The fillers are made out of some leftover cedar which works out just fine as it is an easily machined nice soft wood. I started by ripping strips slightly oversize then using the thickness sander take them down to a slight friction fit. Once that’s done a small bevel is added to one end by making a single pass on each edge with 60 grit paper as shown below.
The fillers are cut to length on the table saw using a
stop block mounted on the rip fence.
The faux tenon fillers follow a similar process except
that because the legs are tapered the outer face of the filler needs match that
taper. Matching the taper angle is easy
enough since I have the cutoff from when the legs were originally tapered. That goes up against the cross-cut fence then
the end of the blank is trimmed. After
that the tapered spacer is removed and the faux filler is cut to length using
the stop block mounted on the rip fence.
The photo below shows the setup with the tapered spacer up against the
cross-cut fence.
This is what the peg and faux fillers set in place look
like.
The topcoat I will use is nitrocellulose lacquer sprayed
on with an HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) spray gun. The last time I needed to get lacquer they
had quit making that particular type so I bought all 6 gallons they had. Now all that’s left of that is just under two
gallons which is not enough to do both cabinets. A visit to the local supplier provided me
information on a compatible item so I got a gallon to do a test to see how it
matched up. Below is the old can on the
left and the new one on the right.
To do the finish test I took two different solid oak
pieces plus a plywood scrap then sanded and stained them the same way as the
rest of the cabinet. They are cut in
half, labeled and one half is given two coats of the old lacquer (left) while
the other half gets two coats of the new lacquer (right). After an overnight cure I examined them and
could not tell the difference.
Below is a photo after one coat of lacquer has been
applied. I started with the non-exposed
unstained faces of the bottoms and sub-tops.
In the photo below they are the four light colored pieces in the center. Next was the underside of the six shelves at
the top and left followed by the tops themselves at the bottom. After letting them cure they were sanded with
400 grit paper. Another coat of lacquer
followed by an overnight cure then wet sanding using 1800 grit paper. The third coat is the final one which the
next day gets wet sanded or really polished with an 8,000-grit pad. I could do two coats in one day but have too
many things going on to do that so it takes the better part of 6 days to do all
sides of the pieces. More if the
humidity gets too high which rarely happens here in the desert but it did during
the finishing process so I lost a few days.
First time in 10 years here that it has been a concern. The problem with high humidity is moisture
can get trapped in the finish then the lacquer forms a skin before the water
vapor can escape. That causes the
lacquer to turn a milky white or blush.
Not something you want to see happening.
I did have one piece with a little bit of blush to it. That was fixed by spraying another coat with
a much higher percentage of thinner which I think dissolved the surface of the
previous coat and let the moisture escape.
The faux tenons are done concurrently with the first
batch of pieces. To keep unfinished wood
at the glue joint when they are installed, I use painter’s tape to mask off the
glue joint areas. To make spraying
easier they are clamped between scraps of wood held in place with more tape. If
you look closely you can see the marking knife lines made to define how far
they needed to go into the mortise.
Once the tenons were done the handles are next. They are finished all at once just like the
faux tenons. A couple of screws run up
into the mounting holes provide a handhold while they are being sprayed and a
piece of plywood with a hole for the screw to set in holds them upright until
they dry.
After nearly two weeks of working around the weather the
first batch of pieces were done and set aside.
The next group is the four sides.
Since there are fewer of them and the weather still was not cooperating
I set up an area in the shop to spray.
With this setup the only thing I had to worry about was the humidity
level. In the upper right of the photo
you can see the other three sides drying.
Next is the backs and front. The back is the biggest, heaviest piece and
while the front is the same size it is open so it weighs less. However, both of these pieces are just too
big to spray and then try to move without messing up the just applied
finish. Given the space constraints that
means just a single front/back set can be sprayed at once. Here you can see how the two pieces are set
up for spraying.
Once sprayed the temporary plugs for the faux tenons and
the pegs are removed along with the tape that has kept the area where the sides
will be glued and screwed on clean.
The last or almost last of the pieces to be sprayed with
lacquer is the doors and I am glad this phase is over. I still have to do all the pegs but that will
come a little later. It seems like I
have been working on staining and lacquering the parts forever! In reality it took just over 5 weeks using
more than a quart of oil stain, half a quart of gel stain, over three gallons
of lacquer and almost 2 gallons of thinner to get it all done. Now at long last I can start putting
everything together.
Next up – Assembly
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