The Project that threw me on Avoidance Behaviour


Bobby Slack

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The desktop cap came out reasonable well but instead of using my Kapex angle finder, I winged it and some of my pro-friends laughed at my joint. Back to cutting two more caps with a new and well assembled joint. Can't afford to have my showcase piece to look like crap.

I am sure this never happened to any of you guys ... :angry:

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This is what I would wish to know then ... about a year ago when I started my built in desk and countertop.

- Selecting the grain direction for the glue up..

- Selecting the right piece of wood for stiles and rails, so the grain is not in so much conflict and distracts.

- Orienting the grain in the right direction on my "return" at the end of the bookcase/countertop there is a corner desk. Today I would have turned that grain direction.

Reading blogs, magazines, and books. I see why woodworkers give away their early projects. I will look at this piece for a long time.

To cover all this I will pick a stain that will be dark enough to cover the grain distractions, and light enough to show that this countertop is actually made of wood.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ciao Caro John. What stopped me on my tracks was the countertop. Believe it or not, the drawer fronts are done but I had to wait to install this countertop. Originally I was going to use plywood but then ... if it chips is a pain in the neck so I went with solid wood. Once I went that route, then I had to consider wood movement. So the countertop is basically three doors and has movement.

The rest of the project will go pretty fast now. I just have to make some panels to cover some of this ugly Chinese plywood that I used.

When I have everything done, my first upgrade will be to make nicer drawers. These drawers will work forever, they are 3/4" and have three screws per side # 10 x 3" long but .... they are ugly.

This piece taught me a lot of things.

For a moment, I thought about using walnut for the countertop but I had a bunch of alder in my garage. Alder is a wood that grows in the Pacific Northwest (Washington state and Oregon) for the most part and is considered a poor man's cherry. I like this species because you can make nice rustic pieces with it and is easy to work. At the same time, my next project probably will have mahogany and walnut ... we are far from that.

Another thing that slowed me down was installing the countertop after the book cases were on the piece, which made it a pain in the neck.

Boy ... This was a pain and a great learning piece. We should have things like this to push our abilities and learn new techniques.

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