Dresser, part 10 - Shelves

The dresser is almost done, just need to build, finish and install a couple of shelves. I had a few minutes today after fiddling with stuff in the workshop I cut a couple of pieces of 3/4" maple plywood to size.

To avoid glue squeeze out I cut some shallow grooves just a hair inside the edge. The when the glue gets trapped in the grooves rather than squeezing out. I cut these a little deeper than I intended but they'll work anyway.

I got one of the edges clamped on tonight and I'll do the other one tomorrow.

The clamping blocks help center the edging on the shelf; however, you can see in the picture I needed a couple of extra clamps to keep the top of the edging flush.

The clamping blocks are lined with plastic packing tape just in case there is any glue squeeze out.

The weather has been pretty variable lately so I don't know when I'm going to get them finished but after getting the other shelf glued I'll just move them to my finishing room to wait good weather.

Dresser, Part 9 - Almost There

We had some good weather last week - for upstate New York in January - and I was able to get polyurethane on the dresser top. I put five coats of my wipe on oil and urethane/mineral spirits mixture. It isn't as many coats as I put on my nightstand but I think it will be plenty.

Today I wasn't quite ready to start working on the drawers for my new workbench so I decided to do the final assembly and fitting on the dresser. The dresser only has five things left to do: fasten the top, attach the back, attach the door, install the shelves, and fix the sticky drawer.

The first step was to fasten the top to the dresser. It gets three #8 screws in the front and and three waster head screws in slots in the back to handle wood expansion. I made the slots by drilling overlapping holes and cleaning them up some with a file. I think next time I have to make these I'm going to use a router to get cleaner slots.

In any case the screws went in easy on the left side where there is a big opening and I could get my drill/drivers into the opening. On the right hand side where I had limited space and my drills and drivers couldn't get into it was a little more complicated. Even my little toy power screw driver wouldn't fit. To predrill the holes I used a bit-counter sink combo and drilled the holes in the top by hand. I'd already drilled holes in the case so I used those holes to steady the bit as I rotated it and put pressure on it with my hands. It was slow but it actually worked!

I couldn't drive the screws with my fingers like I did the drill bit so I got my little socket wrench with an appropriately sized socket to turn a screw driver bit. That was pretty short and allowed me to get torque on the screw to get it driven in.  It was all awkward but it worked.

I painted the back months ago. I was just waiting for the top to be attached before I attached back. Now that the top was on, it was time for the back. Since I'd already pre-drilled the holes in the back in all the right places all I had to do was to use the holes in the back to pre-drill the carcass then put a screw in each hole. I'd decided to use bead board for the back which is a little thicker than the 1/4 plywood the plans called for so it sticks out a little but since it is going to be against the wall no one will ever notice.

That's two of the five things.

I don't have the shelves made yet so my choices were fixing the sticky drawer or installing the door. Since I hate installing doors I decided to fix the drawer. I first tried using my stationary belt sander but it didn't seem to be making very good progress so I tried one of my hand planes. That didn't work very well either. Another tool I need to learn to use better. So, I went back to the belt sander. After five or ten minutes I decided to try it in the dresser again and lo and behold it fit well. I put the false front back on and called it done.

That's three... All that's left is either building shelves or attaching the door. Did I mention I hate hanging doors?

Well, even though I hate hanging doors it needs to be done eventually.

Let's just say that hanging the door went poorly.

Attaching the hinges to the door went fine. It's attaching the door to the case that always gives me issues and this time was no different. In theory I should be able to put some double sided tape on the hinge, press the door into place, open it, then put a couple screws in to hold it in place.

I must need better double sided tape because this never works for me. The hinges never stick.

I decided that an easier way would be to make a template. Attach a piece of poster board to the hinges, drill through that then use the poster board as a template to drill the screw holes.

It worked great! Well, I did fail to drill one of the holes deep enough so I snapped the head of the screw trying to drive it in. No matter, keep on attaching the door! I got the door attached! Then it bound up when I closed it. I put it in too close to the inner frame!

My second attempt went a little better. I used my template again; however, this time I put a spacer in between the frame behind the door and the bottom. My wife was passing through so I drafted her and had her hold the door. I was more careful to keep the spacing between the door and the frame and it worked! The door was attached and it works. Not perfectly but it works.

Either my door isn't perfectly square or the opening isn't. It catches a little bit on the bottom right.

It's good enough.

I drilled the holes for the handle and attached it. Sort of anyway. The screws are bit too long so I need to go buy some new shorter ones.

I put a magnetic door stop at the top to keep the door from closing too far and I'm going to call this part of the job done.

All that's left is building a couple of shelves.

Dresser, Part 8 - The Top

As I've been ramping up my woodworking for this winter I've been spending some time on the top to the dresser. I don't have a lot of pictures mostly because despite it taking me two or three weeks to get it ready for the finishing room there's not really that many steps to it.

I had started a top previously but gave it up. The top requires a panel glue up that is 21" wide and 44" long. My plan was to glue up two pairs of board and to use my planer to make them flat again. Unfortunately my boards had wild enough grain that there was no direction I could pass them through the planer without getting severe chip-out. Frustrated I gave up and used those boards for other parts of the project. This was probably two years ago that I had reached this point.

The point I am at how is that the top is pretty much all that is left. Once the top is on I can put the back on - it's been ready and waiting for a year - and I can actually start using the dresser even as I finish the last few details.

I decided to attempt to reuse two of the boards from the old top and I added two new boards. I followed the same process as  I did the first time. When the planer started chipping the boards I tried a technique suggested to me by one of the clerks at Woodcraft which is to wet the tops of the boards with mineral spirits to soften the fibers and then send them through the planer.

This was a horrible idea. The first board passed through without any issue but the second board got stuck halfway through. When I stopped the planer and took a look at the board I saw black rubber marks on it. The rubber from the drive wheels on the planer was being dissolved by the mineral spirits! GAH!!!

I unplugged the planer, lifted it to its maximum height and wiped the rollers down with paper towels as best I could. I then let it sit for a day to finish drying. It's a quite expensive planer and I don't want to replace it because I do something dumb. Fortunately when I ran some boards through it the next day it all seemed to be fine.

But I have a new tool! I pulled out my new drum sander and it did a stunning job of removing the chipping from the boards. It took three or four heavy passes and the boards were then flat and chip free.

The next step was to glue the two pairs of boards together to make the full glue up. I took great care to get the boards to come out as even as possible. What little difference there was I removed with hand planes and my random orbit sander.

I used my circular saw and a straight edge to true up the ends, then I used my extra wide fence on my table saw to trim both ends straight, true and clean.

The top needs two more details. It gets a 1/4" bevel on the bottom of the sides and front and it gets a back rail. I used by 2 1/2 HP Dewalt handheld router and a large chamfer bit with a guide bearing to take small increments - about 1/6" each - until I  was down to the desired depth.

I'd made the back rail while the top was gluing. It's just another quartersawn white oak board that gets a 1/16" bevel around the top.

After chamfering the top and the back rail I glued the two of them together. One of the things I did to minimize glue squeeze out that I'd have to scrape off the front was to put a stopped groove on the bottom of the rail. I did this by setting my table saw fence to set the blade just a little inside the the thickness of the rail. I raised the blade so it'd make very shallow cut and marked the spot the blade entered and exited the top. This allowed me to drop the rail onto the blade, push the rail through until I hit the stop mark and then turn off the saw.

The glue up went well. I had plenty of squeeze out in the back and only a small spot to cleanup in the front. The groove worked.

It was later that night when I was thinking about the next steps that I realized I hadn't trimmed the width of the top yet. When I measured it I had a 22" wide board and it needs to be 21. Simple enough to fix. I just ran it through my table saw and reapplied the bevel to the front bottom.

After that it was a up to the finishing room where I could wipe the dust off with mineral spirits and apply my Watco Dark Walnut Oil. After two coats of oil I wiped the top down with shop towels until they came back mostly clean.

So far I'm pretty happy with how the top has come out. It's flat enough - not perfect but good enough. I kind of wish I'd remembered to put the wide board on the outside so when I trimmed the top to size it would be closer to the same size as the other boards. But, I'm happy enough with how it looks.

Dresser, Part 7 - Drawer Fronts

[Note: This posting is going up in December 2016; however, the progress was actually made back in June 2016 time-frame. I just got too busy to write it up.]

It took me most of my woodworking time for a weekend to get all the drawer fronts mounted on the drawer boxes. The process seems so easy. Drill a few holes for the hardware, drill some counter sunk holes in the boxes for attaching the drawer fronts, sink some screw and Bob's your uncle. Turns out there's a lot of holes each of which need some level of countersinking.

But before getting into drilling holes I needed to put slick tape into the  drawer openings. Slick tape is UHMW plastic with a sticky backing. It allows drawers to slide very smoothly. Unfortunately halfway though I ran out and had to order more. Even more unfortunately I couldn't find the same stuff I'd bought a few years back for my nightstand. All the stuff I was finding was much thicker. This is an issue because I'd sized the drawer boxes to just fit the openings assuming there was thinner tape. I ended up ordering a wide selection from Amazon until I found one I liked. After putting tape in all the openings I moved onto mounting the drawer fronts.

Slick Tape

First step for me was to mount the drawer fronts to the drawers. I drilled holes in the four corners of the drawer box fronts and countersunk them on the inside. I then put the drawer in the dresser and centered the drawer front. I used double faced tape to stick the drawer front to the drawer box. After getting the drawer fronts positioned correctly I used the holes in the box as a guide to predrill the screw holes for the front and then put in the screws holding the fronts to the boxes.

I never have good luck with this technique. I almost always have problems with the fronts shifting after I've pulled them out. I don't remember if I had this issue with these drawers or not. I may have just used copious amounts of tape. What I've done in other cases is to use the holes drilled for the pulls and use a bolt and nut tightened from the front of the drawer to hold everything in position until I could get the screws in.

Drawer Interior

So where are we at with number of holes drilled? Well, it's four per drawer; however, it required two different drill bits: one a little bigger than the screw for the clearance hole and one the size of the screw shank for the drawer front and a chamfer bit.

Next is drilling the holes for the drawer hardware. This is another three step hole. The pulls have a stem that needs a countersunk hole in the drawer front, a smaller clearance hole through the drawer box and then another countersunk hole in the box so the machine screw heads are recessed. I made two different jigs, one for each drawer size, which helped me get consistent results placing the hardware. This last step required three more drill bits.

Finally, I added some blocks in the back of the drawer openings to set the spacing. The blocks were supposed to be screwed in place but I was having problems getting the drill in to get the screws to go in straight. Instead I just grabbed my brad nailer and shot a couple of brads through each. That'll hold well enough and if I ever need to remove them they'll just pry right off.

Drawer Stops

In any case, the job is done - well, mostly - and looks pretty good all things considered.

Dresser with drawers installed

That said, there are three issues already.

At least two of the shelves the drawers ride on aren't flat. It wouldn't be a big deal if they bowed downwards but instead they are bowing upwards. This means there is a little "click" each time the drawer gets closed from the false front clipping the drawer dividers. I mitigated some of the issue on one of the drawers by using a block place to shave the drawer box to not have a lip in the front; however, the false front still hits the divider. I still need to work on the other drawer.

Unfortunately there isn't much more I can do about this issue.

The only other serious issue is that I wanted my drawers to be tight and one of the small drawer openings is a wee bit smaller and none of the drawer boxes fit. To keep from having a sticky drawer I'm going to have to make the drawer a bit thinner either by planing the sides down or sanding them on my stationary belt sander.

This issue is at least solvable.

The last issue is that I'm not real excited about how well the false fronts fit the openings. I did a sloppy job cutting them to width and length and as a result when I look at them closely the gaps around them aren't consistent.

This issue is merely a cosmetic issue that I will probably be the only person to notice.

Dresser, Part 6 - Catching up on progress

I may have been silent on my blog for the last two weeks but I have been making sawdust and progress on the dresser. There's a bit too much to catch up in one post so I'm going to break it up.

First, the dresser!

The dresser is in the finishing stage so it is a lot of putting a little bit of finishing and then waiting for it to dry. I finished putting polyurethane on the dresser carcass and moved it into my bedroom. It isn't quite ready for use yet but it is shoved off to the side with the drawer boxes in it for storage.

I reconfigured the finishing room for small parts and brought the drawer fronts and the door up from the workshop. My finishing area is basically an unused bedroom with a couple of tarps covering the floor from drips and spills. My finishing area is an old hollow core closet door on a couple of sawhorses except now that I have my saw ponies I replaced the plastic sawhorses which are going to my garage for other uses.

My finishing table was just large enough to get all the drawer fronts and the door onto but I also found out that I didn't have enough finishing pyramids. I thought it was just clamps I needed more of. Huh... But I stopped by Woodcraft and picked up another pack. I put a coat of Danish Oil on it all this last weekend and now I'm just letting it dry. They should be ready for polyurethane this coming weekend.

I haven't started building the top yet. I'll probably start that this weekend. It'll take me a couple of days to build the top so I should have the drawer fronts and door out of the finishing room in time to start putting finish on the top.

So, one more week for finishing the drawer fronts and door, two weeks for putting finish on the top and then the dresser will be done. After five years, three weeks doesn't seem so bad.

Dresser, Part 5 - Polyurethane on the Carcass and What's Next

Putting Polyurethane on the Dresser

I took last weekend off from woodworking and mostly just putzed around the house. The Watco Danish Oil felt dry and smelled dry mid week but I waited until this last Thursday to start putting polyurethane on it. I got a second coat on it Friday and hoped to get two coats a day on it Saturday and Sunday. 

Unfortunately my Saturday morning coat wasn't dry Saturday evening so I only got one coat on it Saturday and today (Sunday) I didn't even try to get two coats. It's still pretty cool here and it's possible that I may not have thinned the polyurethane as much as I normally do. In any case it will take however long it takes.

Getting to the bottom and reaching the top is a little awkward. The top of the carcass will be covered by the dresser top - which is yet to be made - but I want to seal it with polyurethane anyway. The plan is to finish covering the sides then I'll tip it onto it's back and put a few coats of polyurethane on the top and bottom just to make sure everything is balanced.

I'd thought that maybe I'd build the top of the dresser this weekend but instead I let myself get distracted. I spent a few hours Saturday in the workshop getting the drawer fronts sanded so they are ready to come up to the finishing room. 

At this rate, I'll probably have the dresser carcass finished this week and be putting Danish Oil on the drawer fronts and door next weekend. If they take two weeks to get covered I effectively have three weeks before I need to build the dresser top. There's also a shelf I need to build for the large opening. I've been putting that off as well because I don't want to have it sitting around taking up space.

No pictures this week. It pretty much looks the same as in my last blog.

The Next Project

As the dresser is nearing completion I'm debating on what I want to do for my next project. I'm kind of hoping it doesn't take five years like the Dresser did. Of the things I am considering is:

• Freedom 17 - A cedar strip canoe
• Router Table - Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop
• Short Dresser - A shorter version of my dresser to replace the dresser my wife is using
• Workshop projects
• Remove some cabinets to gain floor space
• Build walls and additional lumber storage
• Gaming Console Console - A cabinet to hold my gaming consoles
• Step Stool Chair - A chair that converts to a step stool

Freedom 17

The canoe has to be a summer project. I will not be able to get it out of the basement so it is going to have to be built in the garage.  I'd like to finish it in one summer because it will be much easier to store as a boat than as a half-finished boat.  This summer will probably not be ideal since I will probably be looking for a new job come fall. I'd rather not have the distraction of a boat.

Router Table

The router table is somewhat higher on the list. A number of years ago I needed a router table so I built one in an evening. It's basically a sheet of plywood with some braces underneath to keep it stiff. It sits on top of a pair of sawhorses. It's convenient in that I could take it apart and regain the space it is using but it tends to just stay set up all the time. I'd really like something more mobile and more convenient.

Short Dresser

My plan is to make an entire bedroom set. I mentioned making the bedframe that goes with my dresser and nightstand to my wife and she said she'd rather have a new dresser before the bed. I'm a little sick of working with quarter sawn white oak so that's likely to wait for a bit.

Workshop Projects

I've got a few kitchen cabinets in my workshop that were probably moved down there when the kitchen was remodeled in the mid 80's. I'm guessing that is that case because my house was built in the 70's which matches the dark walnut stained cabinets in my workshop and I've got crappy mid-80's style cabinets in my kitchen. I've got a corner of the workshop that is inaccessible and not well utilized. What I'm thinking is if I rip out the cabinets I'll gain floor space I can use to put tools.

Half of my workshop has walls framed with 2x4's 16" on center covered with T1-11 plywood. The other half has bare concrete block walls. I'm thinking of framing and paneling the other half, putting in some additional lumber storage and maybe a workbench.

These might get done over the summer but I don't know if I want to commit to them just yet. They're going to take a little bit of time. Also, I think I might rather have some of the other things on my list first.

Gaming Console Console

I've got multiple gaming consoles and currently they are sitting on the floor. I'd like to get them up off the ground and into a proper piece of furniture. I don't have any pre-made plans for what I want so I'm going to have to design something myself. Since this piece will be going into one of the nicer rooms in my house I want the piece to be attractive; however, I also don't want to put a lot of effort into it. My plans are going to have to balance utility, ease of construction and appearance.

Basically I'm not quite ready to start on this yet.

Step Stool Chair

I've been wanting to make one of these  step stool chairs for a few years now. They really appeal to my frugal nature and liking of things that multi-task. From my experience they make a relatively uncomfortable chair and a slightly inconvenient step stool. 

I've got a friend - let's call her Heidi to preserve her anonymity - who isn't what you would ever refer to as statuesque. Okay, she's short. She also has rather tall kitchen cabinets. This confluence is perfect. I want to make one of these chairs, Heidi could use a stool in her kitchen.

I think this is what I'm going to make next. The construction doesn't look that hard so it'll be a good summer project as yard work and other outdoor activities start to take precedence. I'll be able to putter away at it whenever I have time. 

I started the process Saturday afternoon by transferring the design plans to paper with a one inch grid. I started by trying to follow the plans weird skewed angle and decided it was too annoying. I restarted aligning the drawing with the grid. Since the drawing was scaled 1/4" to the 1" I was able to use a ruler to measure offsets and transfer them to my sketch. As the plans say, there are only a couple of important things to get right. The angle on the two pieces needs to be consistent - 70 degrees - and the height of the chair needs to be such that top of the seat back rests on the ground when folded into the step stool shape.

I'm happy with how it came out, but... I should have started closer to the left hand side of the paper. I don't have room to finish the other half the stool. It isn't a big deal. I can just tape another sheet of large graph paper to the right hand side and span two sheets or I can transfer what I have to a new sheet and move on. I just haven't done one or the other because I was working on the floor and my back started hurting. And it was time to go play some Mass Effect 3 anyway.

I plan to draw out the other pieces then cut them out of 1/4" hardboard. I'll use the hardboard to trace the final pieces and as a template to use my router table and a pattern bit to get the pieces exactly the same.

Dresser, Part 4 - Race to the finish

Monday evening after work and before cooking dinner I put the Dark Walnut Watco Danish Oil on the dresser case.

I worked my way around the case working in sections. It isn't terribly important with the Danish oil to keep a wet edge but by working methodically in a pattern I could make sure I got all the surfaces covered.

You can see that I didn't put the oil on the inside of the drawer cases.They are going to be hidden by the drawers so why waste the oil. Also, I am a bit low on the oil and I'd like to finish this project on the current can. It will give me a better odds of having a consistent finish.

I pretty much follow the instructions for applying the oil. I flood the surface with the oil using a shop towel. I try to keep it pretty neat but you can see the dark stains around the feet which is why I covered the saw horses with felt. If any spots look like they have absorbed all the oil I'll put a little more on.

After thirty minutes I put a second coat on following the same pattern.

After another fifteen minutes, it is time to wipe off any excess. I basically take a clean shop towel and wipe down the entire piece. I do this until the surface doesn't feel sticky any more.

At this point the instructions say you can use the item after 48 hours of put a top coat such as polyurethane on it after 72 hours. I'll be giving it at least twice that.

All oil based finishes - at least the ones I know of - need to cure which is distinctly different from drying. Finishes which cure are undergoing a chemical reaction which is typically a temperature sensitive exothermic - puts off heat - reaction. The warmer the environment the faster the finish cures. This is why you should never wad up wet oily rags and throw them in a trash can. The oil starts curing generating heat which trapped by the wadding and garbage can causes the reaction to accelerate which generates even more heat and so on until something reaches the temperature where it will spontaneously combust.

Anyway, I'm very careful to dispose of my rags carefully so  I don't burn down my house but almost as important I don't know how fast the oil on the case is going to cure. Since it is a bit chilly in upstate New York right now I'm going to wait to make sure the oil is cured. If the oil isn't cured when I try to put the polyurethane on I'll just end up with a muddy blurry mess.

There's one more issue. Oak has really large pores which absorb the oil. Over the first few days the oil in the pores will leak out. If I don't keep going back to the project and wiping it down a few times a day I'll get a blotch wherever the oil leaks. I wiped the case down twice again Monday night. I wiped it down twice on Tuesday, once in the morning and once in the evening. Wednesday I overslept so I didn't have time in the morning but I'll wipe it down before I head to bed tonight.

So I am going to wait at least 72 hours after the oil stops leaking out and I consistently get a clean rag when I wide the case down.

Dresser, Part 3 - The well laid plans of mice and men...

I started off this weekend with a few simple goals:

• Get the dresser into the finishing room and get the Walnut Watco Danish Oil on it
• Get the dresser top constructed
• Get the drawer fronts finish sanded

Saturday morning my wife helped me haul the dresser upstairs. She's pretty strong but the dresser is also pretty heavy. I haven't weighed it yet but I'd guess it is over 100 lbs and quite bulky. With a little grunting - mostly from me, my wife is too polite to grunt - we got it upstairs to the finishing room without hurting ourselves, the house or the dresser. All-in-all successful in my opinion.

I'd already taken my saw ponies up to the finishing room and laid them out. Since I didn't want to get danish oil all over them - pools of danish oil tend to stay sticky - so I covered them up. The pink paper is actually underlayment for hardwood flooring. It isn't too expensive and it does a good job of absorbing spills. I use it to cover my workbench when I am doing glue ups.

Before carrying the dresser upstairs I'd brushed the bulk of the dust off the dresser and after getting the dresser upstairs I wiped the dresser down with mineral spirits. This does a few things: it gets the last of the dust off, it highlights the grain and it helps me find places that need a little more sanding. Mostly it gets the last of the dust off. You can see from the towel I used how much dirt and dust I got off the dresser.

Next was just tipping the dresser onto the saw ponies. I originally thought I'd leave it on its back but I was worried about reaching the back. After I lifted it upright I realized I could still reach everything I needed to and additionally I would not have to reach over the sides to get to the insides.

After wiping a project down with mineral spirits I like letting it sit for 24 hours to let the mineral spirits finish evaporating. I don't want to risk polluting the finish I'm putting on over it. This means the dresser case needs to sit until Sunday. My style of finishing takes a lot of clock time but very little personal time. There is a lot of sit and wait - or in my case go do something else.

To the workshop!

As I was heading down to the workshop to make the top of the dresser my wife reminded me I was going to make a wooden plinth/base for one of her miniatures. So I futzed around with figuring out what I was going to do for her and then promptly forgot to take the wood blank down to the workshop with me. I found it when I came back upstairs for dinner.

Then when I got into my workshop I saw the start of the 3D printer enclosure I'd started earlier this week. That distracted me yet again. Building the enclosure was kind of fun since I didn't have a plan and just worked it out as I went. I made pretty good progress Saturday afternoon until I had to quit and clean up for dinner.

Sunday when I got back in the shop I finished the door that goes on the right hand side. I wanted to try a couple of things I don't do very often so I made the door with half lap joints. I put a dado around the inside of the door frame then used stops I nailed in place to hold an MDF panel in the door. I did this so if my friend - we'll call him Tyler to preserve his anonymity - ever wants to put glass or plexiglass in the door he can replace the MDF panel.

It looks great for being made out of spare parts I had lying around and no real plans. I had three 1"x3"x8' pine and a 4'x8' sheet of 1/8" MDF. There's only one problem. I made it using the outside dimensions of the table the printer is sitting on and the height of the printer. When I double checked my resulting inner dimensions the box is about 3/4" not deep enough. The printer will fit behind the front sliding doors but not within the footprint. I think I can make it work by giving my friend 'Tyler' a base to lift the printer over the lip created by the sliding doors.

The Plans!

Parts, ready for delivery!

After I finished the enclosure I whipped out a base for my wife's figure made out of red oak. It basically just consisted of cutting it to size then running it past a router to shape the edges. It ended up a little bigger than my wife wanted but it'll do.

How'd I do?

I got a lot done this weekend, but almost none of the stuff I'd planned. Of my goals I got half of the first one done. My woodworking is much like going grocery shopping. You start off with a list and then halfway through the store you remember that you needed yogurt and something for dinner tomorrow night so you pick those things up too.

I got my wife's base done so she can enter her mini in a competition at Adepticon. I finished an enclosure for a 3D printer for my friend. I did get my dresser upstairs and cleaned up ready for the danish oil. I'm not too bothered by not getting the rest of the dresser work done this weekend because there is going to be so much waiting for finish to dry over the next few weeks that I'll have plenty of time to do the other stuff. I'll probably do the Danish Oil tomorrow night and it'll be fine.

Dresser, Part 2 - Dresser Drawer Fronts

My goal for this last weekend was to get enough progress that I'd be able to get the dresser carcass into my finishing room. Since my finishing room is separated by two flights of stairs from my workshop I didn't want to have to schlep drawer fronts up and down stairs when tweaking them to fit nicely with even spacing.

Long story short, I didn't accomplish my goal. I spent a few hours selecting the boards for the drawer front and cleaning them up and I got the front and back skirt shaped and finish sanded. It was right about this point that I remembered my copious glue use on the saw ponies and that I had finished off my last bottle of Titebond III. I got close but I wasn't able to attach the skirt boards.

I had a free evening tonight so after an hour of Mass Effect 3 and then watching the Daily Show with my wife I got down into the workshop for a few hours of work. I cleaned up the mess left from jointing the drawer fronts, glued the two skirt boards onto the case and started another small project.

The blue tape you see is holding on the off cut from cutting the arc on the rail. Using the off gives me a flat surface to use the clamps. The back rail doesn't get a curve and is clamped the same way.

The next question you ask is, "Why did it take you all weekend to cut out the drawer fronts and why are you starting another project?" Well, that's actually two questions and my normal policy is one question per post but I'll make an exception this time.

First, why did it take most of a weekend to cut the drawer fronts. Well, to make a short story long, the bottom two drawers in the dresser are 8" wide by 36" long. I wanted to make them out of a single board with good figure across the entire drawer front I needed to find a pretty special board. I actually ended up finding two boards that each had a long enough section that had nice figure for most of the width. So, looking over my available boards and deciding which section I was going to take took more than a trivial amount of time.

Next the boards were 5/4" thick which is both good and bad. It's good because it gives me lots of thickness to work with to get the board flat and straight. It's bad because that means I need to remove 1/2" of material to get it down to the 3/4" thick the plans call for. Most of that gets done at the planer and since I only remove about 1/32" at a time, that ends up being a lot of passes through the planer.

But that's not all! My jointer is only 6" wide. There are a coupe of techniques to flatten one face of a board that is too wide for your jointer. One is to use your planer. Unfortunately if the board is warped when you put it through the planer it will come out the other side smooth and warped. To make it work you build a sled - either temporary or a slick adjustable one [For example, this one].

I tend to go ahead and use my jointer. This technique is to take a deep swath ~1/8" in a single pass. This leaves a lip on one side of the board. If the lip isn't too wide I'll use a hand plane to take it off. In this case the lip was 2" wide by 36" long in white oak, much more than I wanted to hand plane. What I do in these cases is put a support board on the flat part and then put them through my planer. Once the opposite side is flat I flip the board over and plane the lip off.

Then it is a matter of planing the boards to 3/4". I stopped when there was about 1/32" left on the long wide boards, cut, jointed and planed the small drawer fronts to about the same thickness then passed all the drawer fronts through the planer. This gets them all to be exactly the same thickness. It's probably irrelevant for drawer fronts but it is good to follow this process when shaping similar boards.

I hope you can see, cutting the drawer fronts was a little more work than just cutting a board to length. In summary it was:

• Find the right board(s)
• Cut the lengths I wanted to use
• Joint board
• Use the planer and a carrier board to make one side flat
• Flip the board and remove the lip
• Use the planer to remove ~1/2" material 1/32" at a time.

So, the new project I started. A friend of mine just got a 3d printer and he just started printing with ABS. Apparently ABS needs to be kept warm throughout the printing process. His printer has a heated bed so all he needs is an enclosure around the printer and the bed will keep the air warm enough to print ABS. I had some space 1x3 pine and some 1/4" MDF so I am making him an enclosure. It'll take me a few hours to do; however, in the big scheme of things it won't be too bad.

Oh, and I almost forgot... I made little steps for my cat over the weekend. The poor thing is about twenty years old and is getting little arthritic and cannot jump up to the couch anymore. Her solution is to sit next to the couch and meow until someone comes and lifts her up. I'd made a jumping box for a friend's dog a few years ago, I got it back when my dog needed a little help jumping into the back of the Forrester. We put that next to the couch but it was still too high for her so I made some shorter steps out of the scrap plywood from the saw ponies I made two weeks ago.

My goal for this weekend is to:

• Get the dresser into the finishing room and get Walnut Watco Danish Oil applied
• Get the drawer fronts sanded
• Construct and sand the top

If I get all that done I'll have the bulk of the construction tasks left and just have finishing left.

Dresser, Part 1 - Picking up from where I left off

"So what's with this dresser you keep talking about but don't ever show any pictures, and why do you start every blog post with a question?"

Those are both good questions but the quota is one question per blog post.

The plans for the dresser I'm working on came from a set of bedroom furniture plans in Wood magazine. The dresser was featured in issue 160 December/January 2004/2005.

Image property of Wood magazine.

My wife and I could be described as frugal when it comes to buying furniture. Our bedroom furniture is bits and pieces we've picked up from family, friends, ex-girl friends, etc. I got this desire to build all my own furniture and these plans really caught my attention. I started with the nightstand because it was smaller and I needed one.

I liked the look of the nightstand but I also wanted to make some changes. The nightstand as designed had an open bottom and I wanted to keep my clutter out of sight. The nightstand plans are basically two frame and panel sides with a bottom, a drawer and a top. To fit the door, I used the same technique as the dresser which is to build a carcass out of plywood, then glue the frame and panel sides to the plywood box. I kept the same dimensions but completely redesigned the inner construction.

So about five or six years ago I started the dresser. As I explained on other posts a number of life factors got in the way and I was unable to devote time to working in my work shop. A recent project to build legs for a friend's gaming table inspired me to get back into the shop and finish the dresser.

Here's the state it was in three months ago.

Doesn't look like much does it. It's basically a plywood box with the front edges covered in solid white oak. The plywood back is leaning on the box but it isn't attached yet. The loose boards stacked on top are the pieces to make the drawer boxes. Behind and to the right you can see the rough lumber that will become the rest of the dresser.

This is basically where I picked it back up. The case plywood frame has been put together and edged with white oak, the drawer parts had been rough cut and thicknessed and the panels for the sides and door had been resawn and stained.

The next step was to put the panels into frames for the sides and the door.

In the picture of the door glue up you can see how I used F-clamps to help make sure the joints lined up. The swatches of blue is painter tape where I marked the center line of the center stile and the top and bottom rails.

The side panels were glued up the same way. In the picture on the right I am gluing the corbels onto the sides. If I remember correctly I eyeballed the position when I glued the corbels onto the nightstand. I'm pretty good at judging the center of things by eye but I decided for the dresser to make a spacer to help make sure the corbels were straight and centered.

Then it was a simple matter of gluing the sides to the carcass. I say simple but I actually put a lot of effort into making sure this step went without a hitch. If I made any serious mistakes in gluing the pieces together I would have to scrap hundreds of dollars of material and dozens of hours of work. Fortunately everything went well.

The next step I took was to build the drawer boxes. They'll get false fronts added so they look pretty plain right now. I made these out of Poplar. I really like working with Poplar as it is inexpensive and cuts very easily. The one downside is that of all the woods I've used Poplar seems to be the most likely to warp and twist when I cut it. Fortunately the drawer parts sitting on top of the dresser for five years don't appear to be any the worse for it.

And this is where it is at today. My plan for this weekend is to cut the false fronts for the drawers while the dresser is still in my workshop because it will be easier for fitting them to the openings. I also need to cut and add the front and back skirt. If I have time I'll start on the top.

Then I'm going to move the dresser body to my finishing room to start putting Watco's Danish Oil on it. It only takes an hour or two to apply but then it takes at least a week to cure fully. I'll probably give it two before I start putting on the polyurethane.