Arts and Craft Sideboard

[Chet]

All valid points Drew.  This was material that was re-sawn stickered and then mill to final size.  I have little stickered piles all over the shop for the project and I thought I would try this more to conserve space.

[wdwerker]

I've been using stretch wrap to bundle up small trim that I made on the router table, but never thought about wrapping the whole bundle. Then I could pull out strips to cut & install straighter more well behaved pieces. 

[Chet]

There is a shelf that goes on the bottom between the to lowest side rails.  I cut the two pieces that I am gluing up for this to final width and then cut some domino slots for the smallest domino size just to provide some alignment during the glue up but there aren't any pictures of the domino in action.

Cut to final width

And the glue up

This shot represents a large amount of sanding which was followed by doing a final fit of most of the parts and labeling them - matching mortise to tenon so that during the glue up things go as smooth as possible.

Next I worked on the ship lap pieces for the back.  There are two muntins or mullions which ever term you prefer that divide the ship lap panels in to three sections.  The Muntins are the only parts that are glued, the rest just float.  So I put it all together marked were the muntins go then took it all apart.  Then I glued in on muntin added the center ship lap and then glued in the other muntin.  Even though they just float  I went ahead and put in the other ship lap just so that while it was being clamped nothing went wonky.

I set that aside on the table saw and glued up the two sides.  The domino whole are for the bottom shelf.

And this is where yesterday ended.

I only did one thing today but it was very interesting.  This was the busiest, to the best of my  knowledge, glue up I have ever done and I used titebond III to help with the time factor.  Laying one side down flat and gluing in five tenons and three dominos then sliding in ship laps and the top panel and bottom shelf.  Then glue up the other tenons and mortises and getting everything lined up and flush, then tipping it right side up on a flat and level surface so I could true everything up and get a few clamps on... well it was fun. The clamps were a small challenge too because I don't have any long enough so I had to gang them together.  I need to thank my wife because she was very helpful during this glue up.  I had asked her not to plan anything for the morning.  Even though I got this done fairly early today I am letting it sit over night.

 

 

[..Kev]

That's looking awesome Chet!  I seem to remember some steamer trunks that were fun to glue up as well

 

[treeslayer]

Great progress and some fine work Chet. Assembly like that does test the nerves, well done sir!

[pkinneb]

Nicely done Chet!! That is definitely a big glue up it must have went pretty well because it looks awesome!

[Just Bob]

Very nice, I never would have thought to clamp that way.  Would have saved me some money.  The last time I needed to extend my clamps I ordered a couple of these:  https://www.amazon.com/Bessey-KBX20-Body-Clamp-Extender/dp/B0186M8XYI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1530931687&sr=8-2&keywords=bessey+clamp+extender

They work well, but now I know what to do if I need more than 2!

[RichardA]

I've done that with pipe clamps, damn that's scary.  Nice work Chet.

[Chet]

1 hour ago, Just Bob said:

They work well, but now I know what to do if I need more than 2!

It takes two people to get it done properly and thankfully my wife was a big help.

 

1 hour ago, RichardA said:

I've done that with pipe clamps, damn that's scary.

It does provide some pucker power, if one falls you know it is going to hit the project on the way down. 

[Chet]

A little more progress.  I made two web frames.  One that has panels in it that will create the bottom of the cabinet and one with out panels that will create the top of the cabinet and be below the actual top.  This is just simple frame and panel construction.  

After milling up the parts I cut a groove in the center of all the lower pieces for the panels.  Same technique as before on some of the other pieces, I used one blade from the dado stack and set the height to 1/4 inches.  I really like these gauges from Kreg.

Then set the fence and made two passes flipping the piece end for end to keep the groove centered.

The upper frame I put together using dominos.  The lower frame I did the same, except  I added the panels.  Plans called for 1/4 inch Cherry ply which I have a small amount of  on hand but I am saving that for some internal stuff that will show, and I didn't really want to go buy a full sheet just for the little I needed, so I used some Baltic Birch ply I had on hand.  And it should be okay because the only way anyone would see it is if you were laying drunk on my dining room floor. 

Dry fit

Glued and clamped.

All sanded and ready of a fit in the sideboard.

I am real pleased with the fit.  There is a filler piece that still needs to be attached to take up the gap between the end of the frames and side of the cabinet.

While the glue was drying I started milling up all the pieces for the drawer case that goes in the center.

[pkinneb]

Looking good Chet! That blade height gauge is pretty slick.

[Chet]

I had been looking at them for a while and finally went ahead and picked up a set.  I was thinking of a set of regular setup blocks but with these you can do three different measurements with the one block.  Check the depth with the protrusion on top, height as shown in the photo and thickness with the protrusion on the right side.

[Coop]

Having been out of town since Thursday with access to the forum only via my phone, I’ve been unable to follow this close. Looking fantastic Chet. Great attention to detail! 

[Chet]

So it suddenly dawned on me today that the bulk of this project revolves around frame and panel construction.  So I will spare you the rerun details of things since they appear in some form above.  having said that, the next thing I did was the drawer case.  

The photo below shows my "exploded view" way of laying things out before a glue up so the guy with the glue bottle in his hand doesn't fowl things up to bad.  It helps me a lot and cuts down on the un-nessesary language.

Then out of the clamps and sanded up ready to cut some dados for the drawer dividers.

I put down some blue tape and laid out for the dados.  I used the blue tape because the edges will show and I didn't want any chance of tear out.

After I cut the dados (no photo)  I glued in the dividers.

And when that dried, I did a quick dry fit.  At this point I could go ahead and attach the bottom, drawer case and the sub top but I am going to use Blum drawer slides for the first time and I am going to end up doing some prototype drawer building and I figured it would be nice having the drawer case up on the work bench were I can get at and see all sides during this process.

While i wait for the slides to arrive I will starts some work on the two doors.

 

[..Kev]

Looks like a great fit!

[pkinneb]

Looks awesome Chet nice clean work!! Great grain match on this piece.

[gee-dub]

I really like that piece.  You are really moving along.  Thanks for taking us with you.

[Chet]

I am waiting for hardware and drawer slides to arrive so I am in a bit of a stall.  I did cut the drawer fronts to a rough size and picked out an orientation for then top to bottom and then cut them to rough height.  In the photo below they are wedged in the openings.

I did the same thing with the  doors.  They are just held together with blue tape on the back side.

Even though when I picked all the wood out for the project it was all pretty much the same color of cherry, it is all looking pretty wonky right now because some has been cut and processed for a while and some is fresh cut today but I am sure it will all balance out.   May even take it out in he sun when it is done and before finish.

[pkinneb]

Chet great job on the gaps and the similar grain on the drawers and top piece is a nice detail as well.  Really coming along nicely.

[Chet]

I think I may be changing the panels in the doors.  I think maybe something more subdued.  I think the grain in he panels ended up being to strong.

[Chestnut]

I'm kind of sad your not using hardwood drawer slides. I love how it looks so far. What is your thought on the doors?

[Chet]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

I'm kind of sad your not using hardwood drawer slides.

I wasn't a decision taken lightly before deciding to go with Blum.  It came down to what will be in the drawers and the amount of use they will get.

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

What is your thought on the doors?

I don't know, I don't want the piece looking too busy.  Give me your thoughts.

[Tmize]

I think it a great looking piece. Personally the door panel on the left looks good if I was to change one it would be the one on the right. The cathedral are to random compared to the other panel and door fronts JMO

[Chet]

My drawer case is 15 3/8 inches deep so I had ordered the 15 inch Blum drawer slides.  When they arrived I realized that the portion of the slide that mounts to the drawer case is 15 9/16 inches, or 1/16 to long.  The next size down is for 12 inch drawers and I didn't want give up the space in the drawers so I am going with a more traditional wooden runner.  This is what I was originally going to do but then thought it might be fun to give the Blum a try.  So with this little side trip out of the way we are back to actual work.

I decided to do a dovetail rabbet joint for the drawers mostly because it was something new to me.  First thing I did was cut the dovetail in the sides of the drawers.  I did this on my router table using a 3/4 inch 7 degree bit and I used some scrap to back it up to eliminate tear out.  I did this in three passes, adjusting the fence back a little each time.

 

Then using a side piece I marked where the dovetail was going to go on the fronts and removed most of the waste on the fronts on my table saw.  This allowed me to make just one pass to make the dovetail cut at the router table.

Then over at the router table, I used my miter gauge and again a piece of scrap to make the cuts on the fronts.

And this was my fit.

The back section of the drawer is a simple dado and  I also ran a grove at the bottom of all four sides to take the bottom panel which is 1/4 inch ply.

Everything glued up.

Really pleased with how these came out.

Next will be the runners.

 

[..Kev]

Awesome work Chet!