Photo Club Cabinet – #2 Rough Cutting

With all the pieces laid out I could start rough cutting them out.  I generally cut everything slightly oversize.   For plywood it’s to get the material down to a manageable size and for the solid Oak it’s to see if the material is stable.  Sometimes both plywood and solid material have internal stresses that the cutting releases causing all sorts of problems; bowing, cupping, twisting and the ever popular crook.  Cutting oversize gives me some room to maneuver to try and correct.  

However, before cutting I changed the blade in the table saw from the combination blade I use for general work to a blade specifically designed for cutting solid wood with the grain or ripping.  

Combination Blade (Left) & Rip Blade (Right)

The solid oak I had purchased was surfaced 2 sides (S2S) and ripped one side.  That means the two wide faces had been surfaced and one long edge had been ripped straight.  Both ends are rough and generally need a couple of inches trimmed off to remove any cracking and get squared up.  In one case the factory ripped edge was on an edge that had a defect at one end. 

Oak Board with Bad Edge Ripped End

To get a straight edge on the opposite side I need to run the board through the table saw but due to the defect my fence was not long enough to guide the board and give me a good clean straight edge.  The solution is to clamp a longer guide to the fence.  In this case my 4’ level.  The extra length allows me to safely rip a clean straight edge.

Setup for Ripping Second Straight Edge

Most of the solid oak rough cutting was easy enough to do, ripping to width on the table saw and cutting to length on the chop saw.  

There was one group of pieces as there usually is in a project that required a little extra thought to cut.  To cover up the raw edge of some of the oak plywood pieces and all the melamine shelving material I plan on using strips ¼” thick by about ¾” wide.  Cutting narrow strips like these can cause all sorts of problems in that I really don’t want to get my fingers that close to the blade and even if I use a push stick to keep them away there is a fair chance of the thin cut piece getting bound of between the blade and the fence.  When that happens at the very least you end up with the blade chewing on the cut piece making a bad cut and ruining the strip.  Things can get particularly exciting if the blade catches the cut piece and sends it flying out the saw right back at you.  I prefer to set the cut up so the thin strip is on the outside of the blade removing any chance of a catch.  The downside is that you have to reset the fence for each cut.  To make this easy and repeatable I use a fairly simple jig.  Here it is setup to make a cut slightly over ¼”.  Later, I will clean up the faces and get to the exact ¼” thickness with the thickness sander.

Thin Strip Ripping Jig

To use, I set the fence so the edge of the board is just touching the jig.  The jig is then pulled out of the way and the piece cut.  Reset the fence so the board is just touching the jig, cut and repeat to get as many pieces as needed.

Board in Place for Thin Strip Ripping

Checking the cut pieces with a dial caliper shows just what I was after, a strip about 1/64” over size. The result is a stack of pieces all within a few thousands of an inch to the same thickness.

Here is the stack of solid oak needed for the project.  I will space them out so air can circulate around and see if any of them decide to move on me.

Roughed out Oak Pieces

With the solid oak rough cutting done I can move on to the plywood.  While my table saw has the capacity to cut 4’x8’ pieces of plywood I generally break them down with a circular saw outfitted with a fine tooth blade.  Moving a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood ¾” thick is awkward and besides a full sheet of oak plywood weighs just under 60 pounds.  It is just easier for me to cut them down this way, my eyes don’t bug out so much moving full sheets and trying not to bump into anything.  In this case it was particularly easy as I had help from one of the photo club members to move stuff around.  This is one of the sheets set up with my cutting guide and the saw ready to go.

Setup for Breaking Down 4'x8' Oak Plywood Sheets

Here is the stack of most of the oak plywood pieces roughed out waiting to be cut to final size.

Next Up – Sides, Top, Bottom & Fixed Shelves