Display Case Journal

[collinb]

The process began with a design. I learned to do that in software development and, with smaller projects, have learned that a plan is more than a luxury. While some can seem to assess a design almost intuitively they are still making precise formulations that translate to a fixed design.  Nothing positive happens by accident, especially when cutting things is necessary.

The pedestal/base was made by building a frame and then attaching the side panels. That worked out well as long as the frame was true. In the beginning I had the stretchers a little long and had to disassemble, shorten, and re-assemble. But that's a small price to pay. My current habit is to try to cut a hair long. My skills haven't developed to the point where I can get things as precise as I would like on the first cut. Better to shorten than to ship.

I made the doors with a small adaptation. The stiles are the full width of the door. That was done so that it would roll on wheels which were mortised into the top of the pedestal. I wanted to avoid any bump potential when rolling it and to also make the wheel grove in a single piece instead of into three pieces. That seemed to make sense. To square up the doors I took two steps. First was to be certain that the corners clamped squarely with corner clamps (Bessey Angle Clamps) and the to square the complete unit against a fence on the assembly table for corner-to-corner verification. I could trust the clamps but any micro-error would show up as a 1/8" error on the corner measurements. Just a little nudge and all was well. Then tighten down further for precise squareness.

The same method applied to the side frames.

A space of 3/16 in. was left around the glass. The panes came with some little stick-on separator pads. I cut them into strips and placed some in the bottom and side slots where the glass fit. This would deal with both potential rattle and wood movement.

The upper facade was made by taking a 1x6 (3/4" x 5 1/2" and first cutting off two 1/2" wide pieces. Then two 1" wide pieces were also ripped off. With the dado was set for 1/4 inch the appropriate divisions were cut into the strips as shown. You can see the appearance resembling a 35mm film strip. The first two narrow pieces were rotated to that the 1/2 inch eight the matches the dado depth. Finally the glue-up: Because of the width the clamps were alternated from the upper side to the lower side to maintain a proper tension. If I didn't do that it would pop apart from too much stress in one direction. (It did, hence my learning to alternate the clamps.)

The sides were bolted to the base. The back panel was screwed to two stretchers attached to the pedestal and cap but the sides were left free, held in by a flat metal strip on either side. This we done to allow for wood movement. A gap of about 1/8" on each side was left as, since this was the end of winder and humidity was low (thus the wood had shrunk) to allow for some expansion. The bolts met with T nuts on the bottom side.

The back panel was filled with 13 strips of red oak, cut 1" wide. Each has 32 1/2 inch holes drilled. The customer understood the problem of wood expansion and the pegs not fitting in every hole the same. So I left a sheet of sandpaper as a "peg modification tool."

Next Time:

I didn't add the embellishments to this one that I would have liked to. While the customer likes it I look at it as a learning experience.  What I may do, if he is interested, is, as part of the next display case, rebuild certain parts of this one so that it all looks better. It will cost me $100 or so plus time, but would be worth it for both personal customer satisfaction.

Alteration:

I could not get the mortised rollers to work properly in the pedestal. As time ran out I made a change and went to a hanging bypass door solution This forced me to add a riser to the top of the sides, making it 3/4 inch taller. Then I had to add an apron around both those and the metal door hanging rail. Alas. But it still looks good since it is the same wood as the cove molding trim right above it..

Education:

I learned a lot about "fit" and precision here. That's something which comes from experience. I believe I got a good amount of it here. This was one of those times when you go in not knowing the questions you should be asking and the learning first the questions  to be asked and then seeking an answer.

Issue:

The big one was one of process.  I made the mistake of milling each section's pieces separately. That added at least a week to the project.

The second one mapping out all the detail. I'll pay more attention to each small part of the task next time. Time adds up just as fast as material costs.

I came out pretty close on material costs. Fortunately.