Thread: Study - WIP

Marking Out Stock

Having purchased my Sydney Blue Gum, and leaving it stacked and sticked for around 6 weeks (through the worst of the Melbourne summer), I started to rough out the various pieces in preparation for rough milling.

Each pair of doors (upper and lower) is made from a 200x25x2100 length. I tried to take care in the layout so that stiles above/below each other are cut from the same complete section of timber to ensure I get continuity of grain.

marking out.jpg

With boards for the doors all marked out, time to start the rough milling. You can still see the boxes from moving still stacked in the corner … well … stacked all over the place. Setting up the workshop will be the next task after the study.

dressing face.jpg

dressing edge.jpg

The jointer was my deceased grandfathers, which was recently given to me by my father who no longer has any use for it. He never particularly like using it anyway, claiming he could get a better finish faster using a hand plane.

And … having completed the first round of milling, the stock is stacked ready to be thicknessed. On the left, upper stile, lower stile, and 2 halves of lower panel. Middle, another upper and lower stile, and 2 halves of upper panel, and on the right, 4 rails.

rough milled.jpg

More milling, and we end up with all stiles and rails dressed and docked, each numbered so I can rematch all the pieces later.

stiles and rails.jpg

I then set about gluing the large panels. Used a 3mm slot cutter to make a blind tongue and groove, glued and clamped.

large panels.jpg

And, so we begin the tediously slow process of routing the profile in the panels. With around 14mm to come off, and with the SBG being prone to tear out, each pass took a cut of around 1.5mm to 2mm. My router table doesn’t have either a) variable speed, or b) a large enough hole for a horizontal panel cutter, so I purchased a vertical panel cutter requiring the pieces to be stood on their ends, face against the fence.

machining panels.jpg

Once machined, I sanded the panels from 80 grit up to 600 grit, and then grain filled with timber mate. Then re sanded with 600 and 1200 grid to remove the excess grain filler. And here is the first set of panels ready for polishing.

large panels post grain fill.jpg

While I am polishing up the panels, I will machine the stiles and rails. I also have another set of 8 smaller panels that need to be glued up.
This shot shows the panels after “bodying up”. They must now sit for a couple of days to allow the shellac to settle a bit (well … that’s what my handy dandy polisher’s handbook tells me …  ).

large panels post body up.jpg

large panel post body up.jpg

Looking really good Glenn. The SBG is coming up nice.

Machined Stiles and rails.






I initially tried using a coping sled on the rails, but the bloody masonite I used for the base twisted when I glued it to the follower block .. so I threw it away in disgust and simply lay the stock on the table and machined with a wide square follower.

Shown above I am machining the Stiles ... Gotta love those magswitches ... Although had to use a clamp on the router fence made from MDF.

I now have 16 doors made ... With the exception of 1 where the stock lifted as it was being pushed past the cutter ... So its useless now. Have to cut off the routed profile, glue on a new section and remachine. It's from the same original board so should be a good grain and color match.

Next ... Bore for hinges and then start filling and sanding the door frames ready for polishing.

Glenn.

Oh !! And thanks NCArcher ... Am looking forward to apply the EEE ultra shine to see what the final finish looks like ...

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Stiles and rails machined now ...

Test fit a couple of doors.



Not bad. Fit is firm but not too tight. Left a couple of mm in the panels for expansion.

Sanded, assembled and glued 4 out of 16 doors.

Picture attached below shows first stage of polishing. It's a slow process ... But its just a matter of time and patience I guess.



More of the same tomorrow ...

You have made some great progress and it is coming up quite nice. I do have one question how come you have not build the carcass first and then the doors? Have you made the doors a little over sized to trim later?

Hi Christos,

Carcasses have all been cut and are currently waiting for completion of the doors.

See ... The carcasses are made of 16mm MDF and I figured that if the doors ended up the wrong size, I would rather toss the MDF than try to resize hardwood doors.

In picture below I have grain filled Stiles and rails for the upper small doors.



Glenn.

Here are the doors all assembled and grain filled. Panels were shellac'ed prior to assembly. I applied shellac to a couple of the frames just to get a view of coloring.


Each large door (lower) and small door (upper) are made from the same board which gives grain continuity on the Stiles and a good color match.

We laid them out on the floor to work out the sequence so the differing timber colors flowed nicely.

With that complete, I started to bore for the Blum overlay hinges ... But alas, I have hit a snag.

Oh ... Will tell a story below about the blum hinges too..

I am using a 35mm forstner bit to bore a 12 mm deep hole for the hinge boss. However, the centering spike on the bit projects about 6 mm past the cutter of the bit, which means it comes within 2mm of drilling all the way through the 20 mm thick door. That's way too close for my liking.

The solution ... Grind the centering spike on the forstner bit back to within 1 or 2 mm from the cutters. This means total depth of cut will be around 14 mm.

When drilling, first drill with a 3 mm regular drill bit to required depth. This gives the clearance and guide for the now squared off forstner bit centering spike, which means I should be 4 to 5 mm clear of the front face of the stile.

That's the theory anyway ... I really don't want to drill all the way through ...

About blum hinges ...

I went to the big green shed to check these out ... You know ... the ones used on most kitchen cabinets these days. Anyhoo ... $17.50 a pair multiplies by 20 doors and ... Holy crap. Ans to make matters worse, they don't have any trade packs of 10 pairs or anything. I would have filled up our recycle bin just with the packaging. So I gave blum Australia a call to find their trade distributors. They put me on to Lincoln Sentry in Dandenong. 25 pairs of hinges, $150 odd dollars !!! Bargain !!!

And ... No packaging ! All hand picked into an old box.

Makes you wonder eh ?

Wish me luck.

Glenn.

Update.

Doors all bored for the hinge bosses. Grinding the centering spike off worked, although (not surprisingly) the forstner bit doesn't run as well. So having a fence a clamping is a must.

For the last few days I have been drilling shelf holes, marking and punching for hinge plates, and assembling the carcasses to test for the door clearances.

Somehow (stupid me) I managed to cut the carcass pieces into trapezoids rather than squares ... Stupid stupid stupid. But .. by all appearances everything should turn out ok.

Now (between sessions of polishing) its time to start machining the false front for the carcasses.

Picture below showing test fitting ... Doors haven't been properly adjusted to even up gaps.

Great to see it coming together nicely, almost nicely.

Harsh ! But ... These little errors are there to test our resolve.

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I haven't checked in here since reading your first post Glenn. Sorry about that!!

You have done a brilliant job on those doors. They would be a credit to anyone!!!

Glad you found Lincoln Sentry. I have used them several times for hinges and other fittings. They
are good people to deal with, apart from the price factor.

Looking forward to the rest of the build now!!

Thanks artme. You mention price, but theirs was a darn site lower than the jolly green giant (in whom I hold a few shares ... So I might be cutting my own lunch)

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