Sun porch accessories

[wtnhighlander]

My friend from work is remodeling his house, getting all in order before he retires in a few years. Part of the work involved relocating the back door, tearing off the old wooden deck, and adding a sun porch in its place.

Moving the door requied some brick work, and he is not satisfied with the new mortar's color. Doesn't quite blend with the old. So, he commissioned me to build a pair of faux 'shutters', more like door panels, to hide the mis-matched mortar. 

Panel design:

He also wants a small dry bar to house a small fridge and accoutrements:

And here is my raw material. 50 bf FAS, 50 bf #1C, red oak.

[Chet]

Looks like a couple of fun projects.  I will be following this. 

[wdwerker]

Years ago I had a mason who was good at matching mortar colors. He approached it by making multiple samples. It's a slow process and thus expensive too. 

I like the shutter design. Will the black lines be grooves that allow for expansion & contraction ? Mitered corners are the enemy of solid wood panels. 

 

[wtnhighlander]

On 11/14/2018 at 9:49 AM, wdwerker said:

Years ago I had a mason who was good at matching mortar colors. He approached it by making multiple samples. It's a slow process and thus expensive too. 

I like the shutter design. Will the black lines be grooves that allow for expansion & contraction ? Mitered corners are the enemy of solid wood panels. 

The design is tricky. In order to accommodate the use of TapCon screws to attach the shutters to the mortar joints, the two center rails are fake overlays. The shutter is one giant framed panel. The middle rails will lay into recesses in the main panel, so that they appear to have the panel set into grooves like the top, bottom, and sides do. But they are primarily in place to cover the tapcons, since those will have a somewhat unpredictable placement. The fake rails will be held on with the evenly-spaced, decorative screw heads shown in the sketch.

Since the panel is about 28" wide, how deep would you recommend the grooves be made in the stiles?

[wdwerker]

Red oak plain sawn 28" wide if the moisture content went from 7% to 14% could move 7/8" or more. Rift sawn 5/8 , Quartersawn 7/16

I would finish the frame and panel separately, use quartersawn and seal the hell out of that panel. Allow more room on both sides for movement and add a screw from the back top and bottom dead center so the panel stays centered when it moves because it will certainly move. 

If every vertical black line was a floating T&G joint you can divide the 7/8 to 7/16 by 4 which seems more workable.

[Coop]

I too am looking forward to this. The guy in the second pic has that lost look on his face. 

[RichardA]

18 minutes ago, K Cooper said:

I too am looking forward to this. The guy in the second pic has that lost look on his face. 

I think he's looking for the face he seems to have lost.   Gonna be dificult without eyes.

[wtnhighlander]

Got a little shop time today. Now that my stock is faced on both sides, its time to do the edges. I still don't have a decent jointer, so I used this "straight edge" and my router to make one edge straight and square.

A word to any newbies who may be reading this: this type of cheap cutting guide from the big box stores can NOT be trusted to provide a straight edge. The seperate pieces are straight enough, but very flimsy. Joined to provide 8' of length, they are like a wet noodle. To actually get a straight line, I had to clamp the middle, then sight down the edge as I clamped each end, adjusting for straightness. I was also careful to avoid pressing my router too hard against the guide, since the extrusion can flex a bit.

Followed all that with a pass through the table saw to make the opposite edge parallel.

The resulting joints look like this (no clamps yet).

After ripping parts to width, I used my sled to square up one end, then a stop block and "poor man's miter gauge" to cut parts to length.

After that, I cut grooves in the rail & stile parts to accept the panels.

That's about all for today. Wound up short a couple of rail pieces, as the board I had chosen to cut them from turned out to have an internal defect in a bad spot.

The main panels are glued up, but I forgot to snap a pic. They are each the size of a bedroom door.

[gee-dub]

Nice figure match up on those boards.  The straight edge and router is a solid workaround for no jointer.  I reinforce my straightedge at the joint with a clamp and a bit of scrap just as you show.  Keeps things nice and reliable during the operation.

[wtnhighlander]

Thanks Glenn. Have to admit, matching grain is much easier with wide FAS boards that are basically quarter-sawn on the outer edges. Then it becomes more a matter of color, than grain.

[wtnhighlander]

I know many folks don't care for the red oak look. I don't mind, especially nice clear material like this. But as soon as I take the first cut, I get an ear worm that stays with me through the project.

 

[Chet]

Wow, a black and white video. 

[wdwerker]

I remember when the song came out. Doesn't seem like it was over 40 years ago. 

Nice clean wide planks of red oak are easy to work with except in the winter when the doors are closed and you are trapped with that smell. If red oak is the clients choice I'm fine with it but it's not going to be used on my personal projects.

[wtnhighlander]

Planed a bunch of wood over the weekend, but you have all seen that before.

Tonight I started cutting joinery. The frame for the faux shutters has some special requirements, and Paul Sellers recently showed me the perfect joint for the application.

That's the mortised half of a tenoned miter joint, something I never heard of until recently.

Its 26F in my garage tonight, the tenon side will have to wait until my fingers thaw.

[Coop]

I think that was playing in the delivery room when I was born. Share with us Paul’s link please. 

[wtnhighlander]

As you wish, Coop!

This is the one that gave me the idea:

 

I didn't watch it all, and my tenon goes through, where Paul's is blind. But this is the perfect joint for what I needed. More explanation when I have pics to illustrate....

[wtnhighlander]

I love it when a joint comes together ...

Like this one (almost) does. Needs just a bit more finesse. The "horn" behind the tenon is tricky to fit.

[Coop]

Dang dude, that’s tight! If I had it to do over again, I’d remain the same. 

[wtnhighlander]

Profiling the "raised panel" for this shutter is a challenge. Nibbling away stock with a dado set, then a core box router bit, does the job, but requires too much work with the gooseneck scraper to clean up.

I think I'm going to grind the bearing stud off a 1/2" cove bit, and use it with an edge guide to speed this process up a bit.

[wtnhighlander]

OK, so here is the bit I hacked:

... and here is the profile:

I call that a success!

[wtnhighlander]

Ok, here's a crappy photo, just to prove I haven't given up. Broom for scale.

Faux shutter #1 / prototype is all cut and dry fit. Hopefully, I can transfer all dimensions to #2 and get it done a bit faster.

[wtnhighlander]

Progress.

No glue yet. Tape helps mating parts stay in tge right place. Next is the fun part - sanding. 

[RichardA]

Not my kind of fun, but you just go ahead and enjoy. 

[Bankstick]

Good luck on the project. I have one of the saw guides and find it most useful. Split a 4x8 sheet of 1/2 inch plywood lengthwise with it. The position in the middle didn't let me clamp it as you did. Didn't have any deflection as the cut came out even. Not something I use a lot but handy when needed.

[wtnhighlander]

@Bankstick, which guide do you have? I'd like to have one rigid enough to make an 8' cut without all this adjustment and multiple clamps, but I don't want to invest in a track saw just yet.