FLW Cabinet - #4 Rough Cutting 5/4 & Adjusting the Bandsaw

With the leg blanks set aside next is to rough out the upper and lower rails that tie into the legs plus the top.  The legs are made from 6/4 material while the rails and the top are made from 5/4 material.  That’s because the rails are set in a bit from the front of the legs to provide a shadow line.  The drawings below shows the parts and what I mean.

The 5/4 material is rough-sawn just like the 6/4 so I will need to go through the same process to get flat, smooth and square boards.  Here are the three boards I started with, the good news being that they are not as curved as the 6/4 planks.

While they may not be as curved and not as bowed, they are still not flat.  The process starts with cutting the planks into rough lengths of 36” and 42”.  Here you can see how much bow the have when clamped down so they can be ripped lengthwise. 

Once ripped the apparent bow is greatly reduced which means less material to be removed before I can get flat boards.  The photo below really shows the improvement in apparent flatness.

Now it’s time to set the planer up again and start running the pieces through it.  I start by taking off 1/16” per pass but after a couple passes as the cut gets wider since the crown is being removed the cut is reduced to 1/32” per pass.  Once the first side is fairly flat the piece can be flipped and work on the second side can begin.  I emptied the shop vac before starting and may need to again before all is done.

Several passes later the boards looked pretty good that is until I checked for flatness as four of them had a little twist.  I hate that, of all the problems it is the hardest to remove.  Cup or curve are not too hard to correct but twist is the one that gives me the most fits.  A jointer makes the correction easier but I don’t have one so end up using either a big hand plane or a power plane.  Oh well, using the 18” long, 7 pound hand plane gives me my cardo workout for the day.

Anyway, after flattening the offending boards and squaring up the edges on the table saw I had a nice stack of square, flat smooth material.

Since some of the boards had moved around after being cut and surfaced I thought it’s a good idea to set the just milled pieces off the side for a bit to see if they had stabilized or wanted to move around some more.  Here are all the 6/4 and 5/4 pieces set on slats on the floor with spaces between them so the air can freely circulate.

While waiting to see if the thicker material was stable, I moved on to roughing out material for door frames and spacers on the sides.  The drawing shows these parts.  The door frame material starts out at 13/16” thick and will probably end up between that and ¾”.  It all depends on how much I have to remove to get rid of the surfacing scallops.  The spacers also start out at 13/16” thick but will end up at about ½” thick.  There are a couple of ways to get there but I will go through that later.

Below are the boards used and how the pieces get laid out on them.  There were a few knot holes, cracks and the like to work around but all in all after some time measuring and thinking a pretty efficient layout emerged.  I just hate to waste good material.

After cutting the short spacers that go on the side, I needed to cut them down to ½” thick.  There are a couple of ways to do this.  One is to run them through the planer and turn the ¼” of oak that needs to be removed into sawdust.  The second way and what I am going to do is cut a thin slice off the piece using the bandsaw.  

First, a little back story on the bandsaw.  When I got it in 2000 it had some significant alignment problems that really impacted the quality of the cut.  After spending some time on the phone with the manufacture we got it so the cuts were satisfactory.  There was still a problem with the blade fluttering while running which gave rougher cuts than what I thought it should.  At the time I could not make any finer adjustments so that’s the way I have been using it for the past 18 years.   Now before starting to rip the spacer pieces I wanted to have a go at refining the alignment.   Back in 2000 my only really good straight edge was a 4’ level which was too short to align the wheels.  However, not so long ago I broke down and got an 8’ level.  Not for the leveling function but as a precision straight edge and that’s what I will use on the bandsaw.

What I believe needed checking and adjustment is the alignment of the wheels.  They need to set along the same vertical axis, neither canted or offset.  In other words, both of the wheels need to be in the same plane.  Here I have clamped a couple of spacers exactly the same thickness to the level then held them tight to the outer rim of the top wheel. 

Below the left photo shows a closer view of the top wheel where you can see the spacer is touching both the top and bottom of the wheel.  The right photo shows the bottom of the bottom wheel with almost a ¼” wide gap.  The gap at the top of the bottom wheel was only slightly less than that so I had two problems, the wheels were both canted and offset. 

By adjusting the top and bottom wheels I was able to correct both problems and align all four contact points so they just touched the spacers.  Below is the bottom of the bottom wheel in proper alignment where it should be.

When I restarted the bandsaw the blade fluttering was gone and a test cut proved to be way smoother than anything I had ever gotten before.

Next up – Bandsawing, a Revision & Work on Doors

FLW Cabinet - #3 Making & Using the Taper Jig

To make the jig I keep a few good looking 8’ long 2x4’s on hand for just the purpose of making jigs and such.  The one I am using has drying out for probably a year so if it was going to warp it’s done by now.  Sure enough when I set the long level on it there was a bit of a bow so I used the same straight edge and plane procedure on it that I had used to straighten the leg blanks.  Once that was done a couple passes through the thickness sander gave me nice flat faces and a good reference plane. 

One block at each end of the leg blank is needed to hold it in place while being cut.  They start by taking a short length of 2x4 and cutting one edge to match the taper of the leg.  Rather than adjusting the chop saw to cut a .8 degree angle a small spacer is set between the stop block and the saw’s fence.

The plan is for the stop block to get screwed to the reference 2x4 and to the leg blank.  Since the screws will run into the bottom of the project’s leg, I don’t have to worry about them being visible in the finished project.  The leg blank is longer than needed with extra length at the top so the screw holes there can be cut off.  Here is the marked-up bottom block that shows a whole lot of layout lines.  Some explanation of them is in order.  Because the screws are not long enough to go through the block they will need to be countersunk.  The light solid lines on the face of the block show the counter sunk depth.  The dotted lines on the face show where I need to drill a pilot hole for the threaded part of the screw to clear.    

Now the drilling can commence, the left photo shows where I have drilled a shallow 3/8” counter sink hole and am getting ready to drill the next one.  It will be drilled full depth later but for now its only purpose is to allow me to center the pilot hole bit (right photo) and drill it to the bit’s full depth.  It’s too short to go all the way through but it almost makes it.   The screws that will be used are self-tapping so they will finish it out.  Main reason for drilling the pilot hole here is to help get the screw started straight and square.

Now I can go back and drill the countersink holes to their full depth.  The photo on the left shows green tape that acts as my depth gauge.   The bit being used is a Brad point drill that makes a flat bottom hole.  That’s to match the screw I am using as it has a flat bottom.  In the photo on the right the screw driver is chucked up in the drill press and is being used to help keep the screw square to the block.

Here in the left photo you can see the screws I used and where one is run in until it almost comes through the bottom.  I need to stop short so the piece does not get screwed down to the drill press table.  The right photo shows a couple of things.  First, you can see how the holes are offset from each other.  If they were all centered in the block, they would cross each other and having two screws try and occupy the same plane just doesn’t work.  I know I accidently tried it once.  Second, is that no matter how you try sometimes the drill or screw wanders off course and they pop out the other side not exactly where you planned.  Here on the left side of the block one is right in line and the other is well let’s just say it’s a little bit of a free spirit.

With the two end blocks done just one last piece needed to be made, it’s about an 8” long wedge whose taper to matched the leg taper.  The taper is laid out and the disk sander is used to grind the angle then it is screwed in place.

All the leg blanks need to be the same exact length to work in the jig.  By using a stop block clamped to the work bench and the chop saw I made quick work of that.  Next, one of the blanks is set against the right stop block which has already been screwed to the reference 2x4.  The blank is then clamped tight to the 2x4.  The other end is clamped against the recently installed wedge and the left stop block butted up against the leg blank.  With all the pieces held pretty close to where they will end up a band clamp is used to pull the left block, the blank and the right stop block tight together.  Two clamps are used to make sure the left block is flush with the 2x4.  The photo bottom photo shows how all that comes together except the two clamps holding the blank tight to the 2x4 have been removed for clarity.

Once the stop blocks have been screwed in place the band clamp is removed and the clamps that temporarily held the leg blank in place are put back on as shown below.  You can see the screws that will hold the blank in place ready to run in.  Once that’s done the clamps removed and the first leg is ready to be cut.

This is the setup for making the tapered leg cuts.  Out of frame is a roller stand to support the back end of the jig as the cut is started.  The 8’ level is clamped to the rip fence and a test cut about ½” wide is set up.  The jig with the securely attached blank is then run through the saw.  The test cut is just in case anything went wrong so I could adjust and recut without irreparably damaging a blank.  Everything worked perfect with a nice clean straight taper that is repeatable so I reset the fence to the final width and cut all 8 legs.

Here are the cut legs and for the most part all the problem areas were removed.  I say almost because there are still some pieces I will have to address.  The bottom piece I knew about as that flaw showed up while I was surfacing the planks.  The flaw will get filled and that face will end up going against the wall.  The cracks on the right ends will almost completely get cut off when the legs are cut to length.  In the end I have two problem children.  First, the third piece from the bottom has three cracks that showed up when I ripped the taper.  The one circled in chalk is the biggest as it wraps around and is visible from both sides.  My second problem is two of the blanks decided to twist some after cutting the taper so that could be the biggest pain to resolve.  For now, I am going to set these pieces aside to see if anything else develops or if I am lucky the twist will reverse itself.  Not a high probability of that but sometimes lady luck smiles.

Next up – Rough Cutting 5/4 & Adjusting the Bandsaw

FLW Cabinet - #2 A Straight Edge, Ripping, Surfacing & a Jig

Deciding how wide to make the 6/4 rough-cut leg blanks is a bit of a balancing act.  Wider gives me more material to work with but increases the cup that has to be removed.  Also, after removing the curve from the planks a few problems reared their ugly heads.  Everything from some cracks and splits that were not visible to some knots that showed up when I had a clean edge.  After a lot of measuring and marking out different widths 4” more or less looks like it will give me enough to get the finished pieces while getting rid of most of the problems.

Here the cutting jig is clamped in place to give a roughly 4” finished width piece.  The plank is not wide enough to clamp the jig in place without the clamps interfering with the cut so I have to put on multiple clamps and relocate them as the cut is made.  The top photo shows the initial setup and the bottom one shows the completed cut.

Converting the rough-sawn faces to nice smooth ones is accomplished by the use of a surfacer.  Its knives spin at about 9,000 RPM’s and smooth the surface out by taking off 1/32” per pass.  I could take more but I don’t want to stress the machine.  Also, shaving off a little at a time gradually reveals what the wood looks like and gives me a chance to decide which face needs the most removed to obtain the best-looking result.  Here it shows what a board looks like pretty much done.  By the time I am finished the red shop vacuum will probably need to be emptied.

With nice flat, smooth faces on the boards I could turn my attention to the edges.  Using the ripping jig and my circular saw gave a more or less straight edge.  However, because the boards were cupped and when clamped in place the jig followed the curve the edges are not 90 degrees to the faces.   Before I could rip a good straight and square edge on the table saw I needed to true up the initial cut edge.  The method for that is to use my 8’ long level to find the high and low spots.  That’s done by using a piece of paper to find the gaps between the level and the board then marking the high areas.  Using either a hand or power plane to knock off the high spots allows me to true up the edge to within about the thickness of the piece of paper.

Ripping a good edge on the table saw is next.  I start by clamping the long level to the table saw’s fence.  A long fence will help average out any high or low points giving a straighter edge.   First is to put the edge that was just cleaned up with the planes against the long level then taking a light cut to get my first true square edge.  Second is to flip the board putting the just cut edge against the level then taking another light cut.  If everything works out right, I now have a board with all four faces straight, square and true.  Now it’s time to wait to see if the boards are stable and stay straight or if with all they have been through some internal stresses have been released.  That can cause any one or all of the following problems to show up; twisting, cupping, bending, getting waves or in general not staying straight and true.

For most of the pieces I was able to work around the flaws to get a clear part.  There were a couple that will probably need some help as the project progresses.  Then there was one that no matter how I laid it out it was being a real problem child.  The photo below shows what I mean.  Each of the chalk circles outline some sort of problem; cracks, splits, worm holes, knots or a bark inclusion.  Most of them will be gone or hidden but one knot and the bark inclusion will need to be addressed later.  The horizontal pencil line is roughly the taper to be cut which is next.

Cutting the taper on the legs is normally done using my tapering jig which clamps the work securely in place and has a variety of clamping options that allows most any long taper to be cut easily.  This is what that jig looks like ready to cut a taper. 

Unfortunately, its maximum part length is about 44” which is way to short for the 78 ½” length of these legs.  If it was just one piece, I probably would cut it with either the bandsaw or use the ripping jig and circular saw combination then clean it up with a router run against a straight edge.  However, I need to make 8 identical legs so that’s not a good idea for either efficiency or consistency.   Because there are that many pieces to cut it makes sense for me to invest a little time in a jig to cut them all the same.  Below is my plan for the jig.  It’s pretty simple and should hold the leg in place to make repeatable cutting.  The light tan is the jig, the brown is the finished leg and the white is what gets cut off the leg blank.  The taper will be cut first then cut to length on the chop saw.

Next up – Making & Using the Taper Jig

FLW Cabinet - #1 The Beginning

The history on the project in this blog series goes back in time probably the farthest of anything I have done except for maybe the Maloof rocking chair.  I have been an admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie style architecture since the late 1960’s.  In the 1980’s I had a chance to tour the Dana-Thomas house in Springfield, Illinois and fell in love with stained glass it contained.  Wright designed approximately 450 art glass windows, skylights, door panels, sconces, and light fixtures for the house and fortunately most of them survive in-place in the house.

Fast forward to 1998 when I had completed building my home in Illinois, a Wright inspired brick and limestone Prairie style house that in a sun-room had a four panel 12’ wide sliding glass door whose two fixed panels were the perfect place to put a couple of panels based on a series from that house.  Here is a photo of the Dana-Thomas doors and windows that I based the design on.

After a whole lot of design, numerous iterations and a full winter building the stained-glass panels they were installed and looked like this.

When I retired and we moved from that house to New Mexico I could not stand to leave them behind.  They were carefully removed from the doors, packed in padded custom boxes and placed in a storage area in our home.  As I unpacked other stained-glass pieces and hung them around the house, we could find no good place for them to reside.  Off and on over several years my wife and I discussed various uses and just could not find the right one.  In 2016 I finally decided to start working on a design for a Craftsman style cabinet using the piece set in a frame as the door.  After over two years in design with more frustration than usual and more versions and variations than I care to think about I got the design to a point where it looked pretty good. 

Since the exact size of the glass is going to drive the final dimensions it was time to open of the storage case to measure the piece.  Once opened there it was looking just like it did when I packed it for moving almost nine years ago.

Using my almost done design a material list could be generated and then it was off to the yard to sort through piles of material finding the right pieces.  Got to say whenever I select wood, I am just like a kid in a candy store.  The cut list below is for one of the two cases.

Using that list I got the 6/4, 5/4, 4/4 red oak along with two ¾” sheets and two ¼” sheets of plain sliced red oak plywood.  Once I got it home the wood is bought in the shop annex to acclimate.  After letting it set for a few weeks I thought I could do some very rough initial work.  The 6/4 and 5/4 oak boards are rough sawn and I mean rough.  Here are the two 6/4 boards.  They are 14’ long, about 10” wide, 1 5/8” thick and weigh about 70 pounds each.  They were a bit cupped and as it is obvious in the photo, they had more than a little curve in them.

The 6/4 material is for the four outside legs.  They are tapered but the rough size is about 81” long and 4” wide.  My first step is to set the plank on some risers at the workbench then using the circular saw cut it in half.  I can’t use my chop saw as a 14' board is too long to fit on one side of the cutting table.

Next is to take the 7’ long half and take the curve out.  To do that I use a simple cutting jig clamped to the plank.  The right edge shows where the saw will cut removing the outside curve. 

However, before doing any cutting it’s always a good idea to check for any metal like these staples and remove them.

A pass with the saw down the jig and presto a mostly straight edge to work from.  That’s followed by a trim of the original uncut end to check for cracks or splits.  Since the plank is now 7’ long it will fit on my cutting table for the chop saw.  All I need to do is go through the same process to straighten the other side and I will have one plank done and three to go.

Well time has passed and now I have four planks with straighter edges that are more or less parallel.

With the planks roughed out now seemed like a good time to check the moisture content to see if the center of the plank was dry enough to proceed or if I had to wait for it to dry.  A quick check and the meter showed the moisture content to be 5.7% which is just fine.  One advantage to living in the desert where the humidity varies between not much and none is that things do dry out pretty quick.  Several times I have gotten a meter reading of 0% but that’s only because the meter does not register below 5%.

The next step is to rip the planks down to the rough width for the outside legs.  If the planks were surfaced smooth with nice neat flat surfaces it would make that a lot easier.  However, these are rough sawn and flat is not a word I would use to describe them.  Sitting a straight edge across one of the planks shows a fair size cup in the board.  I could take that out by running the plank through the planer several times but that would reduce the thickness of the finished pieces more than I want.  Rather than proceeding that way the plan is to rip the planks down to the rough width which will make the cup much less of a problem and that’s where I will start in the next post.  The big ole crack in this piece and in a couple others will still be something to work around though.

Next up – A Straight Edge, Ripping, Surfacing & a Jig

2 Piece Turned Bowl - #6 Glue-up & Finishing

Now that the test piece is finished including the sidetrack it took me on I can take what was learned, apply it and proceed with the actual project.  For the last couple of weeks, the top and bottom halves had just been setting and now it’s time to glue them together. 

The small jaws on the scroll chuck are swapped out for the large ones, the bottom half is clamped in place, the turned cone is screwed on the live center and the top half is set in place.  Dry-fitting is next so I put on a bunch of clamps then took a close look at the joint to make sure the mating faces on both halves lined up good and tight with no gaps.  Fortunately, everything looked good so I unclamped and took off the top then ran a bead of glue on the top mating face, set it in place and clamped the assembly up.  The photo below proves that you can never have too many clamps.

After an overnight curing of the glue the clamps came off the lathe turned on and the joint where the two halved came together was trued up.  For the application of the turquoise inlay I cut a 1/8” x 1/8” groove centered on the joint undercut like in the test piece.  In the photo you can just see a light pencil line near the edge of the outer top face.  That’s a reference line for where my planned finished edge between the outer face and the top will end up.  Right now, it’s a sharp corner but plan on it being made into a nice soft transition to the top surface.

The weighing of the inlay is next.  In the photo below all the necessary items are set out.  The digital scale is the one we use in the kitchen and I have to be very careful using here in the shop since if I get it all messed up my wife will not be happy.

Mixing and application of the inlay material follows the same method as used on the test piece.  The one change is that because it took quite a bit longer to pack the material in I did not have a problem with the mix wanting to ooze out.  Once in place I let it set overnight to cure and the result is this.

After some turning to clean and true up the surface the turquoise band really shows up.  The outer edges are still sharp but the pencil lines show roughly where I plan on narrowing the edge down and then making the soft transition mentioned above.

Turning to round and blending in the edges followed by sanding completes the woodworking phase.  To start the finishing process the body is final sanded to 400 grit while the inlay is sanded finer using an 800-grit paper.  I want to get a sheen on it so used the very fine paper.

The finishing is the same, an application of dye dissolved in alcohol then a coat of lacquer to act as a seal.  Here are both sides done.  Nice thing about lacquer is I can spray the bottom then come back in an hour, flip the piece and give the top its seal coat.

I let the lacquer cure overnight then lightly wet sand with an 1,800 grit foam pad and wipe dry.  This is followed by the application of the gel stain making sure I rub it into the pores.  The photo below shows the effect on the left side.  It acts like a glaze that changes the overall color a little but being a gel packs into the wood’s pores and really makes them stand out.  After this photo was taken, I did buff the piece some with a clean soft cloth which removed a bit of the glaze and color from the body but left the pores dark.

The next day I could spray on a couple of coats of lacquer then let it harden for two more days and finally rub it out with a wet 12,000 grit foam pad.  My final result is shown below a rather simple soft elliptical shape highlighted by the turquoise band around the perimeter.

In looking at both pieces, the test and the final I find that the more I look at them the more the test piece appeals to me.  Maybe it’s because of the finial on the top which gives it a little more visual interest.  I’m not sure, perhaps after I look at them longer I’ll decide to add a finial to the big piece.  If so, I will update the blog when I do.  If you have an opinion one way or another please let me know.