The routing works well with the outside edges but the inside
corner on the face of the door leaves a little problem in the corner. As the router bit is a spinning bit it does
not cut all the way into the corner but leaves a little bit of a tapered edge
on each side and I don’t like that. Here
you can see what I mean.
What I want to end up with is a nice sharp intersection
between the two pieces. To get there
requires a few steps. To start a
45-degree line representing the intersection plane is marked like this.
Following that a fine-toothed rasp with a “safe edge” is
used to round over the little tapered edges so they match the radius cut with the
router. A safe edge rasp is one that has
a smooth edge or one edge with no teeth.
That way when you can use it up against another reference surface
without removing material. Below is the
rasp and the rounded over edge. Note
that there is still a tiny bit of material needing to be removed at the corner
itself.
Last is to use a sharp chisel to pare off the remaining
nubbin which creates a nice sharp intersection of the two radiused edges. Some very minor sanding smooths the radiused
edge. It sounds like a lot to go through
but in reality, it takes longer to read how it’s done than to do it. The photo shows the chisel I use and the
completed inside corner.
Attaching side spacers is next. There are three different profiles one for
the top, one for the bottom and two identical ones in-between. Here is what they look like in the drawings.
In Post #16 Making the Side Spacers, More Stain &Front Frame Glue-up they were all finished except for being left about 1/16” long. Now with the cabinet assembled I can cut them to fit. To do that I set up a couple of stops on the chop saw. The one on the right cuts the piece 1/32” too long and it is used first.
The stop on the left cuts off another 1/32” leaving a
piece the same width as the side panel.
Cutting equal amounts from both sides keeps the profile centered. This gets me really close but due to very minor variances in width some of the pieces needed a little more shaved off.
Gluing the pieces in is next. The top spacers are easy, a couple of bar
clamps takes care of them. The two
intermediate spacers are not so easy.
First, a caul is used to spread the clamping force across the full width
of the spacer. A bar clamp across the
back applies pressure to one end of the caul.
The front needs a little different clamping setup since there is no
plywood panel here to resist the tendency of the legs to bow inward when the
clamp is tightened. Individual deep
reach clamps and spacers allow the clamp to stand off the leg and the door
while clamping the spacer to the side.
The bottom image is a closer look at the intermediate clamp setup with
the caul.
When all done this is what they look like.
The shelves are next.
Back in post #15 Stain Samples, Cutting ¾” 4’x8’ Plywood Sheets &Testing I made a change in the plywood side width to add about half an inch in
depth to the cabinet. I don’t regret the
change but it did come with a cost. As
the sides and the shelves are cut from the same piece if one gets bigger
(sides) the other gets smaller (shelves).
That means the shelves are not wide enough to just need cutting to
length to be completed. An oak spacer
will have to be added to both the front and back to pick up the needed
width. That’s not a real problem as at a
minimum I needed to add a facing to cover up the raw plywood edge. Also, since the shelves are about 33” long I
want to add a little reinforcing to them so they don’t sag. I think what I will do is add a roughly ¾”
wide by 1”to 1 ¼” tall piece at both the front and back. These are the two options for locating
them. Right now I am leaning toward the
one at the top. That’s because the
little lip at the top will help keep things from sliding off the back and
falling to the bottom of the cabinet. It also makes the shelves reversible if that is ever needed.
Sorting through the cabinet’s cutoff pieces for the spacers I found that the tapered scraps from the legs will give me about 8 of the needed 12. The photo below is from when I was cutting the leg tapers. Other pieces from the rough cutting rails and tops gave me the remainder.
True to form for this batch of oak most of the pieces had
warped a bit. Heck some were even warped
in two planes, but fortunately no twist.
In short, I had a dozen warped, non-square pieces including some that
still had the rough sawn edge. Well, it
took me the better part of an entire morning to straighten and square
them. At this point I did not try to
take them to the same size, the goal is to just get them straight and
square. Now, before going any further
they are going to set for a day or so to see if they are stable.
After letting them set all are good except for about
three that had developed a tiny curve.
Nothing that when gluing up could not be resolved but as the pieces were
oversized, I went ahead and straightened them again. Here are the pieces cut the finished height
of just under 1 ¼”. Widths still vary
and that’s next.
Cutting to width is next. The pieces at the front of the shelf are just a bit thicker than the ones at the back. I just thought a wider piece at the front would look better than having both the same thickness. Last step is to run all four faces of the pieces through the thickness sander to remove the saw marks. Here they are sized to height and thickness. All are still about an inch long. A few have a few chalked “X” on the left end and that’s to note which end needs to have the most cut off due to flaws needing to be removed.
Next up – Finishing the Shelves & Tops Part 1
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