I learned Sketchup

 I recently came into possession of an old Craftsman radial arm saw. I wasn't looking for one but when my father-in-law recently passed away I inherited his. He'd had it on a homemade stand made of 2x4's. It was serviceable but since it was easier to transport the saw without the stand I didn't take it. Also, since this will not be an everyday tool I cannot dedicate space in my primary workshop for it. This means I need a mobile base for a fairly heavy tool.

A friend of mine - we'll call him "Dave" to protect his identity - is a new woodworker and is still building his shop. When he was looking at buying a contractor table saw I did some research looking for home made mobile bases. He ended up buying one with a mobile stand and didn't need a homemade stand but I remembered this stand from my research.

https://www.woodsmithplans.com/plan/table-saw-stand/

It's a cute little cart and fits a lot of the criteria I was looking for:

• Mobile
• Smallish foorprint
• No fussy build details
• Stable

Their cart looks to be built out of southern yellow pine and plywood. My initial design was also using construction grade lumber and plywood; however, when picking up the saw I found a whole mess of veneered lumber. I changed my plan to use all sheet goods.

This is what I came up with:

Two sheets of plywood for each of the end panels. Each of the rails will be two strips of plywood. Then there will be a sheet of plywood on the top. 

What I wanted to mention here was, "I learned Sketchup". If you are reading this you've probably already heard of Sketchup. If you haven't, Sketchup is a 3d modeling tool with lots of features. If you are somewhat technically literate and maybe have some 3d design background it is quick and intuitive to learn. I made the above model after watching 40 minutes of videos and then another 5-10 hours of playing with the tool.

Pretty much every woodworker with a YouTube channel has made a video on how to get started so I am not going to try and replicate that here. The video I used was the Foureyes Furniture Part 1 & 2 by Chris Solomone.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVb8ZBAOD0I

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqcEyXs0v4c

As of this writing the professional version costs $300/year. As a occasional hobbyist wood worker I could see spending $300 as a one-time cost; however, per year is a little much for me. Fortunately they provide a web-based version that is free for non-commercial use (i.e. hobbyists like me) and what I used for the above plan.

https://app.sketchup.com

One real strength is the ability to remove or hide parts, or spin to alternate perspectives.

More on this later but I wanted to share my excitement at learning the basics of Sketchup. I'll probably still keep using my pencil and paper for my initial drafting but I'm going to try to do final versions in Sketchup. I could see when I get a little more agile in the tool I might switch to using it exclusively.

What I did over my summer!

 Yup, I am still here. What happened? Summer and work. I'm one of the fortunate people who can work from home. In fact the company I work for has offered us the ability to work from home permanently. Or at least permanently until they change their minds. Yay!

Just because the blogging stopped doesn't mean the woodworking stopped. Woodworking slowed down but didn't stop.

Workbench

I finished my hand tool workbench last spring. I flattened the top of the bench using a scrub plane I made from an inexpensive Harbor Freight jack plane. It worked about as well as you'd expect. The plane is garbage. It isn't possible to adjust the frog to give the plane blade a flat surface to ride on. The blade and the chip breaker are stamped steel. To get the tension on the chip breaker it has a big hump near the bottom that interferes with the letting the lever cap sit on top. With the heavy scrubbing the parts would work loose and I needed to put them back together again. I got the job done but figure I should have bought a slightly less cheap plane from Home Depot or Lowes.

After getting the top planed flat I drilled some dog holes using my hand drill and a jig to keep everything straight.

Then I bought a big acme threaded bolt from Amazon and added a leg vise.

I added a dowel to keep the leg from swinging when I turn the screw. I also added an angled block on the bottom to keep the chop from racking when clamping something in it. 

The handle is still a temporary piece of dowel. I need to make better endcaps for it. I just got a 3d printer so perhaps I'll print new end caps. I also need to bolt the top to the legs a little more solidly. Right now the top slides off when I clamp a board.

Built in Closet Shelves

I made some built-in shelves for my gaming closet. I was hoping to better utilize the space and be able to store more things. That didn't happen but at least the games are easier to get to now.

French Cleat Laptop Shelf

I wanted to be able to use my personal laptop on my office desk as well as my work laptop. So I built a French Cleat shelf that hovers my laptop over my work laptop.

Holiday Gaming Table

Last fall one of my neighbors had a garage sale. I didn't go; however, the next day while walking my dog I saw they had a small table out on the curb for garbage pick up. So I knocked on their door and asked if I could take it. They said sure, so I came back with my truck and picked it up.

The table was missing some hardware for connecting the legs. It was also kind of beat looking. Someone had painted a it white...  poorly...  then they got it dirty and the paint scratched and chipped.

I bought some paint stripper got it home, then re-read the safety instructions and then decided I didn't want to use a chemical stripper. I used several 60 grit sandpaper disks on my random orbit sander to strip all the paint. It took a couple of hours but I got all the paint off. Once I was down to raw wood the table was super unimpressive looking. Better than a dirty bad paint job but still pretty ugly.

This table was destined for a friend who holds a party every 4th of July. We'll refer to him as Andy to protect his identity. I took cleaning up the table as a spring project. I thought this a perfect opportunity to try some things I don't really do that often. I decided to stain the top a dark brown and my idea for the legs was a dark green. Came out okay I think. 

It looks even better in someone else's game room basement.

Office Desk

Mid summer my wife and I were given the opportunity to choose whether we wanted to continue working 100% remote, 100% in office or a hybrid schedule. We both chose to work 100% remote.

I've been working on an old office desk and have been gradually tweaking it to make it more suitable for working at. My wife has been working on her old student desk. It was small, maybe 2ft x 4ft. Barely big enough to hold her laptop and a single monitor. She asked for something custom.

Since I know my woodworking isn't fast I decided to get her something much better quickly. The quickest way to getting her a 3ft x 6ft desktop was to buy a solid beech workbench top. It's massive. It weighs 100 lbs. 

I bought it from Grangier's on an internet sale. The first one I picked up had a really bad cup and I had to return it. While it was a pain picking up, returning, and then picking up a replacement they handled it very well. I'd shop there again. The second benchtop was as flat as I could test for.

Coming off fixing up the little table for my friend I decided to make the legs the same way. 

It's basically some hanger bolts that pull the leg up against the skirts. I have to admit when I started this I was thinking of it as a cheap mass manufacturing way to build a table. After I worked with the joint a bit I gained a new respect for it. It's very strong, it breaks down easily, and it is very forgiving. If your measurements are off even a fair bit everything will still go together fairly well.

Anyway, we polyurethaned the top and painted the legs. My wife wanted a keyboard tray so I added one of those too. 

She wanted a couple of monitor stands that were Calculus, jQuery, and C# Design Patterns high. One of her friends quipped that that was the best use for a Calculus book she'd ever seen. So, not in place but I created a couple of wood boxes with smaller boxes inside as drawers.

Cat Wall

I built a cat wall. Okay, it's more of a cat playground and it isn't finished.

I attached a whole bunch of French cleats to the wall in our family room. The idea is to build a bunch of platforms and cubbies the cats can climb in and through. When they get bored I can rearrange the wall to make it new and interesting. The ramps are attached to the platforms with hinges so I they come apart and I can rearrange them in different shapes. 

This is all I have so far but I'll make some more this winter.

Free Wood

Well, I got free wood. I was at a summer picnic and struck up a conversation with a coworker. We'll call him Dan to protect his identity. Turns out Dan was an ex-woodworker, was moving, and had gotten rid of all his stuff excepting about 100 bd ft of soft maple. He offered it to me for free. So I got the trailer out, unfolded and drove over to his house and picked it up.

I've got ideas for using it this winter to build a bookshelf but I need to go through it to see if I am going to be able to get what I need out of it.

Chicago

I visited my parents in Chicago...

Heimdall is a pest

Mid summer Heimdall decided the puppy was her best buddy. The puppy was not happy about it but Heimdall doesn't seem to care.

Hobby Workbench

Wow, just realized that workbenches were the alpha and the omega of this post. Well, my wife and I decided to get 3d printers. We bought good quality but intro versions She got a resin printer to support her painting hobby. I got an FDM because I mostly want mine for making jigs and templates. I don't need a delicate high quality finish. To hold the printers we bought another smaller solid beech bench top and stuck some legs I built out of poplar and luan plywood. We painted the legs with leftover paint we had lying around.

That's my Crealty Ender 3 V2 and her Proxon hot wire foam cutter. My printer has been moved to another room where it can run without disturbing anyone but the bench hasn't moved. I added foot levelers to the legs to make sure the top was level as well as flat. I'm currently working on light duty rolling cabinets to put underneath but they are still a work in progress.

Summary

It was a pretty busy summer. I didn't do any large projects but I did get a bunch of medium sized projects done. I'm hoping to build a nice bookshelf for my office this winter as well as do some more smaller projects to make our offices "better".

Yup, still here...

 It's spring / almost summer here in Upstate New York. I've got yard work, my day job has been busy... It's not my fault!  :)

Anyway, the workbench is done. I need to finish up the series I have on that. I'm currently working on refinishing a table I got off the curb last summer. It was a cheap piece of furniture that then got painted...  poorly... I stripped the paint and the original finish using my random orbit sander. Took me about three hours to do a poor job of it. Mostly I just didn't do a good job of cleaning up the swirl marks from the 60 grit I used for stripping everything.

Anyway, I'll hopefully get some pictures of that here sometime soon. I don't think I have any pictures showing how bad the original finish was but that's okay. It looks decent now.

What I do have for today is an update to my workshop floor plan. Here's the old one I used to plan everything years ago.

And here's the new one:

My friend Jon was asking how big my shop was and I knew I had a diagram on my blog so I looked it up. I was disappointed to see how old it was. I already had a Visio diagram of my basement, it was even mostly up to date. I just had to fix some of the measurements that were "off" and add the new tools since I'd last updated the floor plan (router table and hand tool workbench).

Yes, I would love to have a couple thousand square feet for my shop. I'm also grateful that I have what I have. Left side of the stairs is what I call my primary shop, the right side of the stairs is what I called either my secondary shop or the annex.

I don't do any woodworking in the annex. That is all wood and mobile tool storage. When I want to use one of the tools that is stored in the annex I roll it over into the primary workshop. Woodworking has become so much more enjoyable since I got all my space back.

No Woodworking Week

 I took this last week off from doing woodworking. I mostly sat around the house and was lazy.

I did go down into the shop on Sunday afternoon and spent a number of hours trying to flatten the back of a plane blade I ruined a number of years ago. I was trying to flatten the blade on a coarse water stone and didn't realize the stone was getting dished out. Riding up and down the walls of the valley cause much more material to be removed from the edges. I bought a replacement blade for my hand plane, chalked it up to lessons learned and move on with life.

The one good thing about it is that now I have a "busted" plane blade to experiment with when trying out new sharpening techniques.

A week or so ago I bought an extra coarse diamond stone from my local Woodcraft store. The coarse diamond stone I already had wasn't taking enough material fast enough so I figured I'd try extra coarse. I pulled it out and went to town. It was definitely taking more material than my coarse diamond stone but it still wasn't what I'd call fast. Certainly not compared to sanding wood.

I also pulled out my old dished water stones and tried flattening it on my diamond stones. I think it worked out okay but I was getting a little tired by this point. I had water everywhere including the floor. I had sharpening stone slurry all over me and my sharpening station. 

In any case I worked on that busted hand plane blade for quite a bit using my water stones, my new diamond stone, and I even tried some sandpaper on a flat board. I got it better but still didn't manage to fix it. I was hopeful with the sandpaper on a board thing; however, I got lazy and didn't spray glue the sandpaper down. I think this allowed the paper to curl just a little bit so while it looked like I was making progress flattening the iron I wasn't.

I worked on one of my old cheap chisels and may actually have gotten the back flat. I need to go back and check it with a fresh set of eyes that might not be clouded by as much wishful thinking I had on Sunday.

Yesterday - Monday - evening I wanted to check out my new Grebstk chisels and see how they were. I saw Rex Kreuger talk about these on his YouTube channel. They're four wooden handled chisels for right around $20 on Amazon.com. His initial impression of them was favorable so I figured I would give them a try. They'd be cheap chisels I could practice sharpening, they might actually end up being good chisels, and I could always grind them to a different angle than my Irwin chisels.

Also, worst case...  I could use them to scrape glue.

So yesterday... I stuck with my extra coarse diamond stone and my coarse diamond stone and flattened the backs on two of the chisels. Both were dished a little bit from the edge but still flattened pretty quickly. The dish was far enough from the edge on both of them I could have left it but I kept going until I had the backs flat.

I didn't take them any further because I didn't want to pull out my Tormek. I'd gone down to the shop in my street clothes and the Tormek can get a little messy. It doesn't create a slurry like the water stones but it does get water everywhere. I didn't do more than two of the four because I have tendonitis in both my wrists and I have to be careful how much I do to avoid aggravating it. I'll get the backs on the other two flattened some time this week and then this weekend I can finish sharpening them

I'm hoping I can get the bad plane blade to good enough shape that I can sharpen it into being able to be used for a scrub plane. I'll need that for flattening the top of my workbench which I need to get back to. 

Closet Makeover finished - part 4

 It's finished!

Okay, I was hoping to make it a one-weekend project and it extended into the week but all told my time and materials cost was around $250 in plywood and 12(ish) hours of labor.

Putting the shelves into the cabinets went pretty quick and was pretty easy. I made some supports out of the offcut from the lower divider / shelf support that were 12-1/4" long. I set these up on either side of the shelf, then using gentle hand pressure on top of the shelf to keep it from slipping I fastened them in place with pocket hole screws. 

I've used plywood for shelf spacing in the past but that's always been 3/4" plywood, often the full depth of the shelf. One thing I found that I really appreciated about these was the ability to get to the pocket holes between the supports. Also, being double layers of plywood they were able to stand on their own.

I do have one picture of the shelves not being packed with games.

I'd have gotten a picture of the completed closet empty but I needed to empty one of the old bookshelves to be able to comfortably get into the left side to install the shelves. So, what's on the shelves is the contents of one of the two small bookshelves that had been shoved into the corners of the closet.

All in all, I am happy with the final results. It's definitely on the utilitarian side but it is still solidly built. It has slightly more storage than our previous arrangement. I think I might have done some bad math when calculating how much additional storage I was going to get. I was expecting a little more than the 8(ish) ft of empty shelf space but that's fine. I think there will be enough space for our games that have gotten scattered around the house and we're not big game purchasers so we should be good for a number of years.

Future enhancements might include:

• Add some more bracing under the bottom shelf cleats to transfer some of the weight to the floor
• Add a face frame to the upper shelves to hide gaps and make it prettier

Closet Makeover - part 3

 Well, it is done. Monday evening I didn't get any time in the shop but Tuesday evening I had a couple of hours after work to glue the cases together.

I started with one side, added some glue to the dados in that side then added the bottom/top and nailed them in place with my 18 gauge nailer. The cases were too large to keep on my outfeed / assembly table so I transferred the assembly to the floor with the top / bottom pointing upwards. I was then able to add glue to the dados in the opposite side then flip it over and add it to the assembly.

I moved the assembly back up to my assembly table and checked to make sure my joints were tight. Moving the assembly from the table to the floor and back to the table did loosen a couple so I pulled them tight with a clamp and shot a few more nails into those.

Then it was just a matter of putting a thin bead of glue around the back edges and dropping the 1/4" luan onto the backs. I swapped 1/4" crown 1/2" staples for the nails in my nailer / stapler and tacked the back down with those. Glue squeeze out was cleaned up with my finger, a damp rag, and just left depending on how much glue there was and how visible it was going to be later.

Then I set the case aside as seen in the above photo and did the next one. 

With the cases assembled I was able to get an accurate final measurement for the shelves. I set on of them in place and with a couple of test cuts got the fence set to crosscut the shelves. I used the same technique as I used on the sides and top / bottom, using my miter gauge with an extension to keep the board perpendicular to the blade.

The last step before assembling the shelves into the cases was drilling pocket hole screws in the ends. I thought about quitting for the evening but I really want to get this project done. It went a lot quicker than I thought it would. Maybe 45 minutes?

Then it was dinner time: Kielbasa and Pierogis. Yum...

I had after dinner plans but since one of my friends was stuck at work we cancelled. (And yes, it was an on-line event). So, (minus one Toastmaster point for starting a sentence with 'so') since my cases had had sufficient time for the glue to get to it's initial set period I carried them upstairs and put them into the closet.

I carried all four boxes upstairs before adding them to the closet. I have to admit some nervousness that despite all my careful measuring and re-measuring (measure 20 times, cut once) that as I was sliding the second lower box in place that they might not fit. Fortunately, all my careful measuring worked out - and I didn't make any math errors. The second bottom box slipped into place and I have my planned 1" buffer (1/2" on each side).

I was greatly reassured; however, then I got nervous again as I went to add the first upper case. I realized as I was lifting it into place that the lightbar that is on the inside of the closet was in the way. <sigh> It protrudes into the front plane where I was planning on lifting the boxes into. I was able to get the box in place by tilting the box into the back plane. It was a little awkward lifting the box. The box probably only weighs 40 lbs or so but it was large and needed medium-fine manipulation to get into place.

The second upper box was even more awkward as I had even less space in the closet to maneuver in. Regardless it wasn't too bad and actually ended up going easier than the first upper case. I was saved by having left a whole 1" buffer along the top of the shelves. I often get in trouble by cutting my margins too close but I was careful to not make that mistake with this cabinet. It would be nice to have that volume available for storage but it was more important to not have to rebuild the shelf boxes because they didn't fit.

Anyway, the shelves are still in the workshop and need to be brought up and installed in the cases. Before that I need to screw fasten the shelf boxes together to make sure they don't shift; though, they are heavy enough I don't think that's a huge worry. I am getting a little worried now that I didn't put enough screws into the cleats holding everything up. I may go back and reinforce those.

That's another day though.

Closet Makeover - part 2

 Relative to most weekends I spent a lot of time in the shop. I got in probably six hours on Saturday and another three hours on Sunday. 

Saturday

Saturday morning I got started early by emptying my closet. It only took me an hour or two to move all the games off the top shelf and pick up the loose stuff off the floor and slide the plastic totes out of the way. It only took minutes to slide the bookshelves out of the closet and into the bedroom; however, that was pretty tense. Both bookshelves tucked into the sides of the closet were relatively heavily loaded and didn't have backs to stiffen them. I was still able to successfully slide them five or six feet without any disasters.

I'm horrible at remembering to get "before" shots

Saturday afternoon was spent moving my materials from the garage down into my shop. All my new plywood was 4 sheets cut down into 2'x4' quarter sheets so I could fit them into my Forrester. I also needed one full sheet of plywood I already had in my garage.

I started with taking one of my 2' x 4' quarter sheets and cutting cleats to hold up the bottom shelf. I somewhat arbitrarily chose 3" for my cleat height. I cut four pieces off one end for the cleats on the closet sides and front walls. I cut two pieces off one of the long edges for the back of the closet. This left me enough wood for one half the bottom divider / middle shelf support. I got the other half out of another one of the quarter sheets. It left a large off-cut but that's fine. Large offcuts eventually get used for something.

The front walls of the closet are only 14" wide and the pieces I'd cut for them were 24". I cut them both down to 13-1/2" so that they wouldn't be obviously visible from outside the closet. I then glued up the over-sized center shelf support / middle divider and put a bunch of clamps and weights on it.

While this was drying I started installing the cleats in the closet. I used my levels to find the high spot in the floors then drew a level line around the closet 13" from the floor using the high spot as my initial point. This will be the line I align all my cleats with when I put them in.

 For example:

I was then able to work my way around the closet putting the cleats in one at a time. I used my stud finder to locate studs, drilled countersunk pilot holes and then used 2-1/2" deck screws to fasten them in place. As you can see in the above photo I have predrilled pocket holes ever 8" or so in the cleats to hold down the bottom shelf.

When I got to the back center where the bottom shelf support / middle divider is going to go I used a temporary block of the right thickness to leave sufficient space. I used one of my deck screw to hold the block in place because I hadn't brought my pocket hole screws up yet.

I measured for the center of the back wall and aligned the temporary block with my marks.

This is definitely one of the cases where close is good enough. I got the block pretty close, then left some wiggle room in between the two cleats.

This work took long enough that I figured I could remove the clamps from my divider. After scraping the glue from the edges I trimmed the edges to be flat and square. From there it just needed to be fitted to the closet. I brought it upstairs and set it in place. I used a pencil set flat on the floor to scribe a line parallel to the floor, then did the same with the back wall. The floor wasn't level but it was flat enough that I decided to not bother cutting to that line. The back wall however needed to be cut. I did that on my table saw using my panel jig and some shims.

With the panel fit to the wall and floor I used a level to draw a level line on the panel from the back wall cleat out towards the door. I again made this cut using my panel cutting sled and some shims. Here's what it looked like after I put it in place. The level was in the shot because I was checking to make sure the front of the divider was level with the cleats on either side of the doorway.

I mean, it should be level but you never know. Those three points I was checking were the end points of the single point I started from - which is about halfway between the side wall and the lower divider / shelf support along the back wall. It is far less expensive to check now rather than to be trying to fit the next piece and have things not working and have to then try and figure out what's wrong.

Speaking of the next piece, that was the lower shelf.

I'd measured the size of this shelf to be 25" deep by 75-1/4" wide. I did the best I could to check for square in the closet but just to give myself a little wiggle room I cut the shelf about 1/4" short in each direction. I did cut the shelf on my table saw and while I appreciate that the rip fence capacity allowed me to make a 26" rip cut, followed by a cleanup cut at 25-1/2" and finally at 24-3/4" to get my final width I was not appreciating how heavy a full sheet of plywood is to cut down. I probably should have used my circular saw and guide to break it down in the garage before bringing the full sheet downstairs.

The sheet pretty much dropped into place. It was a bit awkward to get into the closet and then straightened out over the cleats but once I had the right side pushed into the corner against the cleats I was able to lower the left hand side. I'm really glad I trimmed the board to be a little smaller than the calculated opening because while the back was mostly straight and the corners relatively square, the two short front walls actually angled in a little bit and hung up the board. Some solid thumping with my fist did bring everything flat and didn't seem to damage the walls appreciably.

After getting the bottom shelf in place all that remained was shimmying underneath with my Makita Impact Driver and drive the pocket hole screws into place. And by shimmying I mean lots of grunting, twisting and trying to drive screws at angles my shoulders and arms didn't like. I am a little claustrophobic but being focused on the task and only being partially underneath the shelf didn't bother me at all.

That was Saturday... It doesn't seem like all that much but like a house foundation this step was critical to get right as the rest of the cabinets will be built in my shop and will not have much adjustability once they start to go in.

Sunday

My primary goal for Sunday was getting my shelf box parts cut, joined, and glued. Then I could let them sit overnight to let the glue dry, add shelves, insert them into the closet, then reload the closet with all my games and books.

I won't keep you in suspense...  I didn't get all that accomplished.

Fundamentally my shelf boxes are going to be super simple. The sides, tops, bottoms, and shelves are all going to be 11-3/4" wide. My rough-cut quarter-sheets from Lowes are approximately 2' x 4'. So step one was ripping them all down to two pieces each, 11-3/4" wide.

I don't normally let boards just fall of the outfeed table onto the floor. However, after starting the saw, ripping one board, stopping the saw, walking around the saw to get the board and stack it on my New Yankee workbench then repeat just a few times, I realized it was going to take forever. Since all the boards were going to be cut down eventually, I started just shoving them through and letting them fall. Any banged up corners will be trimmed later in the next step.

That's a lot of boards. 26? 32? I don't have the count right in front of me; however, it was a lot. After ripping them all to width I made sure they were all square by trimming both ends using my crosscut sled. Cutting them to length was a little more dicey. I don't have a super wide crosscut sled as I don't normally need to do this and I am running out of space for sleds and jigs. Instead I used the table saw fence and a miter gauge to crosscut them all to the appropriate length. At least all the case pieces. I'm going to leave the shelves for after the cases are constructed so I can be more exact with the shelf lengths.

Yes, I know this isn't the safest way to make this cut; however, my table saw surface is slick so the boards didn't get that much friction. My saw blade is new enough that it cuts cleanly without a lot of force needed. I went very slow to make sure I didn't get binding. I also had an auxiliary fence on my miter gauge to help make sure I didn't twist the boards and get binding.

The next step was cutting the joinery on the case pieces. I'm using a 3/8" tongue and dado for my joints.  I started by installing a 3/8" dado blade in my table saw and set it to make a 3/8" deep dado. Close was good enough as I am leaving 1" of extra space on the side of the shelves. If I am off by 1/64" it won't affect the fit of the cases in the closet. I then cut dados on the top and bottom of all the sides to my four cases. I then added a sacrificial fence and cut tongues on the tops and bottoms of all the cases. I had lots of off cuts to dial in the rabbet for the tongue but it only took me one or two tries to get a tight fit.

I got the case pieces fitted tuning the tongues where necessary with my shoulder plane. I really like this tool. I know I could do the same with a block and some sandpaper but the shoulder plane can take a bigger bite and leaves a nice surface. 

With the cases fitted I cut my plywood for the backs. I've mentioned my mistakes in lumber purchases for this project in a prior post; however, I was able to make the quarter sheets for the 3/4" plywood work out just fine. However, I don't want to have seems in my backs and unfortunately I'd had the 1/4" luan cut down into quarter sheets as well and they just weren't going to fit. I ran out to Lowes Sunday morning to get two more sheets, this time cross cut to 48" then ripped to 40" which is the maximum width my Forrester can take in the back.

Then, I ran out of time in the afternoon. I had to make dinner and feeding me and my wife takes priority over woodworking...  usually...

Next Steps

I was hoping to get into the workshop Monday evening unfortunately I hadn't slept well the night before so I figured keeping fingers was more important than potential progress. I've got my case pieces ready for assembly so that's my next step. I'm going to glue the sides to the tops and bottoms. I've got good joints but I'm probably going to shoot some brad nails into them to "clamp" them while the glue dries. I have enough clamps to glue up all four cases at once but the sides aren't going to be visible. I may as well save myself the dozen trips from my clamp storage in the auxiliary workshop and just use my 18 gauge nailer.

I've got my backs cut out to slightly undersized (about 1/8") and I'll glue and staple them to the case with 18 gauge staples using the same nailer/stapler. This will help me square the case and will "clamp" it square while the glue is drying.

After the cases are assembled it will just be a matter of cutting the shelves to the right length, drilling pocket hole screws into the shelves then installing them. Then dropping the cases into place in the closet and reloading it.

Side Note

I don't use my extended table and fence on my table saw all that much; however, when I need to it is very nice. This last weekend I make dozens of cuts using the greater than 36" capacity of my extended table and fence. I think 39-3/4" was the widest cut I made.