Thread: Storage Chest WIP

you're workshop is too clean....too clean...

Now that i've got the fun part out of the way i'm having to focus my energy into the more tedious parts of woodworking, namely i'm referring to sanding. I've been throwing around ideas on how i would handle the assembly and what order i should do things to avoid having to sand in tight corners later as i did with my stools WIP. What i came up with was sanding the pieces using the belt sander with 60g and the the ROS with 80g to smooth out any ripples from the planer/thicknesser the timber shed uses and to remove the excess timbermate filler.

After that first sanding i was surprised by how well the wood came out and have decided to skip the 120g and 180g sanding with the ROS as i had planned. I think i will go straight into assembly and then mask off the panels while I shellac all the hardwood and progressively hand sand through 120, 180, 240 and finally 320 to get a reasonably smooth (but not shinny) finish with the shellac.

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I assembled the first pieces last night and found that the alignment of the miters is not super flash. This is mainly due to the crappy precision of my self centering dowel jig (it can be off by 0.5-1.0 mm each time) although it's also due to the fact that i don't have a planer/jointer to give me a smooth and equal surface to work with each time. I found that some of the pieces i used differ in thickness by 2 -3mm. In one case i had to re-cut one of the pieces because it was 5mm narrower than the rest of the stock. So the lesson is that whilst the timber is sold as "Dressed All Round", it is far from consistent from one piece to the next. Basically it looks like i will have to do some more sanding to re-align the mitered joins.

Pic 1 - completed application of the timbermate putty
Pic 2 - My modified clamp (made two wooden jaws to replace the metal ones for this job) setup and limited space
Pic 3 & 4 - Before and after sanding on one of the pieces
Pic 5 - One of the clamped up sides
Pic 6 - Front (or rear) panel after glue up

Originally Posted by ivormiric

you're workshop is too clean....too clean...

I disagree, not too clean, empty.


Time will change that.

More glue up yesterday. I'm three panels down, two more to go. Then it's time to apply the finish, join the panels, touch up any marks and fit the hinges, stays and hasp. Still not sure what sort of handles i'll put on the thing.

Anyway I thought i'd clean up some of the miter joins yesterday after i set up the third panel. Initially i thought i'd have to use the belt sander as some of the lips were pretty high, maybe 1.5mm max. I didn't fancy the idea of sitting there for an age hand sanding the thing. Luckily it occurred to me that the belt sander would leave sanding marks on one or both of the mitered pieces, so i thought i'd give the ROS a go first to see how it went. I was very pleasantly surprised by how quickly it removed the necessary stock to flush up the join. I got 16 corners done in around 30min, pretty happy with that and that's why i love my Bosch ROS. For anyone wondering the model is the GEX125-150.

The pictures below show an example of what i'm talking about, before and after clean up sanding.

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Originally Posted by Christos

I disagree, not too clean, empty.


Time will change that.

Thanks guys, you're quite right on both counts, it's kept clean (most of the time) and it is quite empty for one good reason. It's my garage primarily and i don't like parking on the street due to past experience so i have to clean up the mess i make most nights so that my cars don't look like a sawmill.

Hoping to change all that when we move next time though, hopefully that will be sooner than later. Kinda hard to find acreages around our area though and i really want a proper shed this time.

Over the last week i spent a lot of time sanding and finishing the inner and outer surfaces of the panels i glued up, i deliberately left top/outer edge on each panel unfinished as i knew there would be some sanding left to do after final assembly. Once that was complete i made the final beveled/mitred cuts on the panels and did a dry assembly. To my confusion the panels all seemed to have some cupping in the beveled/mitred edge. This appears to have been introduced by the saw, but only on the pointy edge of the bevel, the other side of the bevel seems fine.

Add to that the problem with the lid panel which got twisted up during glue up and has now retained that shape, meaning i will have to start again on that single panel, grrrr!!! I put the work aside and revisited the next day hoping that inspiration would hit me and i would see the solution, i didn't. I decided to just go ahead and glue it up and then deal with what came out of it. The result can be seen in the pictures below, the top and bottom of the corner joins met up nicely but the middle has an ugly bowed gap. I considered filling this with black putty but first i was more concerned about the strength of the joint since there wasn't a lot of glue contact, so stupidly i tried to force glue into that massive gap.

After it dried i realised that the additional glue i forced in there wasn't going to be of much use and if anything it would impede my efforts with the putty later. That was when inspiration hit me. I though why not put some inserts into that gap instead, i considered using aluminium strip first since it's readily available at bunnies, then i thought brass would look nicer since it would match the hasp i plan to use but ultimately i opted for matching wood since i had some around the place and it's easiest to work with. The brass would have been good for knocking resistance though, maybe i can use that in future.

The first problem however was to get a nice and equal sized and shaped gap for the strips to sit it. So it was over to the router. Using some scrap I had from test cuts on this project I built a right angle fence of sorts for the router and gave it a test run on some other scrap. It worked better than i had hoped and i put it to work on the box. The results were far better than i could have hoped for.

Now i just need to make a new lid and clean up and finish the top of the joined panels and i'll be close to finished.

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pic 1&2 - the router jig before i cut the central hole for the bit
pic 3&4 - the problem joins on the corners with excessive gap
pic 5 - gap after routing
pic 6&7 - gluing in the filler strip on one corner. Note it still needs to be planed and sanded down to be flush with the corner.

Nice save with the stringing.

Quick update for the weekend. I've cleaned up the corners to bring them up flush with the sides, sanded and refinished everything. Things are looking better now and i've regained some confidence in the project. On Sunday I got some help from my fiance and we glued up the inside panels with some faux suede. I'm actually quite impressed by how well it's come up. I was worried a bit about the contact glue so it was a good thing that i did a few sample piece trials before i started on the main project. Lucky too since it saved me ruining the suede. I used the liquid type "fast bond" contact glue and it penetrated the material to make it all blotchy on the exposed side. After that i decided to try and apply that stuff to the wood side only and use a spray adhesive on the fabric. That worked a treat and bond it forms is really quite strong for what's needed. That's how we ended up completing the thing, pics attached below.

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The main things left now are to repaint the box where the shellac bled through(or around more like) the masking tape and to redo the lid for the box since that was a major disaster; The lid ended up twisting on me during glue up because i tried to be a bit tricky and straighten out some small warping in the thing, hoping the glue would keep it straight once it set. It worked but unfortunately I hadn't made sure the thing was flat since it was sitting up on pipe clamps and it ended up having a 12mm twist in it along the length of the lid which you can imagine wouldn't work too well when i would try to close it. So i dismantled it with my dovetail saw on the weekend hoping to reuse the wood but i think it's beyond saving. I will start again with fresh wood and do it right for once ....i hope.

This one really took a lot longer than i thought it would. Too many mistakes along the way and a highlighted need for various big shop items. Could have really used a jointer and a thicknesser during this build, oh and lets not forget the table saw so i could get some true bevels/mitres. Will have to be patient though and wait til i get myself into a proper workshop. On the positive i did learn some lessons

- saving time by pre-painting panels may seem like a good idea but it is very hard to keep them clean/unscratched during assembly
- if the stock isn't perfectly straight/flat to start with then you have little hope of an unproblematic build
- clamping can only remove small gaps
- A four way dado with mitred corners is actually quite hard to get right, it needs a lot of precision cuts which is hard using a handheld saw.
- etc etc

Live and learn I spose. Here is the finished product. It is recycled messmate for the frame and 12mm ply for the infill panels. The outside is just sealed and painted, the frame is finished with 5-6 coats of shellac and the inside is covered with a faux suede material. All in all it looks ok to untrained eyes but i can see all the flaws. The biggest one that's not shown in these pics and isn't really visible unless you get on the floor is that the lid does not sit flush in the corners because i had to take down misaligned joins on the box corners. I think i will keep any future work to the cooler months when there isn't so many other things to do about the house and i can focus on what i'm doing better.
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Happy holidays to everyone, hope you all enjoy the break with your loved ones.

Nice finish piece.

We always tend to learn better when we are responsible for the final result.

That should do the job!!

I like it) just one thing...... Will the lid be strong enough for someone to sit on? You know someone's gonna do it) nice design, it's always good to use recycled timber)

Originally Posted by meuls69

I like it) just one thing...... Will the lid be strong enough for someone to sit on? You know someone's gonna do it) nice design, it's always good to use recycled timber)

I did find myself asking the same question when i was working on the idea and i think the answer is definitely a yes. It's 12mm ply which by itself would be sufficient, i know because i built some rough shelving recently with the same ply and i was able to stand on it without an issue. Also the first lid which ended up warped proved that the design was quite strong.

I don't know if i'd go jumping on it but it should survive the occasional bum or two.

It ok to know that some items are not quite right but this should not distract from the completed job. This is now part of the learning curve and something that you know will be better built if needed to make another one.