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| New cabinet all loaded up |
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| New cabinet shelves |
I'm pretty sure I mentioned in a previous post debating between glass and plexiglass and finally deciding on glass. You can see in the photo immediately above that the glass is a little shimmery. That's due to the bubbles in the glass.
If you are wondering why something looks a little off, it's probably the pull on the top drawer. When I bought the pulls from Lee Valley I bought the Mission style knobs that are on the bottom two drawers and the door and I also bought some pulls called "Rio". I really like the styling on the Rio knobs but they are just too large for the cabinet. One of the Mission style knobs was miss-threaded and has been sent back to Lee Valley for replacement. The Rio knob is standing in until the replacement arrives.
How is the Lee Valley replacement process? So far, it is super easy. They have a PDF you can download and fill out itemizing the parts being returned. They'll refund shipping if you ship the item back yourself. Alternately you can print a shipping label that includes postage. I went this route. I think it was Wednesday that I put it into the mail. I'll let you know how long it takes to get a replacement.
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| Prototype on the left, new one on the right |
Yeah, there is some dust on the glass in the above photo. I'd just brought the door up from my workshop.
Installing the glass was interesting. This is the first time I've made a door with glass in it. I was a bit worried about hammering nails into the glass stops but then I remembered that the glass only cost $15. If I break it I can just buy another piece. As it was, everything went fine. I found some 18 ga wire nails that were 5/8 inch long. I put some tape on my smallest drill bit to mark it about 1/2 inch long, just shorter than the nail. I pre-drilled all the nail holes through the glass stop and into the frame just shorter than the nail. The holes were a slip fit for the nail so I hand pressed them in as far as they would go then just tapped then home with my smallest hammer. I didn't bother using my nail set to recess them.
Since I'd mounted the door in the cabinet once already for fitting, mounting it this time just required putting the hinges on the door then putting it in the cabinet. To add the spring catch I figured about where I wanted to mount the male part on the door, marked it with a white pencil, transferred that mark to the cabinet and inset the female part approximately as deep as I thought it should be. Turns out it was just about perfect so I left it as it was.
The last thing I had to do was take the shelves to my router table to route a recess into the bottom to lock the shelves to the shelf pins. I used a 1/2 inch (or was it a 5/8 inch) bit to make a 1/4 inch deep recess. I was fortunate in that my shelf pins were spaced exactly the same in the front and the back so the same router table setup allowed me to route all four recesses. The only downside was I needed to back-route two of the recesses on each shelf. It worked fine, I was just super careful to take it slow and make sure the shelf didn't get away from me.
Anyway, it is done. I looked back through my blog and it looks like I started it just about the same week that Covid became a concern here in NY. Let's call it about 20 weeks from start to finish. These kind of projects always feel like they should just take me a weekend or two in the beginning; however, I never end up spending full weekends in my shop so the projects stretch longer (much longer) than a couple of weekends. But as I started this paragraph, it is finally done.
Next, it is summer time. I've still got some small projects to finish. I also have to start thinking about what I want to build next winter and start my planning. Maybe doors for my dust collector closet. Maybe a real workbench. Maybe more magazine boxes. We'll see...
Stay safe everyone!
