# My Step-Back Cupboard Build



## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

My next "big" project is a Shaker style step-back cupboard based on the one featured in the September 2003 issue of Fine Woodworking. Mike Dunbar outlined making his from white pine but I can't seem to source any decent looking pine locally. So I opted for poplar since it is going to be painted anyway. The only pine choices I could find was over-priced 3" wide boards for making base molding or the el-crappo-doodie banana shaped boards from the Borg. The poplar will make it a little heavier than a pine version but I think I can manage.

I don't have any large machines so this is going to be a challenge. The sides stand 78" tall with a lower base width of approximately 17" and an upper width of 11". This means a lot of ripping down, milling then gluing back into larger panels. :laugh:

So far I have the stock acclimating and I've milled and sized the two blanks for the sides of the cupboard. This unit is built as a single piece, thus the "L" shape.

Harry, I promise I'll have more process pictures as I go. But so far it was all tablesaw, joiner (machine and handplane) and planer work. Oh, and clamps. And don't forget to put a good burr on that card scraper!

Next up, I'll be cutting the base to create the feet, milling some stop grooves along the sides for the back boards, cutting dados for the bottom and middle shelf and cutting dovetails at the top for the upper board.

p.s. -- added two pictures showing my straight-line jigs. One is a full 8' long (only showing the end with my notes written on it) that is set up for the router and circular saw. The other jig is shorter and router only. These were handy when it came time to make the two blanks equal lengths. The long jig will again be used when it is time to make the stop grooves along the back edge of the side blanks. Lots of examples here on the forum on making and using these sort of jigs as well as a very good video over at Wood Magazine for making them.

p.p.s. -- in the picture showing the small straight line jig, you can also see my hanger for holding my card scrapers. It is made from scraps of poplar and hardboard. There are magnets on the two "rails" that hold the scrapers. You can get adhesive backed magnets lots of different places. These happen to be pieces that were pre-cut for turning business cards into refrigerator magnets.


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

Fantastic start, I will look forward to watching your progress. I think the poplar is a good choice being you will paint it. I know what you mean about the pine, I was able at HD to get some nice 6" wide boards for something in the shop but not really great stuff. I will have to go back to Peach State Lumber in my area and checkout the pine. Good job so far. That is a great number of clamps. One can never have enough clamps and believe me I don’t.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

xplorx4 said:


> Fantastic start, I will look forward to watching your progress. I think the poplar is a good choice being you will paint it. I know what you mean about the pine, I was able at HD to get some nice 6" wide boards for something in the shop but not really great stuff. I will have to go back to Peach State Lumber in my area and checkout the pine. Good job so far. That is a great number of clamps. One can never have enough clamps and believe me I don’t.


The orange cabinet clamps in the picture are Jorgenson brand. Not the highest end type but they seem to work reasonably well. I've collected 10 of the 24" and 4 of the 48" so far. The problem is becoming storage, time to build a real clamp rack! I have some pipe clamps too but I like this style better.

I've been getting them from the local Home Depot a few at a time especially when the HD sends me one of their 12-months same as cash offer. If there is something else I want to get that is below the offer threshold, I pad out the purchase with a couple of clamps and bingo, I get to use somebody else's money for 12 months... (Seriously, if you do things like this, be very, very sure you pay down the principle before the 12-months is up because the interest is applied retroactively to the initial balance.)

Another good source of inexpensive clamps is Harbor Freight. Yes, Harbor Freight. Some of their stuff is crap (OK, a lot is crap), but I've found that the wooden screw clamps they have are pretty decent and cost a lot less than brand name ones. If possible, go to one of their outlet stores and pick through the stuff yourself. Likewise their "F" clamps are OK and their "C" clamps are also decent. Stock does vary as they don't seem to be coming from the same supplier every time I look at them. But as cheap as they are and as easy as it is to get coupons, I can't complain much.


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

I hear you on the pay before the year is up. My wife and I are debt free except for the house and just got it refinianced at 4.75. We have been very fortunate in the past couple years since I injured the shoulder. 

I need to check out HD re clamps and watch for sales to come up. I am really looking froward to your build, looks very interesting.


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## Noob (Apr 18, 2009)

rwyoung said:


> Another good source of inexpensive clamps is Harbor Freight. Yes, Harbor Freight. Some of their stuff is crap (OK, a lot is crap), but I've found that the wooden screw clamps they have are pretty decent and cost a lot less than brand name ones. If possible, go to one of their outlet stores and pick through the stuff yourself. Likewise their "F" clamps are OK and their "C" clamps are also decent. Stock does vary as they don't seem to be coming from the same supplier every time I look at them. But as cheap as they are and as easy as it is to get coupons, I can't complain much.


Clamps are one thing that HF sales that are pretty good for the money. At first I wasn't sure about their F-style clamps because the pads didn't line up on center. I went to Lowes and looked at the Bessey F-style clamps and they were off a bit to so I got a couple of HF clamps instead. 

I've used there aluminum channel bar clamps and they are great for light-medium duty work. Saw these the other day and may try them out extendable bar clamp


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*More progress - and pictures*

More progress tonight. The feet of the cupboard are integral to the sides and front stiles. So I drew out the shape for the sides on a scrap piece of 1/8" plywood. Then rough cut on the jig saw (I like my new toy) and then faired the curve with a sanding drum on the drill press, a wood file and sandpaper. Got it about how I wanted it.

Notice that the "front" foot is narrower than the "rear" foot. This is because the missing 3/4" will be made up by the stile. :wacko:

Both side blanks are aligned and clamped. Then the majority of the waste is cut away with a jig saw. 

Now attach the pattern to the BOTTOM of the stack with double face tape. The router is outfitted with a nice long top bearing bit and the plunge depth set so the bearing will ride the pattern. Now go to work. :moil: 

After removing the pattern I cleaned things a little bit with some 100 grit sandpaper wrapped around a block and also a large diameter dowel.

Next, I started marking up one of the sides for things like the back rabbet, bottom and middle surface dados, cleat and shelf locations and area for the dove tails at the top. When it is time to start routing I can dado both sides at the same time. But the rabbets will be done separately.

The last task for tonight is to start gluing up more panels for the bottom, top and work surface. I need to have these cut to size and finish sanded before I start cutting any dados or dove tails as their thickness becomes the reference for dado width and dovetail dimensions. Got that? The idea is that you make a minimum of measurements with the tape and ruler and instead let the parts do the marking for you. :dirol:

Since this is going to be a painted cabinet I'm not terribly concerned with grain match. But I would like to have tight, clean glue joints. Step one after 30 minutes in the clamps is to pop the squeeze out. I have an old plane blade that came out when I got a nice Hock iron. Works great, bevel down, as a glue popper. :haha: I follow that up with a quick scrape using a card scraper. Proper technique is to use both hands (camera was hand-held for the photo) and put a little bit of bow into the center using your thumbs. Then with mild pressure and some forward tilt, scrape with the grain. Skew the card a little bit too. It takes a little experimenting to find the cutting angle for the burr. But much, much faster than sand paper.

The two blanks shown in clamps will be combined to make the bottom panel. A slick trick for making a reasonably flat panel without loosing a lot of your material thickness is to rip down into narrow strips such that each strip by itself is flat or can be flattened on a jointer (or with a plane) such that you loose the minimum of material. This is what I'm doing here since the remainder of my stock is only about 13/16" thick and I want a nominal 3/4" for most pieces. Most of your loss comes in the saw kerf and edge jointing.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Progress and start of dovetails*

Good progress tonight. Got the blank glued up and sanded for the bottom board (shelf). It is finish sanded to 150 grit but not yet cut to exact size. This will wait just a little bit longer because the top board is going to be held in by dove tail joints (half blind to be exact) and so I want to cut and fit those first before sizing the bottom board.

Also glued and sized is the top board. And one of the upper shelf blanks (two needed) is glued up. Tomorrow night I'll do the other upper shelf blank and the two lower blanks. The last to do will be the work surface.

Skipped over pictures of the glue up of panels because, well, it was the glue up of panels. Seen that before.

The pictures in this post are of the marking and start of the half-blind dove tails. I'm hand cutting these. Why you ask when this is a router forum after all. Why not use a router jig? Well, the problem is the sides are 78" tall, makes them a bit hard to balance on a router table. But wait you say, what about one of the clamp on jigs? Yes, that is an option. However, the sides are still 78" tall and even though I'm 6' 4" I would still need to stand on a step ladder to run the router. Just doesn't sound like a safe operation to me. :jester:

By hand cutting, I can work with the pieces in the bench vice or clamped to the bench itself. And frankly, these are "cabinet maker" joints, not show joints. If they are a little rough because I need more practice with hand cutting, it will be no big deal. If you ever get the chance to look at some of the hidden joinery in 18th century furniture, such as half-blinds used as carcass joints, they can be pretty rough looking. :happy:

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert at cutting dove tails. I can cut them by hand, and I've even made a few that look nice. Lots and lots of good videos out there in web land. A very good set can be found over at the Rough Cut Show by Thomas MacDonald (t-chisel). He has recently revamped his web site so I'm not sure exactly where on the site all the videos reside. But pop on over to Major League Woodworking - Tools, Videos, Tutorials, Projects, and The 207 Woodworking Forum and browse around.

Normally I cut pins first but this time round I'm cutting tails first. So on to the pictures.

1) Mark the depth of the tails, 1/2" in this case. Mark all four edges of the tail board (top board). Go ahead and mark the depth on the ends of the side pieces. 
2) Mark the height of the pins on the side pieces. Take this directly from the thickness of the tail board. 
3) Since this is carcass joinery, we can make the dove tails pretty coarse. 4 tails should be plenty. See the trick for getting 4 equally spaced tails? Pivot the ruler until there is a number evenly divisible by 4 (12" in this case) lined up with the edge of the workpiece. Now tick off every 3". Transfer those lines up to the edge of the board.
4) The pins can be pretty wide too, so go ahead and make them 1/2" at the skinny end and fiddle with the angle until they look right. Yes, some people say 1:8 or 1:10 for the ratio. I think this is about 1:10. 1:8 just looked too shallow. :happy:
5) I need all the help I can get when sawing, so I transfer all the marks to the other side too. 
6) Sawing! The best two tricks I've learned for the sawing operation are to angle the board so you are cutting vertically and to start at a steep angle and kerf the line all the way down on one side. Then start to pivot the saw back to horizontal and it will track the kerf. This leaves you one less line to worry about following. Since these are the first cuts, it isn't super critical that I stay on one side of the line or the other. It will be important when I transfer the marks to the pin board that I always cut on the waste side. But that is for later. (The blue tape on my index finger is holding on a bandage. I slipped while cleaning the gunk off my recycled plane blade glue-popper and cut my finger. :nono
7) Flip the board and finish all the cutting. 
8) Cut away the 1/2 pin waste from each end of the board.
9) Waste out most of the pin space with a coping saw. You could skip this and use the chisels but I've found this works better for me. I don't have a band saw, but that would also work.

Next up will be chiseling out the remaining waste and then transferring marks to the pin boards.

I realize that it might be easier to transfer marks from the pin board to the tail board instead of from the tail board to the pin board. But like I said I usually cut pins first. I'm cutting tails first as an experiment. I want to see how it goes. And when it comes time to waste out material on the pin boards, I can still use a router and a small spiral bit to save me some chiseling time. Just have to be careful and go slow.


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

Good posts, keep them coming. I will need to save this build so I can go back and read it over several times to follow along,--mind is kinda muddled right now with things going on!!


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

xplorx4 said:


> Good posts, keep them coming. I will need to save this build so I can go back and read it over several times to follow along,--mind is kinda muddled right now with things going on!!


A muddled mind! :fie: My writing style isn't going to help that at all!!! :wacko:


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Chop-chop*

Chop-chop time for the half-blind dovetail pins!

A few notes about these pins:
1) The top board is NOT the same width as the top. It is 1/2" narrower. This is to accommodate the back boards and give a top nailing surface
2) It is important to maintain the orientation of the top board since its tails are hand cut and have the associated minor variations.
3) It will be a balancing act to hold the board and mark pins at the same time. Must do some creative clamping.

Mark up the top piece so that I can keep track of which edge is which.

The creative clamping is shown in the 2nd and 3rd pictures. I clamp a scrap of 3/4" plywood even with the "bottom" of the tails and on the bottom side of the top board. Then I use this board to help me steady the top piece as I align it with the first side board and use some quick clamps to hold it all to the bench top.

Next I mark the pins. I could use a marking knife but a sharp pencil works fine here. The finished cut and trimming needs to just remove the pencil line for the first trial fit. :big_boss:

Mark, mark, mark up the pieces. I don't want any accidents here. :sad:

I'm going to waste away most of the material with a spiral bit in the router. Happens to be a 1/4" bit. I'll do the wasting in two passes since I have 1/2" of material to remove. I could get cute and use a dovetail bit to get some of the angled material removed but it is just as easy to chisel it all away. I've taken the same scrap of 3/4" ply and double stick taped it as a stop so I can't cut too far down the side.

After wasting out the material it is time for the chisels. Poplar cuts pretty easy but it also can split easily. I try to make a cross grain stop cut before any long grain cuts. And after each area cleaned out I stop and re-hone the chisel. Not well illustrated in the photos but I didn't use just a 1/4" chisel here. I used a 1/2" and 3/8" too, they just aren't fully visible in the photos. :moil:

Time for a test fit. Pretty close, you can see some gaps but I'm not concerned with them as this whole joint will be hidden. The reason for using such a joint at the top is to guarantee the case cannot pull apart later. Plus I can use the dovetail cutting practice. Seriously, it is fun to see one of these joints come together. :jester:

Tomorrow I'll tune up both sides and then I can take a measurement for sizing the bottom and middle boards and the case will be just about ready for assembly. Then on to shelves and faceframe and a door!


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## Barry99 (Feb 10, 2009)

Keep the pics coming Rob and happy clamping.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

Barry99 said:


> Keep the pics coming Rob and happy clamping.


Yes, I am a happy clamper right now. :dirol:


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## Barry99 (Feb 10, 2009)

Looking good Ron. I like the hand cut dove tails. When you glued the long boards together, did you use dowels or biscuits?


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

Barry99 said:


> Looking good Ron. I like the hand cut dove tails. When you glued the long boards together, did you use dowels or biscuits?


#20 biscuits but only to assist in alignment. They don't add much if any strength. PVA glue is stronger than the wood anyway.

Dowels would also work for keeping the boards aligned. And provide some strength against force perpendicular to the board face. A condition that should be avoided anyway. :sarcastic:

Another option would be to use a glue joint bit and the router table. With various boards all milled to the same thickness and the bit height properly set, you run every other edge with the board face up and the opposite edge with the face down. Then glue away. These are very strong joints as you have greatly increased the gluing surface area.

The low-tech method is to skip the alignment devices all together and just glue the boards. Use some cauls across the face of the board for alignment. 

Insert cat, remove skin.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Shelf blank making session*

Tonight was making blanks to create the shelves of the cupboard. All but one of the upper shelves is sized and ready for edge detailing. The middle shelf is a little bit special because it extends out on three sides to form a small work-surface and complete the enclosure that makes the lower cupboard a cupboard. 

I've attached a picture of the completed blank. It was made in two parts, the narrow back part and the wider front. First I sized the back part exactly how I wanted. Then it is edge glued to a slightly oversized front piece. Because I know that the finished width of the front is going to be 1-1/8" wider on each side, I cut a 1-1/8" gage block. This lets me set up my glued-up shelf blank on the tablesaw sled and get the two ends of the long side exactly (well close enough anyway) 1-1/8" longer. 

Tomorrow I have one more small upper shelf to finish and I can start routing some edge details on the pieces. The middle shelf gets a thumbnail profile and the four floating shelves will get a sort of bull-nose + reveal profile.


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## Barry99 (Feb 10, 2009)

rwyoung said:


> #20 biscuits but only to assist in alignment. They don't add much if any strength. PVA glue is stronger than the wood anyway.
> 
> Dowels would also work for keeping the boards aligned. And provide some strength against force perpendicular to the board face. A condition that should be avoided anyway. :sarcastic:
> 
> ...


Dowels & biscuits seems to have a lot of opinions, it makes a person wonder if they the same strength quality and no one wants to admit it. I asked because I got a new plate joiner. Should the biscuits be snug before glue up or are they suppose to have a lot of play. It is factory set with an adjustment knob if needed. I think mine are going too deep. Any input would be appreciate.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

Barry99 said:


> Dowels & biscuits seems to have a lot of opinions, it makes a person wonder if they the same strength quality and no one wants to admit it. I asked because I got a new plate joiner. Should the biscuits be snug before glue up or are they suppose to have a lot of play. It is factory set with an adjustment knob if needed. I think mine are going too deep. Any input would be appreciate.


I've seen a couple different articles in print and on line that show through destructive testing that dowels are generally stronger than biscuits in a tennon like application (ie jointing endgrain to edge grain). Long grain to long grain as in making panels, the wood will fail before the glue joint (as a rule) so the dowel and the biscuit are for alignment only. The thing to consider is, if you are making a face frame, are you really expecting somebody to put 1,000 lbs of force on it? 

The depth of cut for the plate joiner should be such that the biscuit will rest just below center. A little more than a pencil line so maybe 1/32" is good. Idealy you should be able to slip the biscuit into the slot and get just a little glue to ooze out. The bisciuts are compressed and any moisture absorbed makes them swell. I sort out a few before doing each joint. The fat ones, I squeeze in a vice to squish them again. I've read that some people toss a few in the microwave for a short zap to dry. Haven't tried that but seems reasonable. Keep the desicant package in the jar and the lid on except when pulling out the ones you need right then.


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

Some times I think I am in a constant state of muddled mind!! 

I must tell you enjoy seeing the amount of hand work you are doing and not all with router ect. I would imagine it takes considerable talent and experience to do that. I intend to pack this build away so I can call it up sometime when I have some time and mind isn't quite so---well you know.


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## jw2170 (Jan 24, 2008)

Rob,

Excellent job, to date.

Very informative post to follow.

Keep those pictures flowing...

James


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

xplorx4 said:


> Some times I think I am in a constant state of muddled mind!!
> 
> I must tell you enjoy seeing the amount of hand work you are doing and not all with router ect. I would imagine it takes considerable talent and experience to do that. I intend to pack this build away so I can call it up sometime when I have some time and mind isn't quite so---well you know.


I don't know that I'm doing all that much hand work on this... If you can, go download the PDF I linked in the first post. Mike Dunbar is a big advocate of Neanderthal woodworking. He describes using all handplanes for the shaping including the tongue-and-groove, trim and panel raising. 

I'm more in the "go with what'cha got" camp of woodworking so I freely mix power and hand tool work. A good example was my last trip to Woodcraft. I bought a set of gimlets (look that up in your Funk and Wagnals) and two router bits. :haha:

p.s. Gimlets for those who don't own a Funk and Wagnals, are for hand boring scant holes (pilot holes) in wood for things like nails, screws, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimlet_(tool)
I'm going to use them for the installation of cut nails in this project. After playing a little last night I can see their appeal in tight spaces and quick jobs where one doesn't want or have a drill handy.

p.p.s.
Another good read is the copy of Audels Carpenters and Builders Guide a guy is posting at http://www.inquirewithin.biz/


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## levon (Sep 14, 2008)

hi Rob,

its really good to see a great project in show and tell, not diminishing from what others have posted, it seems more what i am interesting in seeing and the reason im here. i wish to learn how projects are made. thanks for your diligent posts and pictures.

youre doing a great job and the pictorial helps a lot.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Case assembly*

Good progress today. Got the case assembled.

Before I assembled the case I had a little more work to do on the middle shelf. I wanted a table top edge on it. I've got a 7/8" table thumbnail edge bit that I like. Not an expensive bit, less than $20 I think from 

Super Carbide Tools on Ebay










This bit is about 2-1/2" tip to tip so the router needs to be slowed down. Consult the manual for your router if it is a variable speed. Or the manual for the external speed controller you should otherwise be using. Don't spin this thing at 20,000 RPM

The resulting edge looks like this:










The hardcore Neanderthal would or course be using handplanes and molding planes for this. I don't have any such tools but a router and router table does a good job too. 

To make the edge a little bit more refined, I'll chamfer the bottom just a little bit. Here I could use a block plane but there is a little bit of interference from the inset sides of the table so it is just easier to use a small 45deg chamfering bit in the router.










And here is the finished result of the bottom edge chamfer as seen on my test piece.










Now it is time to start making the dados and grooves in the sides of the case. I picked up a 1/2" diameter pattern bit with a 1" cutting length. Before using any router bit that has a bearing, check the set screw. Especially new bits. I've found several that had loose set screws. On ones with the screw into the end of the shaft, it would self tighten when spun up. But ones with the set screw into the side of the shaft, the bearing could drift. This is bad.

My dado jig is pretty simple, two 3/4" thick lengths of MDF with a cleat at one end. The cleat catches the work piece and the straight edges of the MDF will define the dado width. Pinch the shelf piece between the two jig sides and you get a nice snug dado. I made the MDF pieces long enough to span both halves of the case clamped edge-to-edge.









First I install the bit, then I zero the bit depth in my plunge base.

















And finally, I use a 1/4" bit to set the plunge depth on the stop and turret. Some people will tell you twist drills aren't accurate enough for this but I checked the shanks on the drills in this set and they were within 0.005". Close enough...









Run down one edge, then back on the other. Pay attention to the bit rotation and work left to right pushing the router into the jig edge. 

Done! Move the jigs down and do the dado for the center shelf. Align one jig edge with the tops of the extensions on the sides. The shelf rests on them as it exits the dado.









Next I use my long straight cutting edge jig and line it up on the router side to cut the rabbets down the side pieces for the back boards. The rabbet does NOT go below the bottom board so the dado acts as a stop for the rabbet.









I can now sand the sides and get ready for a dry fit. The shelves were already finish sanded before using them to size their dados. A side note on the dados, I didn't make them so tight the shelves were a press-fit. Since this is lumber and not plywood, it will move a bit. The dados are 2 playing card widths extra wide. This seems to be around 0.02" extra. If the shelves were plywood, I'd make the dados a press-fit.

Dry fit time!

















Now get a few more clamps ready and do the glue up. The joints will get re-enforced with some cut nails (yes nails). This is a Shaker piece and nails are OK, especially since I'm using cut nails. Just make sure to orient them correctly so they work like the wedge they are designed to be. And make the pilot hole (scant hole in the 'lingo) about the same size as the midsection of the nail.









Break time.


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## Dr.Zook (Sep 10, 2004)

Darn Rob, I always thought that "gimlets" was the thing we have at Thanksgiving with gravy. Oh well, nice post of pictures. Atta boy.


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## Hamlin (Dec 25, 2005)

Hi Rob,

Looking good. 

I think I may found a couple places close by to both of us who may have or are able to get some good quality of pine. I'll pm you tomorrow with some names and phone #'s if you'd like them.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

hamlin said:


> hi rob,
> 
> looking good.
> 
> i think i may found a couple places close by to both of us who may have or are able to get some good quality of pine. I'll pm you tomorrow with some names and phone #'s if you'd like them.


ok!


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Shelves and Cleats*

The blanks for the upper and lower "floating" shelves will have a simple bull-nose profile routed on them. This is the same profile shown in Mike Dunbar's article and I like the look. But I had to go pick up a bull-nose bit. I got a 3/16" radius version (Freud). Should work out just fine.










This is not a bearing guided bit so the router table fence must be set up correctly. My first try, I had forgotten to tighten the bolts that hold the sliding portion of my fence and so as the test stock was almost all the way across, the fence slipped a little and made the bit dig in a little farther. This is why you run a test piece first...

The real pieces ran just fine after I dealt with the fence issue. Also, I clamped a sacrificial piece to the outfeed end of the shelf so that as the real end of the work piece passed the bit, there was still wood supporting it against the infeed fence. I've learned the hard way to either make the workpiece an inch or two longer or clamp on a sacrificial piece (a push sled would work too but my top wasn't wide enough given that the shelves are about 23-1/2" wide.

Here is the finished profile. I think I may ease the corners just a touch with a block plane but I can do that any time.









The cleats are glued to the sides of the case but only at the middle 1/3 of their length. I'll toenail in three places on the cleats tomorrow. The cleat will be well supported and still it can give a little as the sides of the case move.

Here is the case with the floating shelves resting on the cleats. Note that the face frame has not been installed so you can see much more of the cleats and shelf ends than normal.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

Dr.Zook said:


> Darn Rob, I always thought that "gimlets" was the thing we have at Thanksgiving with gravy. Oh well, nice post of pictures. Atta boy.


Perhaps you are thinking of "giblets". A collective term for any combination of offal from from a bird. Wanna guess at what makes up "offal"? Maybe you don't really want to know. :wacko::fie:


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## levon (Sep 14, 2008)

hi Rob,

great work and a nice job of documenting it in pictures, which help someone like me understand. it also allows me to learn by asking questions. 

my question is how thick is the shelf that you used the table edge bit on, i saw it was a 7/8? bit?

thanks and again great job!


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

levon said:


> hi Rob,
> 
> great work and a nice job of documenting it in pictures, which help someone like me understand. it also allows me to learn by asking questions.
> 
> ...


The shelf is a nominal 3/4" thick. The 7/8" of the bit refers to the length of the profile.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Cut nails and scant holes.*

Cut nails and scant holes.

Everybody has a set of gimlets just gathering dust in the junk drawer, right? I know I could have used a twist bit and the cordless drill and zipped right through these but this seemed like so much more fun. A set of gimlets isn't very expensive and I can see where they would come in handy in confined spaces and tight corners.









I also got my cut nails last week. Ordered them from Tremont Nail Company. Played around a little bit with a few before starting in on the carcass. They do seem to work as advertised and make nifty little wedges. 

To clarify as to why I'm using nails. Three reasons, first, these are cut nails and they are "accurate" to a Shaker piece. Second, nails do work well when combined with glue because they will give a little as the wood moves so glue the center of the cleat but space nails along its length to even out the strengh. And third, I think cut nails are pretty neat little buggers and it's my project anyway. :sarcastic:

In a previous post I think I said I would "toenail" the cleats. That isn't quite accurate, the nails are going in at a slight angle similar to how you would angle a nail in the wall for hanging a picture. By angling the nails the cleats are getting pushed into the cabinet side and any weight down on the cleat simply pushes it harder into the side.

Here I'm drilling a pilot hole (scant hole) for a nail. 








Notice the slight angle, also not shown is this hole has a slight tilt away from the camera. I could say this was intentional but it isn't. The good news is that such a tilt might actually work in my favor if I alternate them so that some of the nails slightly oppose each other.

And now you can see a nail setting in one of the scan holes.









Next a picture of a nail that has been counter sunk. 








Something I've discovered, a standard round counter sink sucks for cut nails. I used my largest size one and it worked OK but it did have a tendency to skitter around on the head of the nail. If I was going to do a lot of this I'd grind the head or get a counter sink made for cut nails.

I'll go back and hit all the nailed areas with a sanding sponge to knock off the fuzzies. I'm still thinking about filling the nail holes. I might just leave them alone in the cleats for just a little bit of character. Plus they really aren't that visible on the inside of the cabinet.

Another fun discovery about the cut nails, at least these. There is a pretty wide variation in the size and shape of the nail and head even though they are all coming from the same box and are all supposed to be 6d. I believe they are 6d based on their length but I pulled some that were definitely fatter and had a much more pronounced head.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Milk paint test board*

I got my small pint samples of milk paint today. There are a couple of different sources for the powdered mix, I happened to pick these guys Old Fashioned Milk Paint because should I realize in the middle of painting that I need more, I can zip over to Woodcraft and get a small package to finish up.

Another alternative is to simply make the paint. I did experiment a little bit with this using powdered milk, a lemon and some food coloring. I wasn't expecting any kind of deep colors because the cheap liquid food coloring isn't a strong dye. It did work but only if you want the wood to look like something from the Easter Bunny's house... I should have taken a picture but I just chucked that test board. 

Anyway, step one, read the directions:









Easy enough, mix 1+1 with water (adding the water slowly to get the right mix). I just mixed up a small batch, about 1/4 cup total volume. The rest of the powder I left in its foil pouch and zipped up in a plastic bag. This all goes in the fridge. The lime in the mixture is pretty hygroscopic (that means water loving) and so will pull water from the air. This eventually ruins the mix. Keeping it in the fridge will keep it dryer.

Anyway, the purposes of my test are many. I want to see a larger swatch of the color, I want to see how it covers the poplar, I want to see how it bonds to some dings in the wood filled with sawdust and CA glue. And I just want to get a feel for the application process.

Using an inexpensive "chip brush", the $2 job with the light brown bristles from the bottom shelf at the hardware store, you apply the paint to a sanded surface.

I read in Mike Dunbar's article that dampening the wood to raise the grain, followed by a quick sand down works well. I decided to skip this and just go with the basic instructions that came with the paint. They say just paint onto the wood. 

First coat goes on pretty rough and streaky looking. No amount of feathering or attempting to keep a wet edge is going to work. It will just look nasty. Period. Don't sweat it. Let the paint dry, it was 95 here today and my garage was plenty warm so after one hour it was quite dry. The basic instructions say to knock it back with 0000 steel wool. Knocked it back. Smoothed right out.

The sawdust and CA patch didn't loose its paint but I can easily see the wood grain of the poplar through the paint. Not offensive by itself but because I have pretty much every color in the poplar wood spectrum in my boards it will need a second coat.

The second coat goes on much more like "real" paint. You can keep a wet edge and feather. It still looks a little bit streaky and I can see some grit in the paint. That would be undissolved powder. If I had mixed up a larger batch I would strain it.

Again, from Mike Dunbar's article, these little bits of powder aren't much of a concern because they won't bond and will come away with the next steel wool rub-down.

So again, an hour wait and rub down with 0000 steel wool. Very nice coverage. I have two colors, a barn red and a mustard yellow. It might need a 3rd coat on the mustard yellow but the barn red is solid.

Milk paint is quite flat. The way to make it pop is to oil it (linseed oil, tung oil, etc) and then seal it with wax or poly. I'm going to test with linseed oil and regular Johnson's Paste Wax.

The oil goes right on and soaks in. I rubbed it down with a rag until the surface would no longer finger print. Normally one would let the oil sink in deeper for better protection but I'm just looking for a test swatch here. 

Next is the wax. Apply as you wood for any finish. Once it hazes up, buff it out. Multiple coats would be fine.

Here you see the result (direct flash on the camera so you get a little bit of glare which gives some idea of the sheen).

















As I said above, I used an inexpensive chip brush. You can see some brush marks near the end of the board. Another option would be a foam roller. Given the surface area I need to cover, I think I will go the foam roller route when the time comes, keeping some chip brushes or basic foam brushes on hand to work into corners. 

The direct flash is a bit misleading because the wall color is NOT the same as the barn red. The barn red is deeper than what is already on the wall. And the red on the wall only goes up to a chair rail. After that it switches to a sponged on finish with light brown. The wall color and finishing was from the previous owners of the house. I may leave it or I may re-do it a more neutral color. But I think the barn red color for the cupboard is going to be fine.

Again, referring to the Mike Dunbar article, he suggested the barn red for the outside and the mustard for the inside walls and back boards to keep it a little bit lighter. After making my swatches I think I'll just keep it that way. However another option would be an ivory white outside with perhaps a darker color underneath and then some distressing to expose it a little bit. 

In the end I'm going with the barn red & mustard combination. 

Coverage of the paint is reasonably good, I calculate that I'll need about 1 gallon total of paint to get two coats of barn red and two to three of the mustard. This works out to buying two more quart packages of each color plus the pint packages I already have.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Lower cupboard stiles*

Just didn't have a lot of time on my hands like I expected this weekend. Spent most of Saturday helping a friends mother clean up her yard, trimming some trees, weed whacking, that sort of thing. Also got sucked into fixing their lawn mower. She (friend's mom, Shirley) was upset about the possibility of either replacing the mower or buying a new one (cost). Turns out the the majority of the problem was a gunked up carburetor. That plus $10 for a new plug and airfilter and it runs pretty good now. 

Anyway, back to the cupboard. The plan had been to get the lower case stiles attached as well as the upper face frame. Then I could attack the door and top molding (that will be interesting). As it was, all I got done was to mill the boards for the lower case stiles and the stiles and rails for the door so they are all the same thickness.

Here you can see the two lower case stiles attached (glued). I'll run about three of the cut nails through each to give some mechanical fastening too as the door will hang from these.








As you can see by comparing to earlier photos, having the lower case stiles in place hides the cleats.

And the curve at the bottom of the stiles completes the front leg shape.








The shape on the outside face corner is a simple roundover but with the smaller bearing as used for jazzing up the cleats (in case you do see them) so you get a little shoulder on both edges of the roundover.









I'm not sure what those two spots are on the foot detail photo. In the picture they look like glue smudges but when I look at the piece itself, I can't see them. I've seen this sort of thing before where the spectral response of the camera is wider than our eyes. It may very well be a glue smudge. Not a big deal in a painted piece but I will need to do a little scraping and sanding.

So now some evening this week I'll attack the upper frame. It will have the same edge detail as the lower frame. Notice that the lower face frame is only two stiles, no rails. The door when closed will provide the horizontal members.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Simple mortising jig gets a little workout*

I cut and milled the stock for the upper face frame this evening. This frame has only three sides, two stiles and a top rail. Just for giggles, the top rail is going to be joined with a mortise and tenon joint. Could just have been a butt joint, biscuits or heaven-forbid, pocket screws :stop:. But a M&T joint seems most appropriate. With 3/4" stock, this isn't exactly going to be a super strong joint. Just want something reasonably sturdy. 

The tenons will be nominally 1/4" thick, 1" long and 3-1/2" wide (the top rail is 5-1/2" wide). Nothing special about those numbers, just nice easy numbers to work with while laying out the parts and I have a 1/4" spiral bit.

Lots of different ways to cut mortises, all chisel work, brace and bit + chisel, drill press + chisel, fancy loose tenon tools, power mortiser and of course router. I made a simple mortising base for my router some time back. This one is not the self-centering type because when I made it, I did not need a centered mortise.

Here you can see from the underside the two sliding fences that will ride against my work piece. Red oak for the fences and 1/4" hardboard for the base plate.









The stock is only 3/4" wide so I'm going to clamp the two stiles together to get 1-1/2" surface to ride. Layout the start and stop lines and set up a couple of blocks as stops to keep the router bit inside the lines. I'll square up and clean up with a couple quick taps of the chisel.
























Set the two sliding fences so the bit is centered over one workpiece. To route the second piece, you just flip the jig around. 

The mortise is going to be 1" deep so don't take all that in one pass. I'm using a plunge base so the maximum depth is set to 1-1/16" (leaves a little room for glue later) and I use the turret stop to make the mortise in a few passes.









Done with one, now flip around and cut the second. 









It took longer to write this than it did to cut them. The longest part of the set up was unscrewing the plastic sub-base from the plunge base and then screwing on the mortising jig base.

I don't have a power mortiser, or true mortising chisels (only bench chisels) and my drill press is pretty darn small. I did the white oak blanket chest mortises on the drill press because of the hardness of the material. But I had to make little stands to help support the long rails as they hung off the sides of the table. With this rig, I could clamp everything to the workbench so it was very well supported and the poplar cuts like butta' with a spiral bit.

Tomorrow I'll clean up the corners of the mortise (notice I did slip a little over the end line on the first one, no big deal). Then I'll get the tenons roughed at the table saw and pare them down to fit. After that, there is a detail to route on the outside edge of the stiles and the whole thing can be attached to the carcass. After that, all that is left is to make the door and molding. :laugh:


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*In the immortal words of MC Hammer: Stop! Router Time!*

(I'll translate for those of you on the east coast, Rhouta' Time :haha: )

I glued up the two stiles and rail for the upper face frame. Something to keep in mind when doing any sort of work is the order of operations. Round over before glue up? After? The reason I mention this is because I made a strategic choice about when to chamfer the inside edge of the frame. I could have done the chamfer on the pieces before glue-up and also cope the shoulders of the rail to fit or miter the inside corners. If this cupboard was to have a clear finish, the coped joint or mitering the inside corner of the chamfer is the way to go. But as I've said, this is going to be a painted piece. So I opted to do the chamfer AFTER the glue up. This means the "funny" of the chamfer into the corner will be camouflaged. The "funny" will be quite clear in some pictures below.

What are the implications of doing things this way? Well here you see the rough routed chamfer. The burning is because I had to slow my movement of the router (working handheld this time) as I turned the corner. Slow feed == burning. 








No big deal, just a fact of life. But what is more important, you see that a router cannot make a square inside corner. Just can't, the geometry of the bit rules.









This is an easy situation to rectify, I just strike a pencil line to extend the two chamfers into the corner. 








Next I push my chisel in on that line, using a block cut to 45 so I'll match the router cut chamfer. Not going in far, just enough to create a little bit of a guide for the paring cuts to follow.








FYI, a handy jig to have for the table saw in addition to a miter sled and a panel sled is a 45 miter sled.








Makes things like 45 corners or in this case a small paring block a snap.

Just pare out the rest of the waste, which also gets rid of most of the burn mark.








Just a touch with a sanding block and it is done.
And now you can see the "funny" quite clearly. If this was not going to be a painted piece, it would look very strange in the corner. This is why you cope a joint when putting a profile on an inside corner of a piece that will receive a clear finish. The milk paint will cover this and it won't be visible later. And it only took about 5 minutes to pare the two corners versus the cussing and fussing of coping the shoulder of the tenon.

The last router operation on the face frame is to add a round over and lip to the two outside edges of the rails. Again, handheld routing. But here is another common problem. Lots of routers use what is sometimes called a PC or PorterCable base. Mine does. The good news is that lots of accessories and bushings fit the PC bases. The bad news is that you can't pass a bit larger than about 1" diameter through the stock sub-base of the router. Since I have two bases for my router, plunge for most hand-held work and fixed that lives in the router table there is a very easy solution to this problem. Take the fixed base and attached router plate from the router table and use it as a handheld base. No where is is written in stone that you must have a round base on a handheld router. My router plate has one of those snap-apart rings that lets you pass larger bits by removing inner rings. Problem solved.
















One other benefit, this plate is quite wide and so I can have plate in contact with the entire 3" width of the stiles. This makes for a more stable handheld router pass and thus safer.

I've mentioned before about changing the bearing size to expose different parts of the roundover bit. This closeup really helps to illustrate that point.







The small bearing is inside the straight cutting portion of the carbide. If I put back the 1/2" bearing then I would be back to the smooth transition roundover.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Upper face frame attached*

All I had on the docket for tonight was to get the upper face frame glued on and the necessary cleanup. Done. Nothing more complicated than doing a dry fit to prep the clamps and glue that puppy down. The clamps I'm using have heads sized so that a 2x4 can be used to lift workpieces and clear the head of the clamp. 









Notice the glue run near the center of the side. Not a big deal, I caught as much as possible. The rest gets scraped and sanded when the clamps are off. Easy peasy.










And here it is standing up again plus a small closeup.


















So, three parts left before painting begins. I need to make the trim for the top, make the door and cut boards for the back. I won't install the back before painting other than to lay in on for size. The back will be tongue-and-groove 1/2" boards. I'll leave it off until the painting is done to make things easier.


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## Dr.Zook (Sep 10, 2004)

Nice work and great pictures Rob.


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

To date this has been an awsom build and write-up. It would almost seem that it has taken at least as long to do the write-up as it has to do the actual build. Very good job.


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## Hamlin (Dec 25, 2005)

Hi Rob,

Excellent job. I can't wait to see it painted.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Molding stackup*

I don't own any giant molding bits. So if I'm going to make a reasonably large molding for the top of the cupboard, then I'm going to have to make it in smaller pieces and glue it together. Not as hard as it sounds.

What was hard though is I decided it had to look nice AND could only be made with bits I already had. The original article I'm taking my inspiration from has some sample moldings and while I don't have all the same profiles, I can get pretty close. But his big case molding was another story.

Step one was to get out the graph paper and sketch the basic profiles I have at hand then start putzing around until I got something with enough weight to look right.








So roughly, the profile I've drawn in the lower right is where I want to go. But this still isn't quite large enough. Mike Dunbar's article has a piece behind this with a smaller ogee. I have a 5/32 ogee bit so I'll start with that piece. Here is one end of a test piece - excuse the bobble at the end, it will get cut off.








Next I need to make the lower roundover. The block will be 1" thick so I milled down some of my remaining 5/4 and then chucked up a 7/8" roundover bit. This is a bit of a monster as roundovers go, good for a table edge.








So two things I need to do in preparation for this, one is set up some feather boards on the fence. The second is to set up some stop blocks behind the fence so that once adjusted to just ride the bearing, I can swing the fence forward and make my cut in two passes.
















One of these days I'll make a fence to match the size of this table, this fence I made for the previous table and it is about 2" too short to span side to side. :big_boss: Nuts. But still works OK.

So, two passes to get the full profile, then rip it off the test board (SNIPE :blink.








Here's a better piece.









Next up is the cove portion. I'm going to use a 1/2" cove. But after cutting a small test piece I realized it will be a nightmare to get a smooth transition from roundover to cove. The solution, make a small step-back shoulder and accentuate the size difference instead of trying to hide it. The small shoulder is made by first cutting a groove with a 1/4" spiral bit about 5/8" in from the edge of the board, then running the roundover leaving the little stepped shoulder. Forgot to take a picture of the groove cutting. Sorry.








This has also been ripped to width for the final stackup. And here it is, just a little double sided tape holding things so I could see it. 









So all that is left is to glue together the roundover and cove pieces and do a little detail sanding. A few boogers to clean up but I have more than enough length that I should be able to cut around the snipe from my planer. And the 5/32 ogee board will be ripped to the correct width too. It gets applied to the cupboard first, mitering the corners. Then the larger glued-up ogee goes on. 

Tomorrow I want to get the molding applied then work on the door.:moil:


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## jw2170 (Jan 24, 2008)

Rob,

Excellent job so far.

I can't wait to see the finished cupboard.

James


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Molding attached and work on door*

Been a pretty long day of fiddling with test cuts and what not. :wacko: I don't have a fancy miter saw (I do have a crappy plastic miter box but it is pretty far out of whack). So to cut the miters for the molding I'm using my table saw. 

With a few test cuts and a little tweaking you can get a very good fit. :moil:

First step is to attach the 1/2" thick piece with the single ogee:









Next we add the larger built-up molding:









And here we can see another interesting point. I went ahead and routed the roundover on the upper face frame before installing it and routed it all the way to the end of the board. What this means is there will be a small gap between the corner of the face frame and the corner of the molding. Not a big deal and I knew this would happen. What I could have done is stop the roundover on the face frame short of where the molding would be, then I could chisel in a roundover after the molding was in place, or some other simple transition. I opted for the "easy way" because the gap is small and from a distance of about two or three feet you have to know its there to really see it.

There is a little bit more fine trimming to do on the back side but I can get to that later. I thought I trimmed the last side piece short enough but it is hanging over about 3/32". At least it wasn't too short! This is pretty easy to deal with even with it attached to the case. I have a pull-saw that will track just fine and zip the overhang right off next time I have the case down on its back on the bench.

This took me a while to get the molding attached for two reasons. First, I left the case standing, didn't feel like dragging it back out to the garage and laying it the bench. Second, it takes several test cuts to set up the saw and then I'm probably over cautious and take too many "sneak-up" cuts. 

By the way, blue tape works great to keep the saw from tearing out the profiled edge. 

The next step is to work on the door's rails and stiles. I measured the opening and to my surprise it is no longer quite square. It has racked about 1/16". I'm not sure why, could be the addition of the upper face frame and clamping operation caused the racking. Could also just be the change in humidity. Standing back and eyeballing things, you can't see the difference. But it is important for setting in the door. I'll take it into account and trim the door a little bit when the time comes. I can also trim the case stiles a tad by aggressively sanding with a block. Doing both the door and the frame will split the difference in the un-squareness and might be the best way to camouflage things.








(The sides are straight, the photo shows them bowed because I didn't bother taking the camera out of its wide angle view and it has barrel distortion as you move off the center axis. This is common on most point-and-shoot cameras, the solution is to zoom just a tiny bit. But I didn't, just lazy today.)

It is interesting to me about the top molding. From some angles, it looks great and it good proportion. From others it looks a bit heavy. If I were to make another piece, there are two changes. First I'd extend the overhang of the center shelf about 1/2" more to add a little more balance and I might use a 1/2" or 5/8" round over (which I don't have) instead of the 7/8" to shrink the molding size a bit.

But I must reserve the final judgment until the case is painted and some dishes are setting inside. With the paint, dishes and door fitted, I can imagine the molding might be brought a little more into proportion. Just closing in the bottom of the case will add some visual weight.

Back to the rails and stiles. The Mike Dunbar article goes into making the door using through mortises and pinning it along with wedging the mortise. I'm going with a cope and stick router bit set instead. 

To set up for the coped portion, I use a simple coping sled at the router table. Just a piece of 3/4" MDF and some 1/8" hardboard. Good ole' Harbor Freight supplied the toggle clamps.









A few passes and the coping is done in the ends of the rails. Next I switch to the stile bit and run the rails and stiles both. 
The bits:








Here is the stile cut on the test piece:








And a finished rail piece:









I suppose one could argue that the Shakers wouldn't have used such a joint. But I wonder about that. They (1810, Sarah Babbet) invented the circular saw blade, they invented machines for cutting tongue-and-groove joints and wainscoting beads. They seem to have been quite "modern" in their construction methods, I see no reason that some of them would not have embraced shaper/router tables and bits.

So, next up is to glue up a panel for the door and cut a bevel profile. I'm going to make the door only about 5/8" to 1/2".


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Door is made!*

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the process of assembling the door. It is really just the repetition of the same sort of panel glue-up steps and router work illustrated before.

1) Compute final panel size based on door. I know that my rail and stile set creates a 3/8" deep panel groove. 
Width:
2 x Stile_Width + [email protected] + 3/4" = 13-7/8"
Height:
Stile_Length - 2 x Rail_Width + 3/4" = 26-3/4"

2) Allow for panel expansion because it is a solid wood panel. Most of the movement will be in the width so allow 1/8" to have a finished panel width of 13-3/4". In length, only about 1/16" is necessary so the length will be 26-11/16"

3) Cut stock, mill to 1/2" thick and glue up for the panel, over sized in length and width of course. Note this is 1/2" thick while the door frame is 3/4". So the panel will be more or less flush on the front but recessed about 1/8" on the back side. I'm using 1/2" because I wanted to minimize the door's weight. Using 5/8" I could have the front and back flush but I'm too big to fit inside the cupboard and see the back of the door so... :no:

4) Cut out panel blank.

5) Setup up router with panel raising bit. This is a bevel profile.

















6) Cut a test piece. Also seen in this test piece is an experiment at cutting a back rabbet so that the panel will can seat all the way into the groove. In this test piece, the rabbet is about 2/3 too deep. The finished panel has just a whisper of a rabbet cut in the back.








If you use a cutter like the one I show above that does not have a second part to make the back rabbet, it is a simple matter to use a dado bit or even the stack-dado cutter on a table saw or a rabbeting plane. I opted for a 3/4" bit in the router table with a little more than 3/8" cutting width exposed and maybe a shy 1/16" cutting depth.

So here is the finished door front and back.

















Some other notes about the door. Yes, I realize the grain is going two different directions on the boards. Ideally, it all goes the same way but at the last minute during glue-up I decided to flip boards to make sure the end grain is alternating. I should have also turned them end-for-end. Painted panel, so no big deal. A giant no-no for a clear finish! :bad:

The last step is to fit the door. I mentioned before that my case had racked. I checked it again today and it seems better. I think it is a humidity issue as my AC was down for a few days last week so the house got pretty funky (96F + 40% humidity inside!). I still need to do a little trimming on the door and maybe a little in the face frame. There is maybe 1/16" of material that needs to disappear for the door to slip in. So if do the dime-trick to space it I need to loose maybe 1/8" of material. I'll split that up between the two sides of the door and the two face frame stiles. That should hide any unmatched dimensions pretty well.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Been kinda busy with other stuff lately...*

My apologies to anybody who was trying to follow what I've done here. Been a bit busy with other stuff but finally carving out some time to work on the cupboard. Once more into the breach!

OK, so the door is hanging temporarily. Since I don't have back boards on the cupboard yet, this is a pretty easy scribe. Zip, zip, mark, mark.

I don't have a terribly fancy bench so a little bit of creative clamping is in order. People make fun of Harbor Freight for a lot of stuff but their wooden handscrew clamps are a darn good deal. Can't have enough of them! Use one at each end of the workpiece and then clamp them to the overhang on the bench. Works pretty well, if a bit fussy sometimes.










So here you see the scribed line at the "fat" end of the board. The white block in the foreground is paraffin wax for the plane sole. The scribe line tapers away to nothing at the other end.










Here are the weapons of massless destruction... The #5 is set for a pretty decent shaving, maybe about 0.005" to 0.008" thick. Runs stuff down reasonably quick. The #4 is set for the wispy thin 0.001" shaving so I can fine tune things and deal with any tearout. FYI, a good idea to pre-set the irons on some scrap before starting. Otherwise consider having the blade pulled in and slowly drop it back down on some test strokes on the workpiece. Better to take a few thin shavings at the beginning than gouge things terribly!










Chicken wing activate!

















Most of the work is done with the #5. A few shorter strokes at the heavy end of the scribe and slowly work backward to the other end of the door. In these two pictures, besides seeing my scrawny arms, you can see that I have the plane a little bit skewed as some insurance against tear out. In the second picture my left hand is not grasping the tote. Instead it is wrapped around the sole of the plane just in front of the mouth and riding against the far side of the door. This helps keep the plane level on a narrow board. It doesn't hurt to check with a square once in a while too.

The other planing tidbit I want to point out is on my right hand I have 3 fingers on the tote with my index finger pointing along the blade/breaker. This does a few things for me. First I can't fit all four fingers on the tote and second it balances my hand strength a little bit. Sort of like when you grip a golf club you typically have the little finger of your dominant hand off the grip. Same idea here.

For the #4 plane, I have two fingers off the tote and pointing down the blade. Mostly because on the Millers Falls smoother, the tote is a bit on the short side (for me anyway).

And here we see the scribe line is just gone. 










When I scribed, I ran the pencil to the inside edge of the stile so I wanted to plane just to the "far" side of the line. Now I can re-hang and double check and if necessary take a few more swipes to even up the gap.

And that is exactly what was needed. The door fit but scraped in a bit. Back off and a couple of heavy cuts down the length followed by a few smoothing passes and here we are! (Excuse the grubby sneaker, I haven't made a catch for the door yet so I'm holding it shut for the photo...)










A pretty decent fit. I may take one or two more thin passes next time the door is off but for now I'm leaving it alone. 

Time to enjoy a beverage from my favorite mug.


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## Bob N (Oct 12, 2004)

Glad to see you back on this Rob, it has been interesting following your work.

btw.... I love the mug :lol:


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*With appologies to Sir Mix-A-Lot -- Cupboard got back!*

After a burger and fries for lunch I decided to keep working on the cupboard. The knob and latch needs a turning billet so I can go to the lathe and make chips. And the back boards need milling and rabbets. So while the glue up for the billet dries, its time to make shavings.

The back of the cupboard will be 1/2" boards of slightly varying widths. The boards will be ship-lapped and rest in a rabbet on the back of the case. Cut nails along the top, bottom and the fixed shelf will hold them in place.

Step one, mill down the board to 1/2". Decided to just use the power planer for this. Noisy but pretty quick work. Didn't bother with pictures here.

Next the boards are ripped to width. The widths are all between 4" and 5-1/2" and side by each it is about 28-1/2". In the end I'll need 24" to fill the back. Good to go.

Time to get out the rabbeting plane. I could have done this with the table saw and a dado head, or with my router handheld or in the table and a straight bit. But I recently picked up a Chinese copy of a Stanley 78 ($0.99 on eBay but about $12 in shipping, argh!). I've honed the blade and done some preliminary fettling of the plane. It needs a little more work but its OK for now.

Here's the plane showing the depth stop, nicker (retracted) and fence:









And here we see the other side with the fence support rod and depth adjuster (such as it is).









And from the top you can see the cap iron and screw and both the "regular" frog and the bull-nose frog at the front of the plane.










For $13 its a pretty decent worker. I decided to take a risk on what might be a bad casting (it isn't terrible but does need work) because all the other 78's on eBay seem to be missing the fence, depthstop or both!


















Once again, a three finger grip on the right hand, index finger pointing along the plane for balance. My left hand is riding with my thumb and index finger riding on the nose of the plane and the rest of my fingers are wrapped around the fence post. The depth is set kinda deep but since this is a long grain cut it works fine. 

Here are the ends of finished boards. 










You can see a little bit about what I mean when I say the plane needs a little more fettling. The fence is not 100% perpendicular to the body. This combined with running along the narrow edge and my limited experience with the plane produces some out of square rabbets. However since this is for ship lap and the joints will be left a little slack anyway, no big deal.

And the coolest part of using a rabbeting plane, the shavings! (Size US11 for scale...)










Once the boards are assembled side by side, the final width is about 26". Since I needed 24" this is great. I'll just rip about 1" off each of the two outside boards and I'm good to go. But that will wait until after a quick dry-fit to confirm. 

Playing with the rabbet plane took most of the afternoon and now its dinner time. Perhaps some hossenfeffer...


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

*Time to watch the paint dry!*

The cupboard will be painted with milk paint (Old Fashioned Milk Paint is a chemically safe, environmentally friendly paint). I'm using two colors, mustard and barn-red. The paint comes powdered, mix it with water to get a nice paint like consistency. Keep stirring until the powder is well dispersed. Let the mix stand for about 10 or 15 minutes then strain it to remove the lumps.










Milk paint doesn't have a lot of body especially the light colors. It acts more like a wash coat. So for the mustard I'm going to need to apply three coats. Being water based it will raise the grain so I did a quick wet sanding to the pieces before painting. To apply the paint use a foam brush or a chip brush. Expensive brushes aren't needed for milk paint, it won't make it go on any better. After each coat has dried it should be sanded back to level the paint, remove any hairs that came out of the brush and remove the funny bubble marks. I used a fine grit sanding sponge. This makes a lot of "dust" so have some rags handy or maybe the vacuum cleaner and brush attachment.

And don't panic about the color yet...

















To get the final color and protect the paint from water (milk paint is durable but will spot easily) it is necessary to apply linseed oil (BLO). This brings the paint to its final color and helps seal it against water stains. After the oil soaks in you can apply a top coat of wax, shellac or varnish. I chose to apply wax.


















Once I got the door re-installed it is back to not fitting the opening. However this time it is just a hair too wide. Since the milk paint is water based, it swelled the wood just a little more than the thickness of a dime! Dang it! But I'm not going to do anything about the fit for at least a week. My bet is that the wood will go back and the door will fit again. If after a week it won't fit then I'll take it off and re-plane the door.

All that is left is to make the knob and latch.


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## BigJimAK (Mar 13, 2009)

This is coming together great, Rob!


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## CanuckGal (Nov 26, 2008)

Wow that has turned out very nicely! I really like the colour!


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## Opa (Aug 11, 2007)

I have a metal bread drawer and the entire flour bin assembly from an old hoosier style cabinet if you might be interested. Opa


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## jhelminski (Nov 28, 2009)

*Box making post*

Folks
Are there any step-by-steps for humidors and jewelry boxes on this forum? I can't seem to find any.


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## Dr.Zook (Sep 10, 2004)

Welcome to the RouterForums James. Glad to have you as a member of our community.


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## dutchman 46 (May 23, 2007)

Very nice work! The best thing for Me was to pull out the planes and pamper the blades on the stone, and find the shaving come rolling off in a long piece. Very nice, might have to try to find time to get into the shop too!


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

Opa said:


> I have a metal bread drawer and the entire flour bin assembly from an old hoosier style cabinet if you might be interested. Opa


Thanks Opa, but I have (still, wow how long has it been) on my list to make the handle and latch from scratch. I've seen several examples of very simple shaker style latches where the knob has a long shaft that goes all the way through the door and on the back has a "bolt". As you turn the knob it catches a small block attached to the back of the stile.

Just need to dust off the lathe and get it done. I have a pattern selected for the knob, just haven't gotten to doing it.


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## rwyoung (Aug 3, 2008)

dutchman 46 said:


> Very nice work! The best thing for Me was to pull out the planes and pamper the blades on the stone, and find the shaving come rolling off in a long piece. Very nice, might have to try to find time to get into the shop too!


Sometimes it is just fun to pull out a scrap from the bin and make shavings. It is good practice too. Save the shavings and use them to get the fireplace/stove started. Works a treat.


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