Covid 19 update... New York State is still reopening slowly. Pretty much all of NYS is in phase 4 which allows most businesses to be open. We can actually go into stores now to buy things. Most are requiring people to wear masks and in the limited times I've been out with just a few exceptions people are doing that.
This last weekend was beautiful. There was some intermittent rain but the temperatures were quite mild for this time of year. I started putting my normal wipe on polyurethane on the top, the case, and one of the shelves. I would have liked to do everything at once but I just don't have enough room in my garage nor do I have enough horizontal surfaces to lay everything out at once. I got about five coats on over the weekend, and a couple more coats on yesterday and today.
The carcass is done excepting the bottom. Yeah okay... I know that means the carcass isn't done. I've done all the delicate parts that need to have care taken to make sure I don't get drips, sags, etc. I cannot just slop it on the bottom but I'll have to be really sloppy to make a mistake now.
The shelf is done. Sure it could use another couple of coats but it's done enough. It's going to be inside a cabinet behind a door.
The top isn't done yet. It's gotten as many coats as the carcass and the shelf but it's going to suffer the most use and abuse. I want the top to have a nice thick coat of polyurethane to protect it. Might be a little overkill since it already has nicks and dents that were me making boneheaded mistakes during construction. But that's water under the bridge. May as well protect it from future dents and dings.
That's pretty much all the woodworking I got done over the weekend. We had multiple puppy play dates. I mowed my yard. I cleaned my workshop. I got other stuff done, it just wasn't an all-woodworking all-the-time weekend. It's summer time here in upstate New York and I've got to enjoy the weather while it is here.
Since it is summer I'm past the end of my woodworking season which is typically November through May though I have to admit I usually go a bit long due to over committing to projects. While I wont be spending as much time in my shop over the next few months I still need some small projects for bad weather days. I need to finish putting false fronts on the trays in my wife's storage cabinet. I've got a cup holder a friend asked me to build for him. Oh, and some picture frames. These projects should be sufficient for awhile anyway.
The last consideration I have is what to do with the temporary console I built as a prototype. I had two different takers for my temporary console but both people backed out. One of them got another piece of real furniture, the other decided it wasn't nice enough. So be it... It's served its purpose which was to see if the proportions I picked were adequate and pleasing. I don't really need another horizontal surface in my house so I'm probably going to break it down into scrap wood.
So next is probably another week of polyurethane. I've got to make the glass stops for my door. I need to decide if I want to buy the only piece of textured glass my glass guy has or if I am going to use the piece of plexiglass I bought a few weeks ago at home depot.
What? No pictures again?
:p
I'll post pictures in a couple of weeks when everything has been poly'd and assembled.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Covid 19 week 14 - finishing the case
I started the weekend off strong. Friday afternoon I called my local woodworking store and ordered a 40" metal ruler and I called my glass guy to order glass for the door. Unfortunately my glass guy didn't have any textured glass that was suitable for my project and my local woodworking store didn't have any mineral spirits. So, when I was out doing my running around doing my best to stay away from people I ducked into my local Home Depot and picked up a piece of plexi-glass and a gallon of mineral spirits. I didn't want a gallon but that's all they had.
Friday evening I jointed and planed the boards for the shelves and planed the toe kick down to about 3/4 inch thick. Then I glued up the shelves.
With the prep work from Friday night I was able to use my new ruler to trace out an arc on the toe kick and cut it to shape on my band saw. I went real slow and cut very close to the line. Then sanding... I cleaned up the curve on my oscillating spindle sander, then I used the off-cut and some 150 grit sandpaper to fair the curve.
I then broke out my random orbit sander and cleaned up the faces of the toe kick and the shelves. It was a lot of sanding but frankly the Sapele cleans up a lot faster than the white oak of my previous projects so it wasn't that bad. I did have to use some 60 grit sandpaper on one of the two shelves but it still went pretty quickly.
To finish up the day I glued the toe kick to the bottom of the case.
Sunday morning was our weekly puppy play date. Jackson from across the street and Yogi from around the corner came over and more or less sat in the shade together with my pooch for a couple of hours. There was some light playing but it was really too hot for the dogs to do much more than some half-hearted stick chewing.
Sunday afternoon was final sanding of all the edges and basically getting the parts ready for finish. I rescued my saw ponies from my finishing room that my wife is using as an office during this pandemic and set them up in the garage. I started cleaning up the pieces with shop towels and the mineral spirits I'd bought on Friday. It was miserably hot in the garage. I was just able to bear it but the biggest issue I had was the sweat dripping on the work pieces as I was trying to clean them off. I did my best and only got a couple of drips on everything. I hoped for the best.
"The best" was not what I got. After the mineral spirits evaporated I found that I had a number of blotches in various parts of the project. I had been wearing gloves but apparently they left marks on the projects. I waited overnight to see if perhaps it was just the mineral spirits taking a long time to evaporate but alas, Monday morning the blotches were still there. I grabbed some 180 grit sandpaper and went to town. It was pretty warm but again I managed to keep my drips of sweat off the project. After sanding out the blotches I again ran a shop towel with mineral spirits over everything to clean the dust off.
After work Monday afternoon I went out to check on how everything looked and while the blotches were really gone it looked like all the wiping down had done was smear the dust all over the project. It was extra apparent on the side panels I'd already finished. So, it was time for more shop towels and mineral spirits. This time with nitrile gloves instead of synthetic vinyl. I'm kind of thinking that perhaps the mineral spirits degraded the synthetic vinyl and is what caused the blotching. Moral of this story is to not be lazy and walk up the extra flight of stairs to get the appropriate kind of gloves for the project at hand.
Anyhow I digress... This time - with nitrile gloves - I made sure to refresh and replace my paper shop towel frequently and kept wiping down the surfaces until I was picking up very little residue. It took a while and was hard on my feeble wrists but I think the project is actually ready for finish.
Then today (Tuesday) while looking at the project I remembered that I was going to add a magnet to the door which required me adding a block of wood to mount the magnet in. My original plan was to use a door catch from Lee Valley. Specifically one of these spring catches. The problem was that the springs are actually pretty strong and I just needed a little bit of force to keep the door closed, not a lot. A tiny magnet would work just fine.
Then this afternoon I was looking at the catch I realized that I could reduce the amount of force needed to separate the spring catches by using a pair of pliers to pinch the sides of the triangle together (sorry, no pictures today - you'll just have to look at the picture in the link above and use your imagination.) It seemed to work so I'm going to use the catch rather than wedge a block and a magnet into place. Yay, back to being ready to put finish on.
But, no finish today. It's been hot and humid today so I didn't want to risk the finish curing weirdly. At least the rain will be good for my yard. It's been getting pretty dry. Hopefully we'll have some nice weather later this week and I can start putting my finish on. I'm still a couple of weeks away from finishing this project but the end is in sight.
Friday evening I jointed and planed the boards for the shelves and planed the toe kick down to about 3/4 inch thick. Then I glued up the shelves.
With the prep work from Friday night I was able to use my new ruler to trace out an arc on the toe kick and cut it to shape on my band saw. I went real slow and cut very close to the line. Then sanding... I cleaned up the curve on my oscillating spindle sander, then I used the off-cut and some 150 grit sandpaper to fair the curve.
I then broke out my random orbit sander and cleaned up the faces of the toe kick and the shelves. It was a lot of sanding but frankly the Sapele cleans up a lot faster than the white oak of my previous projects so it wasn't that bad. I did have to use some 60 grit sandpaper on one of the two shelves but it still went pretty quickly.
To finish up the day I glued the toe kick to the bottom of the case.
Sunday morning was our weekly puppy play date. Jackson from across the street and Yogi from around the corner came over and more or less sat in the shade together with my pooch for a couple of hours. There was some light playing but it was really too hot for the dogs to do much more than some half-hearted stick chewing.
Sunday afternoon was final sanding of all the edges and basically getting the parts ready for finish. I rescued my saw ponies from my finishing room that my wife is using as an office during this pandemic and set them up in the garage. I started cleaning up the pieces with shop towels and the mineral spirits I'd bought on Friday. It was miserably hot in the garage. I was just able to bear it but the biggest issue I had was the sweat dripping on the work pieces as I was trying to clean them off. I did my best and only got a couple of drips on everything. I hoped for the best.
"The best" was not what I got. After the mineral spirits evaporated I found that I had a number of blotches in various parts of the project. I had been wearing gloves but apparently they left marks on the projects. I waited overnight to see if perhaps it was just the mineral spirits taking a long time to evaporate but alas, Monday morning the blotches were still there. I grabbed some 180 grit sandpaper and went to town. It was pretty warm but again I managed to keep my drips of sweat off the project. After sanding out the blotches I again ran a shop towel with mineral spirits over everything to clean the dust off.
After work Monday afternoon I went out to check on how everything looked and while the blotches were really gone it looked like all the wiping down had done was smear the dust all over the project. It was extra apparent on the side panels I'd already finished. So, it was time for more shop towels and mineral spirits. This time with nitrile gloves instead of synthetic vinyl. I'm kind of thinking that perhaps the mineral spirits degraded the synthetic vinyl and is what caused the blotching. Moral of this story is to not be lazy and walk up the extra flight of stairs to get the appropriate kind of gloves for the project at hand.
Anyhow I digress... This time - with nitrile gloves - I made sure to refresh and replace my paper shop towel frequently and kept wiping down the surfaces until I was picking up very little residue. It took a while and was hard on my feeble wrists but I think the project is actually ready for finish.
Then today (Tuesday) while looking at the project I remembered that I was going to add a magnet to the door which required me adding a block of wood to mount the magnet in. My original plan was to use a door catch from Lee Valley. Specifically one of these spring catches. The problem was that the springs are actually pretty strong and I just needed a little bit of force to keep the door closed, not a lot. A tiny magnet would work just fine.
Then this afternoon I was looking at the catch I realized that I could reduce the amount of force needed to separate the spring catches by using a pair of pliers to pinch the sides of the triangle together (sorry, no pictures today - you'll just have to look at the picture in the link above and use your imagination.) It seemed to work so I'm going to use the catch rather than wedge a block and a magnet into place. Yay, back to being ready to put finish on.
But, no finish today. It's been hot and humid today so I didn't want to risk the finish curing weirdly. At least the rain will be good for my yard. It's been getting pretty dry. Hopefully we'll have some nice weather later this week and I can start putting my finish on. I'm still a couple of weeks away from finishing this project but the end is in sight.
Monday, June 22, 2020
Covid 19 week 12 & 13 - Gaming Console Console Progresses
Well, it has been almost three full months since NY State went on Pause. Deaths in our state have decreased from our high of almost a thousand a day to low double digits. The state is doing around 55 thousand Covid 19 tests every day and across the state the infection rate is around 1%. This is down from a much higher number but I don't think comparing infection rates from when the only people getting tests were ones showing symptoms to now where pretty much everyone can get one if they want to is reasonable.
In any case, our state is opening back up. Slowly, but it is opening.
I did get into the shop this last weekend for a few hours. Unfortunately my Saturday hours were impeded by a sudden puppy play date and other unfortunate circumstances. I'd just finished changing into my workshop clothes when the phone buzzed with the neighbors wanting to get our dogs together. It was a very pleasant afternoon but it kind of took up all my shop time sitting in the yard watching the pups play and chatting.
After the play date and dinner I did get into the shop for a little bit. I basically just got things set up for Sunday so I could hit the ground running. With the drawers, top, and case pretty much done all that's left for construction is the door and the shelves. Shelves are trivial so I wanted to get the door done next.
I started by setting up my router table with a rabbeting bit set to take a 1/4" wide rabbet to hold the glass. I then started taking about 1/32 inch off at a time until I had a 1/4 inch wide by 3/8 inch deep rabbet. This obviously left me with rounded corners. Cleaning up rounded corners isn't my strength but even my sloppy jobs work and practice makes better. I set my calipers to the width of each rail and stile and used them to mark the line I needed to chisel to.
Then this is where the unfortunate thing happened. I got the first corner done and was starting on the second when the power went out. When I first set up my workshop I did a few things to deal with this kind of situation. I'd made sure the lights in my workshop were on a separate circuit from my workshop so if I managed to overload the circuit by running too many tools I'd still have lights. I'd also put an emergency light next to the stairs out of my shop so that I'd have light in case I'd lost all power. My fear was using a power tool that needed time to wind down when the power went out. I wanted to have enough light to be able to stop whatever I was doing and get out of my shop safely.
Unfortunately the emergency light quit working a number of years ago and I'd removed it. No worries, I'd just wait until the generator turned on. The generator did turn on but that's when I learned that my workshop lights were not on the generator panel. So be it... Fortunately I didn't have too many of my mobile tools pulled out and I had a relatively clear shot to the stairs. I just waited for my eyes to adjust and carefully walked to the stairs. Next time I have an electrician over to the house I'm going to have them put my workshop overhead lights onto the generator.
Anyway, turns out it was only half our block that lost power... My neighbors across the street having power didn't help me any so I mowed my yard. By the time I was done we had power back.
That evening I got back into the shop to finish chopping the corners square.
I think I did okay...
The door still needed to be fit to the opening. The door as I built it only had a 1/16 inch gap at the widest in the opening. Why do I say, "at the widest"? Well, while the door is square the case is only mostly square. Over the width of the opening the door gap ranged from around 1/16 inch to around 1/64 inch. If I was better at hand planing I'd just whip one of my block planes out and clean up the door to fit. Since I am not I used my table saw sled with shims to give the door enough angle to take off about what I needed.
I sacrificed one of my decks of cards to get my shims... Well... Truth be told, I only sacrificed the cards numbered 2 through 8 and made the rest of the deck into a Euchre deck. I was too tired to want to start cutting my door that evening but I did check to see if the cards would work as shims and it certainly looked like they would.
In any case, this worked fairly well. I set the door on my sled and kept adding cards until it looked like I was going to take off enough to make the door side fit the opening. It actually worked out pretty good. I took it slow and careful and took a little bit off all sides of the door to keep it relatively even.
I used my new shims to make sure the door had the right gaps all around.
Now, to be honest I don't remember exactly which days I did the following work on. I did get into the shop a number of evenings and the weekend of week 13.
I mounted the door by using a little bit of tape on the case side of the hinges, then once the door was in the right place I just pushed the door over hard enough to get the hinges to stick. After removing the door I could use my new punch tool to mark the center of the screw holes. I could then remove the hinges and use the divots left by the punch to drill holes for the screws.
Anticipating adding and removing the door a number of times I mounted the hinges to the case using some temporary wood screws to make sure I didn't mess up the final ones. Unfortunately the bit I chose for pilot holes was a bit too small so I pulled out a larger bit, enlarged the holes then mounted the hinges to the case. With the hinges mounted I put the door back in the case and used shims to hold it in place. I was then able to reach in through the back of the cabinet and use my new punch to mark where the screw holes belonged in the door. Then it was just a matter of pulling the door, drilling pilot holes then mounting it.
At the end of one of my workshop days I put together a jig for drilling the holes in the drawer fronts. The next day I removed the drawer fronts and sanded them to 180 grit then used my jig to drill holes for the drawer pulls.
At this point I have a mostly completed case. All that's left on the case is the back and the toe kick.
In any case, our state is opening back up. Slowly, but it is opening.
I did get into the shop this last weekend for a few hours. Unfortunately my Saturday hours were impeded by a sudden puppy play date and other unfortunate circumstances. I'd just finished changing into my workshop clothes when the phone buzzed with the neighbors wanting to get our dogs together. It was a very pleasant afternoon but it kind of took up all my shop time sitting in the yard watching the pups play and chatting.
After the play date and dinner I did get into the shop for a little bit. I basically just got things set up for Sunday so I could hit the ground running. With the drawers, top, and case pretty much done all that's left for construction is the door and the shelves. Shelves are trivial so I wanted to get the door done next.
I started by setting up my router table with a rabbeting bit set to take a 1/4" wide rabbet to hold the glass. I then started taking about 1/32 inch off at a time until I had a 1/4 inch wide by 3/8 inch deep rabbet. This obviously left me with rounded corners. Cleaning up rounded corners isn't my strength but even my sloppy jobs work and practice makes better. I set my calipers to the width of each rail and stile and used them to mark the line I needed to chisel to.
Then this is where the unfortunate thing happened. I got the first corner done and was starting on the second when the power went out. When I first set up my workshop I did a few things to deal with this kind of situation. I'd made sure the lights in my workshop were on a separate circuit from my workshop so if I managed to overload the circuit by running too many tools I'd still have lights. I'd also put an emergency light next to the stairs out of my shop so that I'd have light in case I'd lost all power. My fear was using a power tool that needed time to wind down when the power went out. I wanted to have enough light to be able to stop whatever I was doing and get out of my shop safely.
Unfortunately the emergency light quit working a number of years ago and I'd removed it. No worries, I'd just wait until the generator turned on. The generator did turn on but that's when I learned that my workshop lights were not on the generator panel. So be it... Fortunately I didn't have too many of my mobile tools pulled out and I had a relatively clear shot to the stairs. I just waited for my eyes to adjust and carefully walked to the stairs. Next time I have an electrician over to the house I'm going to have them put my workshop overhead lights onto the generator.
Anyway, turns out it was only half our block that lost power... My neighbors across the street having power didn't help me any so I mowed my yard. By the time I was done we had power back.
That evening I got back into the shop to finish chopping the corners square.
I think I did okay...
The door still needed to be fit to the opening. The door as I built it only had a 1/16 inch gap at the widest in the opening. Why do I say, "at the widest"? Well, while the door is square the case is only mostly square. Over the width of the opening the door gap ranged from around 1/16 inch to around 1/64 inch. If I was better at hand planing I'd just whip one of my block planes out and clean up the door to fit. Since I am not I used my table saw sled with shims to give the door enough angle to take off about what I needed.
I sacrificed one of my decks of cards to get my shims... Well... Truth be told, I only sacrificed the cards numbered 2 through 8 and made the rest of the deck into a Euchre deck. I was too tired to want to start cutting my door that evening but I did check to see if the cards would work as shims and it certainly looked like they would.
In any case, this worked fairly well. I set the door on my sled and kept adding cards until it looked like I was going to take off enough to make the door side fit the opening. It actually worked out pretty good. I took it slow and careful and took a little bit off all sides of the door to keep it relatively even.
I used my new shims to make sure the door had the right gaps all around.
Now, to be honest I don't remember exactly which days I did the following work on. I did get into the shop a number of evenings and the weekend of week 13.
I mounted the door by using a little bit of tape on the case side of the hinges, then once the door was in the right place I just pushed the door over hard enough to get the hinges to stick. After removing the door I could use my new punch tool to mark the center of the screw holes. I could then remove the hinges and use the divots left by the punch to drill holes for the screws.
Anticipating adding and removing the door a number of times I mounted the hinges to the case using some temporary wood screws to make sure I didn't mess up the final ones. Unfortunately the bit I chose for pilot holes was a bit too small so I pulled out a larger bit, enlarged the holes then mounted the hinges to the case. With the hinges mounted I put the door back in the case and used shims to hold it in place. I was then able to reach in through the back of the cabinet and use my new punch to mark where the screw holes belonged in the door. Then it was just a matter of pulling the door, drilling pilot holes then mounting it.
At the end of one of my workshop days I put together a jig for drilling the holes in the drawer fronts. The next day I removed the drawer fronts and sanded them to 180 grit then used my jig to drill holes for the drawer pulls.
At this point I have a mostly completed case. All that's left on the case is the back and the toe kick.
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Covid 19 week 11 - Drawer Fronts
I started this weekend by screwing the divider panel into the case. I'd originally planned to glue the divider panel in place but I decided to just add some screws to hold it in its slot. However, it isn't going to be under a lot of stress and I am worried that I may need to adjust or rebuild the drawers. At this point I can still remove the top rails and the middle divider to get larger tools into the case.
With the middle panel fixed in place I added the trim. I started with the bottom shelf trim and then added the divider trim.
With the middle panel fixed in place I added the trim. I started with the bottom shelf trim and then added the divider trim.
 |  |
I have to admit... I had enough clamps. I'll need to find something bigger to glue up so I can whinge about not having enough clamps... While waiting for the glue to dry I trimmed the top. Suffice it to say, the top is now a rectangle. I didn't bother getting a specific photo of the top. I'm planning on keeping the edges square with no profile but since I haven't put finish on it yet I could still change my mind.
The last thing I did on Saturday was pick out the boards for the shelves and drawer false fronts. Seems like this shouldn't be that big of a deal but since I decided to use hardwood for the shelves instead of plywood I have to be more frugal about waste while maintaining quality. I have just enough Sapele left to get two shelves and the three drawer fronts. I'll end up with just a couple of board feet of scrap that could maybe used on another project.
Sunday I laid out my drawer fronts on the selected board. I decided to get a picture of it because while I have paid attention to matching grain in the past I don't think I've talked about it much. The easiest way to do this for small parts is to create a template. I made mine out of some poster board that I keep for this purpose.
The template is pretty simple and quick to make but it gets me a few benefits. First, it makes it much easier to visualize what the grain is going to look like one the part has been cut free of the larger board. Second, it's easy to see when the grain is aligned how I want and it's easy to see when the template is misaligned.
Finally, the template can be used to mark out my cuts.
This Sapele is pretty straight grained so the skewing of the marks is somewhat subtle in the picture above; however, even you cannot see it, trust me... the pieces were not parallel to the board.
After marking out the board I took it over to my band saw (technically, I pulled the band saw out of my rolling tool storage) and roughly cut the pieces to size - the board had already been flattened and thicknessed. The ran those pieces over my jointer to clean up and straighten one edge. Finally, the pieces were cut square on my table saw.
I used some new spacers I purchased on Amazon.com to help me get the drawer front gaps even and to fiddle with the drawer front sizes. Basically I test-fit the drawer fronts using the spacers to judge my gaps until I was happy.
Those are a couple of the drawers pulled out on the left side of the photo. I think I had the bottom one in place while taking this photo. I attached the drawer fronts by drilling a couple of holes in the drawer front, shimmed the false front in place then with the drawer and false front in place drilled holes in the false front and added screws. I worked from the bottom up using the already in place false front to get the spacing on the next front.
This worked rather well but if I were to do this again I'd change a few things. First, I'd give myself more than a 1/16 inch gap below the bottom drawer. I'd keep the gaps around the false fronts the same though so this would allow the false front to extend slightly below the actual drawer. My top drawer actually extends a hair (1/64 inch) below the false front which is a little irritating but no one will ever notice unless they are a woodworker and looking closely. Second... I dunno... I'd planed a wider gap between the case and the drawers but it appears to be working. Maybe if I were to redesign this and make it again I'd make my runners 1/2 inch wide and leave an additional 1/4 inch gap to either side of the drawer.
But for now the drawers are in and have the fronts applied. I still need to sand the fronts so they're just screwed on. The false fronts are a little wobbly right now. Maybe another screw will make them solid enough. Maybe I'll just glue them on after sanding because if I have to rebuild the drawers I'll probably have to entirely rebuild them. We'll see...
Handi-Shim Heavy Duty Reusable Shims - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035H5GWW/
Note: I am providing links to these products because I saw them on Michael Alm's YouTube videos. I purchased these shims with my own money, I am getting no benefit from you using my Amazon links or visiting Michael Alm's you tube page other than I really like his videos and if you support him I'm more likely to get more videos.
Sunday I laid out my drawer fronts on the selected board. I decided to get a picture of it because while I have paid attention to matching grain in the past I don't think I've talked about it much. The easiest way to do this for small parts is to create a template. I made mine out of some poster board that I keep for this purpose.
The template is pretty simple and quick to make but it gets me a few benefits. First, it makes it much easier to visualize what the grain is going to look like one the part has been cut free of the larger board. Second, it's easy to see when the grain is aligned how I want and it's easy to see when the template is misaligned.
Finally, the template can be used to mark out my cuts.
This Sapele is pretty straight grained so the skewing of the marks is somewhat subtle in the picture above; however, even you cannot see it, trust me... the pieces were not parallel to the board.
After marking out the board I took it over to my band saw (technically, I pulled the band saw out of my rolling tool storage) and roughly cut the pieces to size - the board had already been flattened and thicknessed. The ran those pieces over my jointer to clean up and straighten one edge. Finally, the pieces were cut square on my table saw.
I used some new spacers I purchased on Amazon.com to help me get the drawer front gaps even and to fiddle with the drawer front sizes. Basically I test-fit the drawer fronts using the spacers to judge my gaps until I was happy.
Those are a couple of the drawers pulled out on the left side of the photo. I think I had the bottom one in place while taking this photo. I attached the drawer fronts by drilling a couple of holes in the drawer front, shimmed the false front in place then with the drawer and false front in place drilled holes in the false front and added screws. I worked from the bottom up using the already in place false front to get the spacing on the next front.
This worked rather well but if I were to do this again I'd change a few things. First, I'd give myself more than a 1/16 inch gap below the bottom drawer. I'd keep the gaps around the false fronts the same though so this would allow the false front to extend slightly below the actual drawer. My top drawer actually extends a hair (1/64 inch) below the false front which is a little irritating but no one will ever notice unless they are a woodworker and looking closely. Second... I dunno... I'd planed a wider gap between the case and the drawers but it appears to be working. Maybe if I were to redesign this and make it again I'd make my runners 1/2 inch wide and leave an additional 1/4 inch gap to either side of the drawer.
But for now the drawers are in and have the fronts applied. I still need to sand the fronts so they're just screwed on. The false fronts are a little wobbly right now. Maybe another screw will make them solid enough. Maybe I'll just glue them on after sanding because if I have to rebuild the drawers I'll probably have to entirely rebuild them. We'll see...
Plastic "flat" shims
Broadfix Revolutionary Flat Shims - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M1I4409/Handi-Shim Heavy Duty Reusable Shims - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035H5GWW/
Note: I am providing links to these products because I saw them on Michael Alm's YouTube videos. I purchased these shims with my own money, I am getting no benefit from you using my Amazon links or visiting Michael Alm's you tube page other than I really like his videos and if you support him I'm more likely to get more videos.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Covid 19 week 10 - Gaming Console Console Progress (plus distractions)
Yes, I missed posting for week 9, and week 10. I'm fine! I just didn't find the time and energy to post a blog update. On the Covid front, Governor Cuomo has reopened the Finger Lakes Region for phase 1 and Phase 2.
Phase 1 meant that retail stores could reopen and provide curbside pickup. Most of the things we needed were already providing this kind of service because essential services were already doing this; however, non-essential services have been permitted to reopen as well.
Phase 2 allows businesses to reopen offices; however, there are a lot of provisions. They must allow social distancing, provide masks, screen employees as they come in every morning asking them a list of questions about disease symptoms (apparently lost of taste/smell is a better predictor than fever), keep track of who is meeting with who for purposes of contact tracing, etc. The company I work for has already said they aren't going to open the offices before July 4th so I have at least another month of working from home.
Also, I made this:
This is a garlic oil pizza with red onion and some leftover grilled Spiedie chicken. Super tasty. This was the same dough as my last pepperoni pizza but thrown in the freezer for the last few weeks. The directions were to thaw the dough at room temperature; however, I thawed it in my fridge over a couple of days. It thawed but didn't rise so I put it on the counter for a few hours before dinner time and it rose up just fine. It didn't seem to stretch quite as big as my earlier pizza but that could have been due to the freezing or because I made a mess of getting it out of the freezer bag. Definitely requires more experiments.
Before I get into what progress I made over the last three weeks (weekends), let me show you the plywood box I mentioned in my last post.
The first picture shows the box with the lid partially opened. I added shop made handles to make it easier to take to top on and off. There are blocks of plywood scrap under the lid to keep it from slipping off. I did purposely leave a little bit of play to make the lid easier to fit in place. It's probably just a 1/4 inch in any direction.
The lower image shows a game in progress. My wife is playing this game - Arena Rex - remotely with a friend. She'll make her move, take a picture and text it to him. He'll figure out his move and text it to her and she'll move his pieces for him. It isn't how the game is supposed to be played but it seems to be working well enough for them.
On to what I did for the last three weeks.
We had some very nice weather three weeks ago. It was very nice and was the first weather that allowed me to put finish on my projects that have been sitting in my garage waiting... just waiting...
The picture above is after several coats of polyurethane. My standard finish is General Finishes Satin Oil and Urethane that I thin 2 parts finish to 1 part mineral spirits to turn it into a wiping varnish. Clockwise from the top left is the paper towel dispenser case, three weapon mounts, the paper towel dispenser lid, the front and back to a magazine box, and finally two more weapon mounts. The little "sticks" between the bigger pieces are the bars that keep the weapons from falling off the bars on the mounts. You can see them if you look closely at the photos below.
Those pieces are all quarter sawn white oak. My plan had been to simulate fumed white oak by first coating them with Watco Walnut Danish Oil before coating them with polyurethane but while cleaning the dust off them with mineral spirits I decided I really liked the look so I skipped the danish oil and just went straight to putting on the polyurethane. Also, it allowed me to get the pieces fully finished in a weekend versus needing to wait a week for the danish oil to finish curing.
After finishing the finish I waited a day and then started mounting the pieces. First was the paper towel dispenser.
I had some jigs and my old plastic paper towel dispenser mounted on the wall at the door to my shop. I took all that down and replaced it with the new paper towel dispenser. I loaded it up and started using it. The paper towels don't actually dispense all that easily so if I was going to make another one of these I'd work on refining the opening the paper towels come out.
The weapon mounts went to the game room, got paired to the weapons and mounted to the wall using a single drywall anchor and screw that fit into a keyhole slot in the back
Yes, I know the walls are a hideous green color. I actually like it and my wife indulged me and painted the room that color for me. Let's be clear here... that color is not her fault. Also, while the weapons look cool, none of them are real.
This was just finishing up some projects... Let's get to the new stuff I worked on.
Of course after deciding on half lap joints I had to decide if I wanted to cut the rabbet for the glass before or after cutting the half laps. The benefit of cutting them before hand would be that my corners would come out square. The benefit of cutting them afterwards with a router and a rabbeting bit is the joinery is a lot less complex but with the downside of rounded corner that will need to be chiseled out later.
Ultimately I decided on the simpler approach which would be to cut the rabbet after the half lap joints.
As I mentioned in my previous post I'd already milled the stock for the rails and stiles to final thickness and width. I just needed to cut them to length and then cut the half laps. There are several ways to cut half lap joints and I decided to do it by using my vertical panel cutter configured to allow me to make a vertical cut on the rails and stiles.
I built this jig to cut raised panels. I modified it to allow me to make the cheek cuts by screwing a scrap piece of hardwood vertical to the table. I then used one of my homemade hold downs to clamp the rail or stile vertical and ran it through the saw. The blade height is set to the width of the rails and stiles and the fence is set to leave half the thickness.
I then used my small parts table saw sled to cut the shoulders using a stop block.
The test joint came out fine so I cut all my rails and stiles double and triple checking every cut to make sure I had the piece oriented correctly.
As an aside, I was watching Adam Savage's You Tube channel "Tested" where he was explaining why experienced makers learned to double check everything because failure meant having to remake one or more parts. He then promptly glued and nailed two boards in the incorrect orientation and had to rip them apart.
After cutting all the cheeks and shoulders on my rails and stiles I test fit, tested for square, and then glued up the door.
Unfortunately I didn't leave any space in the joint for glue and ended up with a ridge that needed to be sanded.
I sanded the back of the door with my random orbit sander. I started with 80 grit but it was taking too long so I dropped down to a 60 grit pad before working my way back up through the grits. While Sapele is super nice to sand it still makes me a little afraid to do that much sanding. I always get afraid that I am going to end up sanding too much in one spot.
Then I remembered by Jet 16-32 drum sander. I pulled that out and it made quick work of the front of the door. I then used my random orbit sander to work my way up through the grits.
That was most of week 9.
Week 10 I moved onto the drawers. I'd purchased some 6/4 S2S poplar for the drawers a week earlier. I'm not sure if the lumberyard really counts as an essential business but they were open. I was super careful maintaining social distancing from the clerk there. They weren't allowing people in the building but brought a selection of stuff outside for me to pick through. I wore my mask, was super careful to not touch my face until I got home, then I showered and burned my clothes.
I'd wanted to use maple for my drawer boxes but unfortunately my lumber yard was a bit low on all stock so I went with poplar. I'd wanted maple for the better durability but frankly this console isn't going to get super heavy use and the poplar will probably out live me.
I resawed my poplar down to approximately 5/8 inch thick and then flattened them on my jointer and used my thickness planer to get them down to 1/2 inch thick. After I had the pieces flattened I used the hose from my dust collector to clean up some stray dust on my tools. I noticed that the collector wasn't really drawing as much air as it should be so I checked my collector bags and saw that they were quite full. In previous posts I've shown my dust collector bag changing process and this was much the same except when I pulled the hoses off the impeller I saw that one of the ports was packed full of sawdust.
My first thought... "That's bad". If that port is blocked that means that not only are the bags full the the plenum chamber is packed with dust, the fan housing is packed with dust. If that were the case I'd probably have a fun afternoon of taking the entire dust collector apart. Also, if the fan housing was packed with dust that means that the motor was probably straining and put additional stress on it potentially shortening its lifespan.
Fortunately when I pulled out the plug of dust I found that a small plastic bag had been sucked into the collector and had gotten stuck on a filter that's right before the fan to keep large chunks of wood from flying into the impeller. The bag had blocked some bigger shavings of UHMD plastic which then caught some wood shavings which caught the dust and cut down on my collector efficiency.
Still changing the bags which were over full took me over an hour and reminded me that software engineers do not get robust exercise as part of their daily work activities. One of the problems with changing the bags is how I've replaced the lower fabric bags with 30 gallon garbage cans and a plastic garbage bag liner. The huge benefit is that I can just tie off the top of the bag and throw it out and don't need to create a huge dust cloud emptying a fabric bag. The downside is that the dust really gets packed in, is kind of heavy and creates a vacuum seal in the garbage can.
I was lamenting the torn plastic garbage bags requiring me to double bag the waste thinking it would be nice if the garbage cans had vents to break the airlock when I realized, "These are my garbage cans. I can modify them if I want to." So I flipped them over, put a 1" (ish) hole saw in my drill and put several holes in the bottom of each one. Sure, they'll never hold liquids again; however, they are dedicated to my dust collector. I hope they never see liquids.
Anyway, that was my Friday of the long Memorial Day Weekend.
Over Saturday and Sunday... or maybe it was just Sunday... frankly, the days are starting to run together... But I finished milling the boards for the drawers. This consisted of cutting them to length and width, cutting dados for the drawer front and back, cutting rabbets in the front and back pieces, and cutting the 1/4 inch plywood bottoms. Sunday I glued the drawers together.
I didn't get any good pictures of the pieces and parts pre-glue up but suffice it to say, these are pretty standard light-weight drawers. Rabbets in the front and back fit into dados in the sides. There's a 1/4 inch groove in the bottom of the sides and front holding the bottom. The back didn't get a groove but got cut narrow enough that it fits on top of the bottom.
I didn't trap the bottom in a groove in the back because I'd thought I would slide it in and use a screw through the bottom into the drawer back to hold it in place. Test fitting the drawers I realized I had a bit of bow in the drawer sides that made them a snug fit in the cabinet. I decided to instead glue the bottom in place - it's plywood so it shouldn't cause expansion problems - which meant it was better to glue the bottom to the back versus putting a screw into it. The clamps in the middle of the drawers in the picture above are to make sure the drawer sides aren't bowed while the glue is drying.
As you can see in the picture below the drawers came out fine and fit; though, they are quite snug. I'd aimed for a 1/16 inch gap on both sides and probably ended up with maybe a 1/32 inch gap instead. I'm not planning on putting finish on the drawers so if they swell and stick I can pull them out and hit them with a belt sander or a block plane.
That pretty much wrapped up my Memorial Day weekend. I believe it was Wednesday I got a few more hours in my workshop and made wooden slides. They're two different thicknesses, 1/4 inch on the divider and 1/2 inch on the right panel. I made the right hand slide 1/2 inch thick because then I could make notches for the stiles but allow the middle of the slide to ride against the panel which will help with keeping them from bending during use.
The slides are just less that 5/8" wide. I'd intended to get them close to 5/8 inch but when they ended up narrower I just figured I'd have a slightly looser fit. So, 5/8 inch x 1/4 inch x ~15 inches long.
To install the slides I did a lot of math. It wasn't hard math. By a lot of math I mean I just checked and double checked my logic a few times. Which was good because I got it wrong at least once.
I want a 1/6 inch gap around my drawers. The drawer fronts are going to be 6-3/4 inch high which with my 4x 1/16 inch gaps would fill the opening. I made the bottom of the grooves in the drawer sides 1 inch from the bottom of the drawer. I then used spacers to align the wooden slide. The complication came in when you remember that my slides weren't exactly 5/8 inch but slightly narrower. So I made my bottom spacer 1-1/8 inch high. It's actually the piece of poplar on the lower left of the above photo. I set the spacer on the bottom and then the slide on top of that. I don't think I'd ever had a good plan on how to attach these slides but I ended up using my 18 gauge brad nailer and tacked it in the front and the back. I then did the same on the other side.
Then I needed to calculate the distance to the next slide. The drawers are 6-3/4 inches high so my first instinct was to make the spacer the same height. Fortunately I marked it out using the divider as a story stick and realized when it didn't work out that I needed to actually subtract the width of the slide. So I ended up with 6-3/4" - 9/16" (slider height) + 1/16" (drawer gap) == 6-1/4". I placed this spacer on top of the bottom slide to fit the middle and then on top of the middle to fit the top. The result was three evenly spaced drawers as you see above (and below).
That's a lot but pretty well sums up my two weeks of progress. Lots of stress and worry that I'd done something wrong but lots of celebration when things worked out as planed. The drawers fit, slide easily and don't bind. There's a bit more I can say about the drawers but this post is getting quite long so I'll leave that for next week's post.
The plan from the beginning was to put a hardwood false front on the trays and drawers. When I was picking up the poplar for the console console drawers I also picked up some red oak. I started cutting it to size and ripping it to width for the 1/4 inch veneer going on the fronts of the trays.
I don't have any pictures of that but I'm sure you can imagine what a 1/4" x 4" x 34-1/2" piece of red oak looks like. I was a bit tired and a bit rushed when I started and ended up cutting my boards in an inefficient manner. I ended up wasting about a 36 inch portion of wood. I need five 4 inch wide veneer and three 6 inch wide veneer. Since I am resawing 3/4 inch boards down to 1/4 inch I could have resawn two 6 inch boards and then ripped one of the 6 inch veneers into a 4 inch wide veneer.
Instead I ripped three 4 inch boards and two 6 inch boards. When I resaw these boards I will end up with a 4" x 36" and a 6" x 36" piece of scrap. C'est la vie...
That's what I get for trying to sneak in a little extra work at the end of a long day.
Fortunately I have a spare piece of red oak in my stock. Not being "efficient" is just going to cost me $10 or $15 in wood opportunity cost. I'll also probably find some use for it at some point. It is extremely unlikely these "waste" pieces will end up in a fire pit.
I didn't get anywhere past cross cutting some boards and ripping one of the 4 inch boards to length.
Phase 1 meant that retail stores could reopen and provide curbside pickup. Most of the things we needed were already providing this kind of service because essential services were already doing this; however, non-essential services have been permitted to reopen as well.
Phase 2 allows businesses to reopen offices; however, there are a lot of provisions. They must allow social distancing, provide masks, screen employees as they come in every morning asking them a list of questions about disease symptoms (apparently lost of taste/smell is a better predictor than fever), keep track of who is meeting with who for purposes of contact tracing, etc. The company I work for has already said they aren't going to open the offices before July 4th so I have at least another month of working from home.
Also, I made this:
This is a garlic oil pizza with red onion and some leftover grilled Spiedie chicken. Super tasty. This was the same dough as my last pepperoni pizza but thrown in the freezer for the last few weeks. The directions were to thaw the dough at room temperature; however, I thawed it in my fridge over a couple of days. It thawed but didn't rise so I put it on the counter for a few hours before dinner time and it rose up just fine. It didn't seem to stretch quite as big as my earlier pizza but that could have been due to the freezing or because I made a mess of getting it out of the freezer bag. Definitely requires more experiments.
Before I get into what progress I made over the last three weeks (weekends), let me show you the plywood box I mentioned in my last post.
The first picture shows the box with the lid partially opened. I added shop made handles to make it easier to take to top on and off. There are blocks of plywood scrap under the lid to keep it from slipping off. I did purposely leave a little bit of play to make the lid easier to fit in place. It's probably just a 1/4 inch in any direction.
The lower image shows a game in progress. My wife is playing this game - Arena Rex - remotely with a friend. She'll make her move, take a picture and text it to him. He'll figure out his move and text it to her and she'll move his pieces for him. It isn't how the game is supposed to be played but it seems to be working well enough for them.
On to what I did for the last three weeks.
We had some very nice weather three weeks ago. It was very nice and was the first weather that allowed me to put finish on my projects that have been sitting in my garage waiting... just waiting...
The picture above is after several coats of polyurethane. My standard finish is General Finishes Satin Oil and Urethane that I thin 2 parts finish to 1 part mineral spirits to turn it into a wiping varnish. Clockwise from the top left is the paper towel dispenser case, three weapon mounts, the paper towel dispenser lid, the front and back to a magazine box, and finally two more weapon mounts. The little "sticks" between the bigger pieces are the bars that keep the weapons from falling off the bars on the mounts. You can see them if you look closely at the photos below.
Those pieces are all quarter sawn white oak. My plan had been to simulate fumed white oak by first coating them with Watco Walnut Danish Oil before coating them with polyurethane but while cleaning the dust off them with mineral spirits I decided I really liked the look so I skipped the danish oil and just went straight to putting on the polyurethane. Also, it allowed me to get the pieces fully finished in a weekend versus needing to wait a week for the danish oil to finish curing.
After finishing the finish I waited a day and then started mounting the pieces. First was the paper towel dispenser.
I had some jigs and my old plastic paper towel dispenser mounted on the wall at the door to my shop. I took all that down and replaced it with the new paper towel dispenser. I loaded it up and started using it. The paper towels don't actually dispense all that easily so if I was going to make another one of these I'd work on refining the opening the paper towels come out.
The weapon mounts went to the game room, got paired to the weapons and mounted to the wall using a single drywall anchor and screw that fit into a keyhole slot in the back
 |  |
Yes, I know the walls are a hideous green color. I actually like it and my wife indulged me and painted the room that color for me. Let's be clear here... that color is not her fault. Also, while the weapons look cool, none of them are real.
This was just finishing up some projects... Let's get to the new stuff I worked on.
Gaming Console Console - Door
I dithered and hummed-and-hawed for weeks about how I wanted to build the cabinet door. There's a lot of ways to join frame and panel doors. I don't particularly want to enumerate all the ways I debated. Since I wanted it to be quick I decided on using half-lap joints. They might not be the mark of fine woodworking; however, I am getting into the part of the project where I just want it done. They've got a lot to say for them... So long as the rails and stiles are cut cleanly and consistently they "self square" the door. When the door is closed the joints are concealed. Also... they are very quick to cut.Of course after deciding on half lap joints I had to decide if I wanted to cut the rabbet for the glass before or after cutting the half laps. The benefit of cutting them before hand would be that my corners would come out square. The benefit of cutting them afterwards with a router and a rabbeting bit is the joinery is a lot less complex but with the downside of rounded corner that will need to be chiseled out later.
Ultimately I decided on the simpler approach which would be to cut the rabbet after the half lap joints.
As I mentioned in my previous post I'd already milled the stock for the rails and stiles to final thickness and width. I just needed to cut them to length and then cut the half laps. There are several ways to cut half lap joints and I decided to do it by using my vertical panel cutter configured to allow me to make a vertical cut on the rails and stiles.
I built this jig to cut raised panels. I modified it to allow me to make the cheek cuts by screwing a scrap piece of hardwood vertical to the table. I then used one of my homemade hold downs to clamp the rail or stile vertical and ran it through the saw. The blade height is set to the width of the rails and stiles and the fence is set to leave half the thickness.
I then used my small parts table saw sled to cut the shoulders using a stop block.
The test joint came out fine so I cut all my rails and stiles double and triple checking every cut to make sure I had the piece oriented correctly.
As an aside, I was watching Adam Savage's You Tube channel "Tested" where he was explaining why experienced makers learned to double check everything because failure meant having to remake one or more parts. He then promptly glued and nailed two boards in the incorrect orientation and had to rip them apart.
After cutting all the cheeks and shoulders on my rails and stiles I test fit, tested for square, and then glued up the door.
Unfortunately I didn't leave any space in the joint for glue and ended up with a ridge that needed to be sanded.
I sanded the back of the door with my random orbit sander. I started with 80 grit but it was taking too long so I dropped down to a 60 grit pad before working my way back up through the grits. While Sapele is super nice to sand it still makes me a little afraid to do that much sanding. I always get afraid that I am going to end up sanding too much in one spot.
Then I remembered by Jet 16-32 drum sander. I pulled that out and it made quick work of the front of the door. I then used my random orbit sander to work my way up through the grits.
That was most of week 9.
Week 10 I moved onto the drawers. I'd purchased some 6/4 S2S poplar for the drawers a week earlier. I'm not sure if the lumberyard really counts as an essential business but they were open. I was super careful maintaining social distancing from the clerk there. They weren't allowing people in the building but brought a selection of stuff outside for me to pick through. I wore my mask, was super careful to not touch my face until I got home, then I showered and burned my clothes.
I'd wanted to use maple for my drawer boxes but unfortunately my lumber yard was a bit low on all stock so I went with poplar. I'd wanted maple for the better durability but frankly this console isn't going to get super heavy use and the poplar will probably out live me.
I resawed my poplar down to approximately 5/8 inch thick and then flattened them on my jointer and used my thickness planer to get them down to 1/2 inch thick. After I had the pieces flattened I used the hose from my dust collector to clean up some stray dust on my tools. I noticed that the collector wasn't really drawing as much air as it should be so I checked my collector bags and saw that they were quite full. In previous posts I've shown my dust collector bag changing process and this was much the same except when I pulled the hoses off the impeller I saw that one of the ports was packed full of sawdust.
My first thought... "That's bad". If that port is blocked that means that not only are the bags full the the plenum chamber is packed with dust, the fan housing is packed with dust. If that were the case I'd probably have a fun afternoon of taking the entire dust collector apart. Also, if the fan housing was packed with dust that means that the motor was probably straining and put additional stress on it potentially shortening its lifespan.
Fortunately when I pulled out the plug of dust I found that a small plastic bag had been sucked into the collector and had gotten stuck on a filter that's right before the fan to keep large chunks of wood from flying into the impeller. The bag had blocked some bigger shavings of UHMD plastic which then caught some wood shavings which caught the dust and cut down on my collector efficiency.
Still changing the bags which were over full took me over an hour and reminded me that software engineers do not get robust exercise as part of their daily work activities. One of the problems with changing the bags is how I've replaced the lower fabric bags with 30 gallon garbage cans and a plastic garbage bag liner. The huge benefit is that I can just tie off the top of the bag and throw it out and don't need to create a huge dust cloud emptying a fabric bag. The downside is that the dust really gets packed in, is kind of heavy and creates a vacuum seal in the garbage can.
I was lamenting the torn plastic garbage bags requiring me to double bag the waste thinking it would be nice if the garbage cans had vents to break the airlock when I realized, "These are my garbage cans. I can modify them if I want to." So I flipped them over, put a 1" (ish) hole saw in my drill and put several holes in the bottom of each one. Sure, they'll never hold liquids again; however, they are dedicated to my dust collector. I hope they never see liquids.
Anyway, that was my Friday of the long Memorial Day Weekend.
Over Saturday and Sunday... or maybe it was just Sunday... frankly, the days are starting to run together... But I finished milling the boards for the drawers. This consisted of cutting them to length and width, cutting dados for the drawer front and back, cutting rabbets in the front and back pieces, and cutting the 1/4 inch plywood bottoms. Sunday I glued the drawers together.
I didn't get any good pictures of the pieces and parts pre-glue up but suffice it to say, these are pretty standard light-weight drawers. Rabbets in the front and back fit into dados in the sides. There's a 1/4 inch groove in the bottom of the sides and front holding the bottom. The back didn't get a groove but got cut narrow enough that it fits on top of the bottom.
I didn't trap the bottom in a groove in the back because I'd thought I would slide it in and use a screw through the bottom into the drawer back to hold it in place. Test fitting the drawers I realized I had a bit of bow in the drawer sides that made them a snug fit in the cabinet. I decided to instead glue the bottom in place - it's plywood so it shouldn't cause expansion problems - which meant it was better to glue the bottom to the back versus putting a screw into it. The clamps in the middle of the drawers in the picture above are to make sure the drawer sides aren't bowed while the glue is drying.
As you can see in the picture below the drawers came out fine and fit; though, they are quite snug. I'd aimed for a 1/16 inch gap on both sides and probably ended up with maybe a 1/32 inch gap instead. I'm not planning on putting finish on the drawers so if they swell and stick I can pull them out and hit them with a belt sander or a block plane.
That pretty much wrapped up my Memorial Day weekend. I believe it was Wednesday I got a few more hours in my workshop and made wooden slides. They're two different thicknesses, 1/4 inch on the divider and 1/2 inch on the right panel. I made the right hand slide 1/2 inch thick because then I could make notches for the stiles but allow the middle of the slide to ride against the panel which will help with keeping them from bending during use.
The slides are just less that 5/8" wide. I'd intended to get them close to 5/8 inch but when they ended up narrower I just figured I'd have a slightly looser fit. So, 5/8 inch x 1/4 inch x ~15 inches long.
To install the slides I did a lot of math. It wasn't hard math. By a lot of math I mean I just checked and double checked my logic a few times. Which was good because I got it wrong at least once.
I want a 1/6 inch gap around my drawers. The drawer fronts are going to be 6-3/4 inch high which with my 4x 1/16 inch gaps would fill the opening. I made the bottom of the grooves in the drawer sides 1 inch from the bottom of the drawer. I then used spacers to align the wooden slide. The complication came in when you remember that my slides weren't exactly 5/8 inch but slightly narrower. So I made my bottom spacer 1-1/8 inch high. It's actually the piece of poplar on the lower left of the above photo. I set the spacer on the bottom and then the slide on top of that. I don't think I'd ever had a good plan on how to attach these slides but I ended up using my 18 gauge brad nailer and tacked it in the front and the back. I then did the same on the other side.
Then I needed to calculate the distance to the next slide. The drawers are 6-3/4 inches high so my first instinct was to make the spacer the same height. Fortunately I marked it out using the divider as a story stick and realized when it didn't work out that I needed to actually subtract the width of the slide. So I ended up with 6-3/4" - 9/16" (slider height) + 1/16" (drawer gap) == 6-1/4". I placed this spacer on top of the bottom slide to fit the middle and then on top of the middle to fit the top. The result was three evenly spaced drawers as you see above (and below).
That's a lot but pretty well sums up my two weeks of progress. Lots of stress and worry that I'd done something wrong but lots of celebration when things worked out as planed. The drawers fit, slide easily and don't bind. There's a bit more I can say about the drawers but this post is getting quite long so I'll leave that for next week's post.
But what about the distractions...
If you remember the storage unit I made for my wife's painting supplies...
The plan from the beginning was to put a hardwood false front on the trays and drawers. When I was picking up the poplar for the console console drawers I also picked up some red oak. I started cutting it to size and ripping it to width for the 1/4 inch veneer going on the fronts of the trays.
I don't have any pictures of that but I'm sure you can imagine what a 1/4" x 4" x 34-1/2" piece of red oak looks like. I was a bit tired and a bit rushed when I started and ended up cutting my boards in an inefficient manner. I ended up wasting about a 36 inch portion of wood. I need five 4 inch wide veneer and three 6 inch wide veneer. Since I am resawing 3/4 inch boards down to 1/4 inch I could have resawn two 6 inch boards and then ripped one of the 6 inch veneers into a 4 inch wide veneer.
Instead I ripped three 4 inch boards and two 6 inch boards. When I resaw these boards I will end up with a 4" x 36" and a 6" x 36" piece of scrap. C'est la vie...
That's what I get for trying to sneak in a little extra work at the end of a long day.
Fortunately I have a spare piece of red oak in my stock. Not being "efficient" is just going to cost me $10 or $15 in wood opportunity cost. I'll also probably find some use for it at some point. It is extremely unlikely these "waste" pieces will end up in a fire pit.
I didn't get anywhere past cross cutting some boards and ripping one of the 4 inch boards to length.
In Summary
I got what feels like a fair bit done. Sure, it was only three drawers but that included milling the wood, creating the drawer slides, mounting them in the case... That's a lot.
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