Thread: nightstand 2 progress if interested

Carpet in the kitchen??

I'd never be allowed into a kitchen with a carpet, not that I make a mess.

Mick.

NORTH WIND STOPPED PLAY

It's after midday and although sunny and bright the temperature in the workshop has not reached 5c. If inside by the garage doors the door is radiating heat off like a radiator. Seeing that the major work still to be completed means handwork and standing at a bench I shall await a warmer spell. The weather is such that any ex. englishman knows (of advancing ages) is that the chill makes your bones ache especially in the rear area.

I have attached two photographs of the workshop showing how things go together when the motor vehicle is insitu. Also a snap of our home which is around 400ft altitude overlooking the sea, but as mentioned above its sunny but with a north cold wind around.

Pleased to say that whilst preparing this posting today the north wind has turned southerly so I should be back in business later this morning.

However I do have a problem area coming up, the left hand leg shows 90 degree to the rails OK but the right hand side the bottom rail has created a 1mm error from the upright. I think I can get round the error by fiddling with the hinges. Any advice though would be welcome. (the doors must fit internally)

DAY 18



What a difference a day makes! The wind has turned round from northerly to southerly but although it's still only 9c it is quite comfortable to work in.



I went ahead and made the two door frames knowing that I had calculated for 1mm oversize on height and width. I intended to plane off the excess but as per pictures below it can be seen that I have a slight problem with the right hand door frame. The leg upright at the top of door shows a gap of 1mm. I think it's a bit of Seriph's pinus crappas because the last occasion I dry fitted the carcass frames were OK, so bringing the furniture indoors I suspect has made the timber dry and move abit.



Perhaps one of the furniture makers on the forum would advise whether to fiddle the hinges when fitting or plane the stile door frame off at it's bottom end.



I received a telephone call from a tool supplier that the replacement planer/thicknesser blades I ordered had arrived so my woodworking day was shortened owing to going and making a collection and fitting of these blades. This actually was the first time I have fitted blades so things went a bit slowly, in addition the new blades (resharpenable type ) are twice as thick and also deeper than originals, this involved changing the existing settings.



Finally at the end of the day I took the plunge and booked air tickets to Sydney for the 13 th January, so if anyone gets a small amount of the brown stuff in Janet and I would be delighted to help the consuming of same. Returning back to the U.K. 10th February.

Day 19





One of those days...........................

Digressing from woodwork, I had the previous day reserved flight seats to Oz, and during the next 24 hours I was making arrangements for van hire, kennels for pets, and all the things you do when arranging your hols. I then telephoned the travel agents to confirm the booking and make the payment. That’s when things started to go wrong. I gave all the usual details, card number, and date of birth, passport number etc. etc. and then........................

the man on the other end of the telephone said I would have to fax a copy of my credit card front and back, and my bank statement heading. NOT BL O,O.D..Y LIKELY I SAID. and told him I was reporting to the credit card company.

The credit card companies fraud department knew of the other sides name and told me to cancel all arrangements and never to do such a thing as requested.



I am pleased to say I have managed to keep the same holiday arrangements with a new booking agent but this did curtail woodwork pleasures for the day.

DAY 20

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it's off to work I go.

Temperature in shop 5c so put on the heater fan and start coughing from the dust movement. I've finished setting up the new blades for the planer/thicknesser and had a test run. The panels for the doors are thicknessed down to size prior to gluing up. These panels will then be cut on my workcentre to size and a rebate put to the four edges to fit the rails and stiles already machined earlier in the week. The steel calliper by the way feels like ice on my hands and the dial steams up from proximity to body heat. As you can see I have invaded the kitchen again for the glue up. I glued the panels with poly plastic bags under seams to avoid the panels sticking to some old melamine plastic kitchen doors. I knew they would come in one day for something so they were never thrown out. I only just have enough cramps some of which were the children’s table tennis net clamps, some my old Seagull outboard motor clamps (who remembers these?). Finish off the day by marking up the dovetails for the single drawer that is needed and cut some dovetails pins. Not bad for two hours work I reckon.

I now have arthritis and one of the tricks I've learnt when working in a cold environment, is to wear very thin kid leather gloves with the finger ends missing.

My hands, especially the right one, is very prone to aches when touching cold steel. As I go to a gym at least three times a week I found I needed gym gloves to stop my hands aching. These are fingerless gloves whose main aim is to stop the odd callous forming, they became a godsend to me, I then transposed the idea to the garage, but with very thin gloves.

Whilst visiting Germany last January I also noted that my brother in-law uses this type of glove for fiddling around in the cellar, which in winter is usually around 2-3ºC.

Maybe you could look around for something like that to help the prevention of chill blains?

Mick.

Optimark,Mick.

Thanks for the advice we'll give it a try, the wife has also been a long time arthritis sufferer and has tried most things.

DAY 21

Progress on the nightstand project has come to a temporary halt for a couple of days, I think I mentioned earlier that my immediate neighbour has a wedding (his daughter) party Saturday and many of his guests are arriving and I thought it not appropriate to run woodwork machinery with my workshop having close proximity to his domestic living areas.

I can report though that one of the door panels, photographs attached on last post, is going to need more work. The panel has bowed at the glued joint, so I will saw down the join and reglue turning one of the boards over hoping for a compensatory effect.

Have a good weekend in Australia.

DAY 22


Many guests around at neighbours home and I have even given them the use of my drive for parking. Any stranger passing by will think I am wealthy with four vehicles on the patch.

Pleased to say the door panel problem seems to have solved itself (that’s how I like problems to go) I placed the panel on the carpet in our playroom and then put a carton of old woodworking magazines on the top and the bowed timber has straightened out over the last 24 hours. Shopping in the morning (we have to eat) and then should get in two hours play during the afternoon. I reckon the old working days were less hectic, at least I could park up in a lay-by and pretend to be working.

Day 23





Couldn't resist creeping out to the bench this afternoon (Sunday) because I decided I could do some woodwork without using machinery.

I carried on from where I had left off the other day and chopped out the dovetails pins on all side drawer pieces. But I did have an accident before really getting underway. I used my cutter knife on the face side of the front drawer panel, I knew as soon as the knife had crossed the wood what I had done. I must stop thinking about my Australian trip coming up and concentrate when working with tools especially the machine ones. This meant I used my hand plane to avoid noise but the timber planed beautifully even if it was some old 4x2 roofing stuff. Cutting the pins gave no trouble but the lapped tails were more troublesome because a couple of small knots appeared out of the blue and made the wood difficult to chop.

The photograph below shows my latest method of using a bench hold down. I have drawers below my bench top so I don't think it practical to have the traditional hold down through a bench hole.



In addition there are two more pictures of the almost completed drawer joints and assembled. The December weather turned very dismal and grey so left the completion of drawer for tomorrow.

DAY 24



Mild temperatures forecast for the week 7 to 11c.

So to work after lunch, and I completed the drawers with dovetail joints by hand. I also placed a rebate all round drawer to accommodate the base.

I used a brass template to mark up the dovetails which appeared in our Goodwoodworking magazine a couple of months ago. If anyone is interested I will take a photograph of this jig and post.



I had to use mdf for the drawer base so kitted myself up with the Triton respirator when cutting the panel to size. The drawers are now ready for gluing up one evening later this week.



I then turned to the two doors which are going to have free centre panels with a beading fitted at edge of panel and frames. I found the glue line of each panel and called this the centre line and proceeded to rip waste off each side and also crosscut the panels to length. All went well with no disasters so a 5 mm tongue was then put all round both panels. I am pleased to state that panels dry fitted door frames first time so after staining these inside panels they shall also ready for gluing.



So that was three hours more of my lifespan used up but who can complain after such a pleasant afternoon spent playing in the workshop.



Two pictures attached to show the progress after the 24th day.

DAY 25

Those weather forecasters got it wrong. It's not mild, it's 5 to 7c.

So I just settled for gluing up the drawer today and crept into the kitchen again for a warmish spot to set the adhesive.

I shall most probably be able to get out after lunch tomorrow, then I shall make the door and draw handles using different tool bits on the router table.

Also I am awaiting the supply of a laminate top for this cupboard, I went down our local type furniture store (MFI, do you have them?) and placed an order for the top piece of one of their unit cupboard items. They appear to break down their units so that customers can mix and match when designing those modern bedroom layouts. I don't know what the purist on this forum might say about that one, but our bedroom suite was setup this way over 25 years ago and gives no problem.

Photograph taken in the kitchen when wife was not around.!!!

Day 26

Put the long ones on again, went out to the shop and switched on the fan heater, then raised the temperature unto 10c.

I then had to hunt through my scrap box looking for some
25x25 mm but had to settle for 25x30 which was then put through my workcentre. I didn't worry about planning up this edge because it would become the glue side for my door and drawer handles. The handles are created using the router table and a round nose cutter bit to three sides of the batten. After routing the handles were cut to 3" and 4" lengths, plus a couple of grades of wet and dry paper were wrapped round a piece of dowelling to clean out the cove cuts.

Beadings were the next job which are required for the door panels. They are to be fitted to frames to take the plainness off the join area. This also saved the expense of a panel cutting kit.
I again raided the scrap box and found a 4" width of 15mm which I reduced to 8mm on the planer/thicknesser. This 2ft length was taken over to the router table and the cove cutter was used. After each pass through the router table I take the worked piece over to my workcentre saw and cut an 8mm slice of the length and then return to the router and do another moulding, then again back to the saw. I finish up with 6 lengths of beading which should be enough to cover any breakages when springing them onto the inside of frames.

That was another 2 hour session. Photographs below show the work completed.

Most enjoyable read and look at your project. Thank you for sharing. Love the snippets of life.

Melbourne .. warm (was to get to 30) .. but thunder storm rolling by, so it is raining ?? ... I thought this was a temperate climate :confused: ... time to head south