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.
