Jonathan McCully

Was just watching Marc’s video about applying Rubio as I’m preparing to do that with my barn door, and he talks about using a white buffing pad with his ROS. That seems a smart way to be able to buff the surface of a large project more quickly and I was interested in trying it out. He mentioned that he uses the Festool brand, but was wondering if any of you use something different and where you purchase from. Thanks.

This was the exact setup I used for several years until my bag snagged on a rough edge and ripped. Now I connect it to my mobile DC

Just for some additional info, I thought I'd add an order I recently placed with Bell Forrest. I bought a total of 370 bf of soft maple and cherry and they charged me $135 to make it S3S. Seemed a small cost to me compared to the amount of time it would take me to mill all of that with my small jointer and lunchbox planer. I'm hoping it comes straight and flat, and can definitely see the benefit in doing it yourself to avoid some of those changes.

It’s been a bit since I’ve updated this project, so this post will be a bit longer. I’ve gotten a decent amount of work done on this over the past few of weeks and am finally working to get the panels glued up. Based on the most recent discussion, I decided to glue up my panel boards into larger panels rather than putting a t&g on all of them. As the final width of the panel was 56” long, I decided to create 3 separate panels joined with a t&g joint which allowed me to learn the technique of making t&g as well as making it a bit easier to glue up the panels. To allow for tangential movement, I cut bevels on the long edges of the panels which are seated into a dado in the vertical stiles. The panels will eventually be joined into the rails with dominos. We’ve also decided to forgo the diagonals across the door as we felt that it took away from the overall visual appeal and made everything a bit too busy. I first determined which boards would be receiving the tongues and which the grooves. I wanted to cut them all at the same time to limit variability. Both tongues and grooves were cut on the router table (my first time using it). Panels were planed to final thickness of 5/8.” I used a 3/8” straight bit to form the groove and made it 3/8” deep. The tongues were cut with the same bit, centered on the board, but were cut to 1/4” to leave an additional 1/8” and keep the tongue from bottoming out in the groove. My next step was to bevel the outermost panel boards. I wanted to put a 1 3/4” bevel on to allow for tangential wood movement so that if the wood experiences shrinking, it won’t leave a gap between the panel board and the stile. I started with a 1/4” deep dado on each of these boards followed by the bevel. The dado really just adds a bit of visual appeal and seems to be fairly common with frame and panel construction, based on what I’ve read. Bevels were then cleaned up with a block plane. Next I cleaned up some of the ends, rejointed a few of the boards, and cut the dados in the stiles, all prior to a dry fit. Now, I’m in the process of glueing up the panels after which I’ll cut the mortises for the dominos and finish sand the entire door. Hope to finish most of this by the end of the week.

I've picked up a few things from Blue Spruce over the years. Love the quality of the tools they make. A bit more pricey than others, but worth the additional cost in my opinion.

I like the idea of gluing them up into a large panel rather than using the t&g and then perhaps putting a wide bevel on the insertion into the stiles with a deep groove. Been reading my Understanding Wood a bit tonight trying to understand this issue and that seems to be the way to go. Unfortunately, I’ve already cut most of these board to length to fit the frame, so a tongue on the end grain of the vertical boards or rabbeting to the back aren’t doable. Would having the boards as a large panel joined to the rails with dominos resist cupping where a single domino per board would not?

Is that “no, glue should be fine” or “no glue should be fine” The diagonal should be 1/2” in thickness which allows it to rest on the panels flush with the frame. I was planning to use dominos to attach that into the frame as well, two on each end. I like the dowel suggestion with a contrasting wood, but think I might use that on the half lap corners of the frame rather than on the diagonal. I really appreciate everyone’s advise on this project. I really like being able to try and design something myself and work through the challenges rather than just following a plan to the T. Not sure that seeking advice is the primary focus of these journal’s but hopefully someday I’ll be skilled enough to be able to just walk you through a project and maybe teach you something.

This was my plan. Can I glue the dominos in to the rails and panel boards or should I just leave them loose? Sorry if these questions seem a bit elementary. I’m still trying to understand the best ways to design accounting for movement.

Makes sense. The perpendicular joint is the domino joining the panel board into the rail. Is gluing that domino into the mortise on the rail going to be problematic, even if I make those mortises slightly oversized? And do I need to cut my panel boards slightly undersized to allow for the movement of the rails into the panels? If so, how would I do that without it looking like a gap?

I'm getting ready to prepare all of my panel boards for this project, and of course, I listen to a Wood Talk podcast that has me thinking about wood movement and want to make sure I've thought this through well. The comment that was made was that it's a negative thing to put solid wood boards within a solid wood frame, which is what I'm doing. I've planned to tongue and groove my panel boards together without gluing to allow for movement along the long grain. I also plan to tongue both long edges of the end boards of the panel to allow them to slot into a dado in the stiles. These boards will then be glued into the rails with dominos. Does this sound like it will be problematic from a movement standpoint or have I accounted for that adequately with my tongue and grooves?

Following to get ideas as well. Spraying outdoors here would be near impossible due to the wind that we always seem to have. Never expected so much wind in the desert, but a calm day seems to be a rarity around here. Planning for a similar spray area in my shop build so interested in the group’s suggestions.

Perfect. Thanks. Reminds me of what I did for cutting boards, just wasn’t sure how you would make a box out of them. Makes more sense to me now.

Fantastic work Dave. You’ve got me inspired to do some recipe boxes for my wife, mother, and MIL. Also thinking about possibly using a similar design from the watch box for a cuff link box for my dad. In your recipe boxes it appears that you have layers of different species. How were you able to stack those up like that?

Might go without saying, but you’ll also want to make sure that there is adequate ventilation around the PC tower. Depending on the performance of his unit, gaming can have a tendency to heat up a system.

Sorry for not being more clear. What I've been working with is some 3/8" panels that will be fitting into a frame as well as some integral tenons (not through). As I wanted to sneak up on a perfect fit, I left them all just a touch long, but when I got down to fitting them, I was having trouble deciding the best way to do it. My LN rabbeting block plane didn't want to cut the end grain of either the panels or the tenon cheeks very easily (again, might be a sharpening issue), and I thought that my ROS might leave some noticeable valleys in the panels, so didn't want to use that. Still new to a lot of this, so trying to learn the best way to do some of these things without cutting pieces exactly to length as I fear that it will end up too short. Hope that helps.