Dressingtable WIP

**KorDes** · 24th July 2008, 06:40 PM

My wife has asked me to make her a dressing table since the one she was borrowing belonged to my sister and she wanted it back for her exchange students. Please excuse me if I have missed some parts, I sometimes get carried away with making things that I forget to take picks. I actually started this yesterday, so this thread so far is 2 days work.

The cabinet and drawers are going to be made of Pacific Rimu and the top and legs are going to be Pink Birch(maybe depending if they go together)

Day 1

Division boards straight and squared and ready for gluing.

Division glued and clamped. I use some clamping jigs I made up so the boards line up and stay flat.

End boards straightened and prepared for jointing

Here are the 2 ends glued up after dressing the edges on the jointer

Day 2

I cleaned up the panels and cut them to size

Rails all ready to roll, just needs sanding.

Drilled the domino holes in the panels. Domino holes go right through the division.

After that the ends are sanded and arised and sanded up the rails as well. Then the homemade dominos are glued into the end. ready for assembly

The carcase assembled. The 90mm rails are screwed onto the division.

All I got done for today.

**les88** · 25th July 2008, 07:50 AM

Looking good

I will follow your progress as I will be building one soon. I like the idea of your wood clamps to hold the the timber for gluing. Would it hold the panels more securely if you used a clamp on the hinged end as well?
les

**KorDes** · 25th July 2008, 09:20 AM

probably, but it seems to do the job as it is. They actually line up the boards very well, as long as they are all the same thickness. The better they line up the less sanding I have to do.

**Ozkaban** · 25th July 2008, 01:27 PM

looking good! the panel clamps seem to work pretty well too...

It's also not a bad demonstration of how Dominoes work. I've always liked the look of those things, but there's just too many other goodies that I need before I can drop that amount of cash on a cool tool like that one...

cheers,
Dave

**Tex B** · 25th July 2008, 05:38 PM

Looking very good. It's amazing how much time the Domino saves on a project like that.

I look forward to seeing the finished product.

Tex

**KorDes** · 25th July 2008, 09:12 PM

You will not be disapointed with the domino. It not only saves time but makes a strong joint. And it can be used for so many other things, you just have to come up with it.

Day 3

Had to pay the bills so this ment taking the misses to get some money and then take her shopping before shes goes to work. Plus being friday, went and had a few cold ones at my mates shop. Managed to get some work in between things.

Made some hardwood runners for drawers and stapled those on. They should last a while. Using metal runners did cross my mind but decided to go with wooden runners to optimise drawer size. Using metal runners would have ment losing about 25mm in the length of the drawers. Dont sound like much, but its also personal choice.
Routered a 4mmx10mm rebate in the back of the carcase to accept the back. Silly me got so amped about the domino I forgot to machine the rebate before I marked out my holes for the dominos. I only realised my hastey mistake after i got to the last set of dominos i had to drill in the ends. Was originally going to use a 4mm thick hardwood ply, but decided to use some 6mm I had lying around and was just large enough to get the back out of.

Decided to go with pink birch for the top and legs, as I got a 250x25x5m and a 125x55x4m boards form a reject hardwood packet I scored of an online auction for $31. Had nice selection of hardwoods of all sizes and varieties and these two boards came out really nice. Got lucky I guess. I only have an 8" jointer so had to flatten and straighten the boards for the tops the old fashioned way with my smoothing plane. I have 2 planes, the smoothing one and a block plane. When I did my apprenticeship we had nice big machines to do all the hardwork.

Got me a wixey digital angle box a while ago to set angles on my tablesaw. Read a thread a while ago about checking twist on a timber mill so you dont end up slabbing twisted slabs. The poster used such a device to check his chainsaw mill rails. So I used mine to check for twist all the way down the board. Worked like a charm and the boards came out flat and straight after i put it through the thicknesser.

Top glued up after skipping it through the thicknesser to get maximum thickness out of the board. Ended up with 23mm, not bad considering it was slightly bowed and rough sawn.

Also got the legs machined up too. Will hopefully get then shaped up tomorrow before I have to go to a wedding reception.

**Gibbo** · 25th July 2008, 10:24 PM

That's looking fantastic so far! You are certainly moving much faster than I could on a project like that.

**DJ’s Timber** · 25th July 2008, 10:29 PM

Coming along nicely

also like the grain and colouring of the timber you have selected too

**KorDes** · 26th July 2008, 02:40 PM

Thanks for the comments. Didnt get alot done today. Slept in, being a saturday.

Spent most of my time making a test leg out of pine and a template. Want to get the shape of the leg right and in proportion to the unit. Stained the leg to make it stand out more. The top isnt cut to size yet and there will be an apron connecting the legs underneath the cabinet. That will have a slight curve on the bottom as well.

Tell me what you think.

**Waldo** · 26th July 2008, 02:48 PM

G'day KorDes,

The little kick on the inward side of the legs I'm not sure about, but that depends on how and if you're putting any shape to the apron.

Maybe it's too long, but I like the ratio of the length of the overhang of the top in relationship to the top of the leg.

**plino** · 26th July 2008, 06:51 PM

KorDes my friend, you never cease to amaze me

great work, cool photos and a fantastic commentary on your project.

See ya on Monday.

Plino

**munruben** · 26th July 2008, 06:56 PM

Nice project and good work.Great pictures.

**TEEJAY** · 26th July 2008, 07:29 PM

The outer shape is good.

The inner face at the bottom of the carcase step it in underneath for support and visual effect and go straight down from there.

Well that's what I think.

**Tex B** · 26th July 2008, 08:40 PM

I'm with Teejay and Waldo on the foot. The rest of the piece looks fantastic, but looks a bit odd (to me) to have the kick in. Maybe a kick out instead?

Tex

**Harry72** · 26th July 2008, 09:29 PM

Im not convinced that the bottom inwards curve would be a bad thing, need to see the cabinet as a whole to be sure?

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