The doors are next.
First is to change saw blade back to the plywood one and rip the doors to
width. Next is to cut to length. In order to reduce splintering to a minimum I
ran a strip of masking tape along where the cut will be then using the sled cut
the doors to length.
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| Door Taped to Reduce Crosscut Splintering |
To cover the raw plywood edges I will wrap the door edges
with the same ¼” thick oak edging I used on the bottom fixed shelf except that
these corners are mitered. This photo
shows the end oak piece rough cut to length. Once the piece is trimmed to an exact fit it is
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| Fitting Oak Door Trim |
After the glue dries I plane and scrape the edging down
to the plywood surface then route a 1/8” radius on the edge. This is the finished door edge.
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| Installed Oak Door Trim |
I had one piece of solid oak left to do and that was the toe
kick. Because the toe kick cutout in the
side was done with a jig saw I could not be sure that it was a true straight
line. To assure that I have a straight
clean edge I set the sub frame piece back about 1/16” from the face which left
the jig sawn edge a little proud of the sub frame. Using a stack of dado blades a matching
shallow cut in the to kick piece allows the jig sawn edge to float within the
dado giving me my straight joint.
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| Dado Blade Stack & Cut in Toekick |
Last step for this is to route a 1/8” radius on the four
end edges. To keep from blowing a chunk
of wood out when the router bit exiting the cut I backed it up with a
scrap. Here I have un-clamped the scrap
and pulled it away from the toe kick piece.
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| Radiused Edge on Toekick |
Next up is putting on all the hardware; hinges, locks and
handles. This requires some decisions on
spacing and once those are made a whole lot of measuring to make sure the
hardware is a mirror image between the doors.
Note how the grain in the doors is almost a duplicate – planning and a
little luck J.
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| Hardware Installed |
Ever wonder how to get the pilot holes for hinges and the
like perfectly centered? I can’t
remember how much time I wasted using an awl and eyeballing the center point of hinge mounting holes not to mention my less the stellar results. The tool to get is a self-centering drill
bit. It’s chamfered nose centers in the
hinge hole and produces a dead on centered pilot hole.
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| Self Centering Drill Bit |
There are 6 melamine faced adjustable shelves that are a
part of the cabinet. Except for the
100-pound sheet weight they are not very difficult to cut. Fortunately, I had some help moving it and
breaking it down to 2’x4’ pieces. From
there they are all cut out on the table saw.
Same process as the plywood case pieces.
I will be facing the exposed edge with a ¼” thick oak strip similar to
the fixed plywood shelf. One quirk is that
the unfinished blank length and width dimensions are only 1/16” different. To keep them straight I put a piece of tape
on the front edge. Once I clipped the
corners (for AV cabling) it was easy to tell which edge gets the oak strip.
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| Melamine Shelf Blanks |
I already had the oak strips to the correct ¼” thickness
and the ¾” width. Now that I had the
shelves cut to the correct width I could match the strips length to it. I will be staining and lacquering the strips
before putting them on the shelves. This
is different than what I did for the plywood shelf for two reasons. First, is that the thickness is much more
consistent with this melamine shelving material than the plywood so I don’t
have to worry about the edges not lining up.
Second, can you imagine trying to stain and spray lacquer on the strips
after they are glued to the shelves without making a total mess?
Rearranging the sequence means that I have to
route a radius on the edges before I attach them to the shelves. In working with narrow, thin pieces I change the method of routing. Instead of
running a hand router on the piece I will use the router table and run the
piece by the bit. Also, I want to keep
my fingers away from that bit spinning at about 12,000 rpm’s. The way to do this is to set the router table
fence up so a minimum of the bit is exposed and use a push block to feed the
piece.
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| Routing Long Edges of Oak Trim |
Lastly, I routed a radius on the ends of the strips
backing up the piece with a block to prevent any blowout of material as the bit
exits the cut.
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| Routing End Grain |
To make adjustable shelves adjustable you need holes,
lots of holes for the shelf pins to go in.
Once again I had some help with the project in the form of a photo club
member willing to drill the 88 holes for the shelves. I use to lay out the spacing by hand using a
ruler or divider then using an awl to punch the center point and finally drill
the holes using a piece of tape on the drill as my depth gauge. Drill too deep and you go through the side of
the cabinet, which can ruin your day.
Finally, I broke down and got a template. I also bought a bit similar in construction
to the self-centering drill bit. It has an outer sleeve
the same diameter as the template hole plus a built-in depth stop so I don’t drill
through the cabinet side. Both the items
were money well spent.
With the holes drilled the woodworking part of the
project is pretty much finished up.
Next Up – Staining, Spraying Lacquer & Assembly
Wow Dave! It's beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThank-you I am happy with the way it came out.
ReplyDelete