Corona Virus Projects

[BladesNBarrels]

Thanks again for posting.
I get inspired with your explanations.
After all, Woodworking is the art of correcting your mistakes!

[JohnnyEgo]

Sunday: Wood Work, continued

Little quick hand-planing to trim up the replacements to exact dimension.


I didn't take any pictures of cutting the bottom groove in the two replacement sides on the router table, but it happened. Box looking good at this point.


Routed the drawer sides to the template in the appropriate orientation this time. I checked this about six times before I brought them to the router.


Interior finished and boxes glued.


Exterior sand and fill.


Ready for exterior finish.

[JohnnyEgo]

Time to put some consideration into the cabinet carcass. Stacked some stuff up to start getting a better idea of dimensions:


I had glued up some panel boards a few weeks back with bookmatched grain, but despite being in cauls, they warped, and the shared direction of the grain on the panels made that warp even worse.


Cutting to actual width took out about half the warp, but I ended up having to cut down the joint line, and even then, I still had some warp on each individual board that needed to be planed out. I lost a lot of thickness in the process. Started at 3/4", ended at 5/8".


Fortunately, the bead profile still looked pretty good at that reduced thickness, so I went with it for the rest of the boards.


Used my miter jig to cut the initial 45 degree miters, then cleaned them up with my miter plane on my shooting board and donkey's ear (the 45 degree platform)



Then stack, fit, and adjust. Two playing cards is about .25 mm, and I think an acceptable gap for seasonal expansion and wood movement.


I can fit, space, or adjust a lot of things, but the width of this first drawer is fixed, and critical. Needed to remove about 2mm of space. Removed three, and had to discard that side and recut a whole new set of panels.


Close. So close. Just a bunch of spacers, tape, and gravity.

[BladesNBarrels]

You are a perfectionist and the results are great!

[mtnhigh]

That is really nice work! I am sure your son will appreciate it, and enjoys the time spent with you in the shop!

[JohnnyEgo]

You are a perfectionist and the results are great!

That made me chuckle, because there is a serious lack of perfection in most of my work.

The combination of Covid 19 and the busiest work year I've had in decades has changed my cadence a lot. Previously, I'd come home from a long assignment, and have three dedicated days to knock out whatever I was going to do before I was back out the door. Now, I am mostly working from home, but it's very hard to get concentrated shop time. An hour here, an hour there. The upside when I only have a short amount of time to spend on any given thing is that I don't get super-bored with the really tedious stuff. So that forced patience has leveled up my game a bit this time around. But I still do a lot of stupid stuff that I either have to re-do or make-do, so perfection is in very short supply.

[Great-Kazoo]

That made me chuckle, because there is a serious lack of perfection in most of my work.

The combination of Covid 19 and the busiest work year I've had in decades has changed my cadence a lot. Previously, I'd come home from a long assignment, and have three dedicated days to knock out whatever I was going to do before I was back out the door. Now, I am mostly working from home, but it's very hard to get concentrated shop time. An hour here, an hour there. The upside when I only have a short amount of time to spend on any given thing is that I don't get super-bored with the really tedious stuff. So that forced patience has leveled up my game a bit this time around. But I still do a lot of stupid stuff that I either have to re-do or make-do, so perfection is in very short supply.

If you get bored. There's always some range time.

[buffalobo]

That made me chuckle, because there is a serious lack of perfection in most of my work.

The combination of Covid 19 and the busiest work year I've had in decades has changed my cadence a lot. Previously, I'd come home from a long assignment, and have three dedicated days to knock out whatever I was going to do before I was back out the door. Now, I am mostly working from home, but it's very hard to get concentrated shop time. An hour here, an hour there. The upside when I only have a short amount of time to spend on any given thing is that I don't get super-bored with the really tedious stuff. So that forced patience has leveled up my game a bit this time around. But I still do a lot of stupid stuff that I either have to re-do or make-do, so perfection is in very short supply.

If half the "craftsmen" who write periodicals, produce TV, Youtube, instructional video were to honestly document their projects as you do yours, they would all be watching your videos.

[JohnnyEgo]

So the next day after I cut a new bottom panel, started fitting again with much more care. Started out with four cards worth of space, and worked my way very slowly down to two.


Next, I decided I probably needed something more substantial than tape in the dry-fit, so I used a machine called a Festool Domino to route out some loose tenons.

I hate the Domino. That is heresy in my circles, with other hobby furniture builders swearing that it bends time and space and adds 10 skill levels to craftsmanship. And indeed, the large version of this tool, which I use to make outdoor furniture, was a game changer for me. But I hate it's little brother.
I think it is fiddly and does a crap job of alignment unless you are really careful throughout the whole process. These are also very expensive tools for what they do. The big one was $1700 and worth every penny to me. The little one was something like $1200, and I don't think it does a significantly better job then the much cheaper pocket-hole system like the Kreg jig, at a small fraction of the cost. It's real advantage is that it is strong and conceals pretty well, but I think I could have spent my life being very happy with other jointery methods for furniture.
Anyways, once you have carefully aligned everything, it makes these neat little holes.


Then you stick the loose tenons in (also called dominos), and if you have done everything perfectly and lived a pure and blessed life, everything aligns.



Although, more commonly, what ends up happening for me is that I spend the next 20 minutes planing or chiselling dominos to get everything aligned.

The mitered joints were even more of a pain in the butt. The tool has an adjustable angle fence, but it referenced off the inside surface, and I didn't like that, as one of my panels is a small fraction thinner than the others. Additionally, it wasn't lining the holes up where I wanted them, and blowing out the back of the boards. I solved it with a shim cut at a 45 degree angle and screwed into the fence.



Next up, cut the grooves for the backer board on my tablesaw.


The tablesaw blade I had in there didn't produce a perfectly flat bottom in the groove, and it didn't really need to either, as the final fit of the panel won't touch the bottom of the gap, and will allow some room for wood movement. But it only takes a pass or two with the router plane to have a flat bottom anyways, so that is what I did.


That's a nice-fitting panel


With the dominos and the backer board installed, the dry-fit of the carcass itself is complete.

[BladesNBarrels]

Always look forward to your posts.
Thank you for the review of the Festool Domino.
I will stick with the Kreg tool for the projects I do.