounded with a frame or several strips of moulding, any panel becomes improved when the outer frame is not overdone. As a rule the border of a panel should be plain, so as to distinctly define or set forth the pattern. For this reason many very ordinary and even rude subjects "come out" or look well when thus "mounted." A series of carved panels makes a beautiful frieze for any room. A good general size for most work is a panel six inches by twelve, more or less, and half an inch thick. In _spacing_ a panel for ornament the pupil may begin by making one circle in the centre and one in each corner, so that the five may fill up the whole space. Convert these into a vine and apply ornaments. There are of course endless variations of this principle. (Consult the "Manual of Design.")
_Chairs._ Take any chair, copy it, and then fill the spaces with ornaments to be carved. Large, square, high-backed, old-fashioned chairs admit of the most panelling, and can be made up by any cabinet-maker or carpenter, _vide_ Fig. 69. It is a very good plan to always have such objects made up in pieces, carve them separately, and then have them put together. It may be observed for beginners, and those who are not much practised in cabinet-making, that there is a very substantial kind of furniture once made very commonly in Germany, and which has been much revived of late years. It is made entirely without glue, nails, or screws, by simply cutting holes into which tenons or _ends_ project, which ends are fastened on the other side by holes and pins.
On this principle every kind of furniture can be made by any man who is ingenious enough to simply measure boards, cut square holes, and adapt pins to them. Such articles as are made by this process are very much stronger than any others, and they have the great advantage that they can be easily taken apart, packed, or be stored in very small space when not in use; and the style is of course more adapted to carving than ordinary furniture. The writer has in his possession chairs 250 years old made on this principle. The seat is a square nearly two inches thick, in which four holes are bored, into which the legs are simply set, as in a milking-stool. Between the hind legs two square holes are cut, into which similar tenons made in the lower end of the back are fitted. In these tenons two square holes are cut, just exactly on the other side of the seat, into which square pins are driven, Fig. 65. With a very little ingenuity or will, anybody can contrive to make any piece of furniture on the same principle. The seats of chairs and stools, or the faces of tables, should never be carved, for very apparent reasons. There is plenty of space for the carver to work at on the edges and legs, and this may be made striking enough by means of colouring and gilding, Figs. 64 and 66.