Thread: WIP - Rory's Cupboard

Laid up with a crook back for a week, so not much progress. I got back on the tools last night to square up the ends of the mortices that I cut with the router last week. Some people like to round the tenons instead - I'm not one of them.

I made a slight mistake in routing the grooves for the panels first. This made it difficult to judge where to finish the ends of the mortices that are overlapped by the groove. So I undercut these with the router and used a chisel to finish them off.

Pic 1: I clamped the four legs side by side and then clamped a fence in line with where the mortices are to finish. By sliding the chisel down with the back held firmly against the fence I could make sure the mortice finished in the correct spot. This was the time to make any adjustments and I made sure all mortices start and finish in the same spot on each leg and that the length of the mortices are spot on.

Pic 2: The top mortices start 1/4" in from the top of the leg, so clamping a fence was not possible. I didn't need the fence as a guide here because the end of the mortice is flush (not buried 1/4" in a groove), so I scribed a line with the marking knife as a guide for the chisel and chopped down. I used the calliper to make sure the ends were square all the way down.

It's a bit time consuming but I don't mind taking the time to get it right. I originally thought of using my 1/4" hollow mortising chisel to square up the ends but I discovered that the 1/4" bit in cheapo set I bought is oversize, so that idea went out the window.

Another afternoon will be spent on this, then it's on to the frame and panel back, sides and bottom.

Is this getting boring?

Pic 1: I'm running the #4 over the legs to remove machine marks, layout lines and other blemishes, leaving a nice crisp finished surface. The blue mat is a bit of non-slip stuff I purloined from my Mum, who bought it from the $2 shop to put in the cupboards of their caravan. It's just the thing to stop things sliding around. With a bit of this stuff on the bench, I can plane these legs without needing to use a bench dog or other stop. Can also be used with a router. That's my tip for the day.

Pic 2: The legs finished. I chamfered all the edges with a block plane. Now I'll put them aside so they don't get damaged.

So that's the legs done. Some lessons learned:

1. If you're following someone else's mud map, make sure all the dimensions make sense before you start.

2. If you're doing a mortice that is in a groove, or for a haunched tenon, cut the mortice first because it's hard to judge where the mortice finishes otherwise. You probably all knew that anyway.

3. That blue non-slip stuff is very handy and also protects the work from marks etc.

That grain should come up a treat when you put a finish on it.

What finish are you planning on using btw?

At this stage I'm thinking boiled linseed oil under shellac. There was an article on it in a recent FWW and it looks so simple even a knucklehead like me should be able to do it. The oil should pop the grain nicely. I'll try it on a test bit first though...

What a lovely stack of timber, very envious. Wish I had that at my place.

The work is comming along nicely and the grain on the legs is great.

Peter

I decided the next step was to saw up all the boards I need for the various panels. Had a gig on Friday night, so Saturday was a late start. Similar story on Sunday, so only two half days at it.

Pic 1: I laid out all the panels in full size on an offcut of chipboard so that I could work out what I needed.

Pic 2: Most of the banksia was sawn into 8"x2" boards. I had a few 6' lengths, so I docked these at 2', which makes it easier to handle them and get them flat. The longest panel I need is 22 3/4".

Pic 3: First I use the jointer to get one side flat (no pictures of this because I'm using the machine with the guard off). It doesn't have to be perfect, just needs to be enough of a flat surface to allow it to ride over the thicknesser table without wobbling.

Pic 4: Then I run each board through the thicknesser to get a nice flat face on the other side of the board and joint one edge. I also run each board through the table saw to make them a consistent width. Not really necessary, it just makes it easier with set up on the bandsaw. Having both faces flat and parallel to each other means I can set up a finger board and consistent height means I can set the upper guides nice and tight to the top edge of the board.

Pic 1: I've set the fence to 5/8". Finished size is 1/2", so that gives me 1/8" to get both sides dressed plus a bit of lee way down the track. I wanted to get 3 out of each board but that didn't always work out because some of the boards were badly twisted and I had to remove too much to get them flat before I could start resawing. After sawing one panel off each board, I run it through the thicknesser again to remove the bandsaw marks. This gives me a nice flat face to run against the fence, and ensures each board has at least one flat side as a reference when thicknessing down to the finished size..

Pic 2: The bandsaw adjustment fairy must've visited last night because it's cutting nice and straight without much wandering in the cut.

Pic 3: These should look nice book-matched for the end panels.

Pic 4: A weekend's work. This pile of 9/16" thick boards will sit here and acclimatise (take note, American readers) for the next week or two.

Looking good buddy. The timber looks fantastic.

Yeap, looking good... you are doing well with the old money measurements too.

Coming on like a gutsache.
FWIW, I found that a coat of shellac as a sanding sealer, followed by oil, brought the wood up a treat.

OK Alex, I'll give that a try as well. The idea with the oil (according to the FWW article) is to wipe it on very dry, just enough to pop the grain but not soak into the wood. The grain is very porous and quite rough as you know, so the sanding sealer first might be a better way to go with this stuff. I've got a bit of UBeaut's sanding sealer here, which I think is just a light cut shellac.

What oil did you use?

Next step is to make the panels for the bottom and then mill up the frames while I'm waiting for the glue to dry.

Pic 1: Most of this stuff came from 5"x1" boards. It's all milled to a tad over 3/4" thick - 3/4" being the finished thickness. I need a variety of widths for frame components plus some wider boards for the bottom panels, which are also 3/4" thick.

Pic 2: This is about as straight as the grain gets with this stuff. I need to try and get as much of this stuff as I can for the frames and save the really wild stuff for the panels.

Pic 3: I've made three panels, even though I only need two. Just in case. I'll mill the one I don't use down to 1/2" for the back. I've glued and clamped them all up in one hit. Was a bit exciting. The temp is very cold at the moment and so the glue is a bit viscous, so took a bit longish to spread. Got it all done in time.

Pic 1: This is the stack of frame components at the finished sizes (3", 2 3/4", 2 1/2" and 2") ready to be docked, morticed, grooved etc. I like to write the part name and the length on each one in chalk so I don't stuff up.

Pic 2: Cleaning the glue off with a scraper.

Pic 3: Three panels. Lucky they're for the bottom. I'll pay more attention to grain balance in the door and side panels. With this stuff, it is very hard to get parallel boards that don't stand out like the dog's proverbials. Book matching is probably the only way, but I'm not a big fan of the bookmatched look, especially with this stuff which is a bit over the top and can look like one of those ink blot tests.

I've kept all the panel widths to under 13" so I can run them through the thicknesser after gluing. Also means I can mostly get away with two boards in the visible panels.

Silent, you got the tree(s) for nothing didn’t you? How much wood did you get and how much did it cost to mill them?