Liquor Cabinet to match the Wine Cabinet

[Bmac]

This was a tough project for me, and a small tribute in my way to Krenov. Rickey's (aka Spanky) curly ambrosia maple is the star of this show and makes me look better than I am. I've said before casework is not my favorite, I've leaned more and more to the sculptured stuff the past few years. But I'd have to say this project was not only a joy to make but a real challenge. 

Along with the above comments, I really wanted this to be a project journal. I've come to believe when you show your work as you are doing it, you become better from the experience. I also love following project journals and I'm bummed there have been fewer and fewer on here. I didn't want to be part of the problem. And no, I'm not a facebook guy and I'm not moving over to that format, won't do it.

Ok, so here goes. I did a wine cabinet a month ago, it turned out well and I had planned to use the basis of that design to make a new liquor cabinet and buffet table. The old ones I have now were made by me 20 years ago and have held up well, but are blocky and unrefined. These will be great to pass on to the kids as they move out. But I wanted to update and get more refined pieces now that my skill level has started to progress. This cabinet has the same flow and leg contours as the wine cabinet had. It's 4' high and about 30" wide. It's made out of walnut I harvested and milled my self and some beautiful curly ambrosia maple that I got from Rickey.

Here are a few pictures in production stage. I took these when I thought I could still get this in a project journal. This is a pic of a side of the cabinet, the 2 legs are attached to a panel with dados via loose tenons (aka Dominos).

A view of dry asembly, the second pic shows I put 3 cross supports dovetailed intro the side panels.

For the drawers I used a center guide rail, I like the simplicity of this and the predictability of this;

Pic with the underside of the drawer;

The doors were a challenge, and I'm not the best at them. I posted on these in regards to what hinge to use. I settled on a simple solution, but I do wish I attempted a offset knife hinge. My opening wasn't perfectly square. When I put the doors in with just dry assembly, here's what I got;

The gap between the doors closes when the top hinges are placed. So I used hide glue for the longer set time and for my ability to manipulate the joint;

I put blue tape in the opening to prevent an "issue". Here's a pic with the top hinges in place, presto no gap left;

I let these doors sit in place until the hide glue cured. Then I hand planed the hinge side of the door to develop a uniform opening from top to bottom. Since I used a no mortise hinge I needed a slight gap for the hinges.

Here's the final assembly, notice the matching figure of the 2 drawers fronts;

The back is shiplapped sassafras, love the smell. Did not put a finish on this.

Here's a pic of the door tenon/mortise joint, a little tearout on the tenon but still a nice fit;

Custom pulls that turned out great;

Grain match was ok, but wasn't a knockout;

The cabinet in place;

Handcut dovetails in the drawers;

Fully stocked!

Thanks for looking!

 

[pkinneb]

Another gorgeous piece Bmac!! So if I understand you correctly you used hide glue, glued up the doors, and then placed them in the opening and moved them ever so slightly to fit the opening not be necessarily perfectly square? 

[Chet]

Just plain beautiful "B".

You are a brave man, if I leaned clamps against a machine like in the first picture, they would still find a way to fall the other way and ding up the side panel assembly.

[Bmac]

24 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

Another gorgeous piece Bmac!! So if I understand you correctly you used hide glue, glued up the doors, and then placed them in the opening and moved them ever so slightly to fit the opening not be necessarily perfectly square? 

Yes, exactly. The longer set time and the fact that the joint stayed somewhat "slippery" allowed me to ever so slightly tweak the doors to match the opening. Worked out great. The Old Brown Glue is a liquid hide glue that gives you longer working time than traditional hide glue, perfect for this.

[wtnhighlander]

Beautiful work that compliments beautiful wood. Niiiiiiiice!

[Spanky]

Looks great! How many pieces do you make in a year? I will say, you are not lazy. 

[Brendon_t]

What a beautiful piece. I love the design and material selection. 

 I have a spot  that my eye got confused. The taper on the legs is pretty extreme. I believe a slightly more subtle curve would have looked a bit more sleek.

PS I Hate mounting inset doors. I'll almost change a design to use adjustable hinges

 

[Bmac]

20 hours ago, Spanky said:

Looks great! How many pieces do you make in a year? I will say, you are not lazy. 

Not sure, in the last two years I'm likely averaging a piece every month or two. But I will say, I think I'm getting more picky each piece and more patient. My problem is when I get started on something I can get obsessed, and the closer I get to the final product, the more obsessed I get. I was spending a lot of time in the shop the last few weeks of this project.

Going to start 2 Maloof Rockers next, don't expect anything out of me for a while!

[Coop]

Man, I like every bit of this! I agree with others, the wood and the piece compliment each other. Neat looking pulls! 

[Byrdie]

Very nice.  Great combination of woods and execution.

[Bmac]

13 minutes ago, Brendon_t said:

What a beautiful piece. I love the design and material selection. 

 I have a spot  that my eye got confused. The taper on the legs is pretty extreme. I believe a slightly more subtle curve would have looked a bit more sleek.

PS I Hate mounting inset doors. I'll almost change a design to use adjustable hinges

 

Thanks, and yes the legs do have a big flair/taper. Started with slightly bigger that 2"x2" square blank. I can see where in some pics the taper looks extreme, but for the most part it's not something that stands out to my eye. Nevertheless, point well taken and I love the feedback.

Agree on the inset doors, I spent 4 hrs staring at them, waffling back and forth on what hinge to use (ended up using a no mortise hinge),  putting the doors together, taking them apart, trying them in, and just stressing over them. It didn't help that the piece was practically done when I started messing with the doors. I kept thinking I'm going to screw this whole thing up.

[Brendon_t]

Been there. I ended up with a very slight shim glued in behind my fixed brass hardware on the glassware cabinet. That was a Biotchhhhhhhhh!!

[Coop]

I’m a bit confused, short trip. The doors dried in place with no clamps? Also I’ve heard that hide glue requires a pot and heating. Not the case with yours? 

[Bmac]

7 hours ago, K Cooper said:

I’m a bit confused, short trip. The doors dried in place with no clamps? Also I’ve heard that hide glue requires a pot and heating. Not the case with yours? 

Yes, with Old Brown Glue you need to heat it, but a pot isn't necessary. As for the doors, you are right, they dried in place with no clamps. 

First I'll explain the glue. As much as I love yellow glue, it does swell the wood and nice fitting joints can be tough to drive home. For Christmas I did a bunch of small boxes with box joints and yellow glue made them so hard to put together, but I didn't want to mess with epoxy. I looked into hide glue and I had seen Charles Brock use it some. The joint seems to slip home easier with this glue. Finally there are 2 newer hide glues out that have a shelf life. They manage the shelf life with urea and a few other preservatives. For Old Brown Glue you just heat it in a warm pot of water. While I do that I boil some water on the stove and put it in a thermos. Take the warm glue bottle, the thermos with really hot water, and a small plastic Chinese food container out to my shop. I pour some water from the thermos in the bottom of the food container (about an inch) and turn the lid upside down and put that over the hot water. The hide glue then goes in the lid and the food container acts as a mini glue pot. This trick was in a recent FWW. Here's the pic;

Old Hide Glue works well around 140 degrees. Of course you can still use a glue pot for this and if I keep using this glue I might look into it..Titebond make a liquid hide glue that needs no heating. I have not tried that yet, but I have seen Marc use it in a few of his projects. I'm going to use this Old Brown Glue on my next few chairs, so far I've liked working with it. These newer hide glues do set slower than traditional hide glues.

As for no clamps, I was just flying by the seat of my pants with that. But I figured if it didn't work hide glue is reversible. I also didn't use just stub tenons for the doors, I used a nice 1.25" tenon. When I dry fit the doors I could get them to fit almost perfectly with a little manipulation, and you could not really see any gap at all form at the door frame joint. But if I clamped them, then unclamped them and carefully put them in the door (I was careful unclamping them because I was trying to see how they would fit after glueup while clamped), I found that right out of the clamps they did not fit perfectly. So that's when I figured why not use the door opening to shape the doors as the glue was setting. I was very careful with glue cleanup and the hide glue had a long enough set time and was slippery enough to allow me to do this. 

I hope this makes sense.

 

 

[Chestnut]

Wonderful piece. I love how dark the maple ends up looking it compliments the walnut better than stark white maple would. I have yet to try the center guide for drawers. I like inset drawers so after i get them sized, they usually don't need any guides and adding one would add complication. I've done a couple chester drawers now and things are working out ok.

I agree with Brandon above about the taper looking a bit heavy. My sticking point is how thin the leg looks at the bottom of the case. I like delicate but when the flair is as drastic at the bottom the piece starts to look like gumby. It's really only pronounced in 1 picture other wise i think the taper looks good. Probably a trick of the camera so i say the above as a joke.

 

[Bmac]

46 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

Wonderful piece. I love how dark the maple ends up looking it compliments the walnut better than stark white maple would. I have yet to try the center guide for drawers. I like inset drawers so after i get them sized, they usually don't need any guides and adding one would add complication. I've done a couple chester drawers now and things are working out ok.

I agree with Brandon above about the taper looking a bit heavy. My sticking point is how thin the leg looks at the bottom of the case. I like delicate but when the flair is as drastic at the bottom the piece starts to look like gumby. It's really only pronounced in 1 picture other wise i think the taper looks good. Probably a trick of the camera so i say the above as a joke.

 

 

Ha, Gumby, you are right there is one pic that it does look out of portion. Nevertheless it's great to hear feedback, that's why I posted. I think this style leg has grown on me, it's the 3rd piece I've used it. This piece has the biggest flair of the three. 

Center guide drawers are a skill that I'm glad I learned. I've done many pieces in the past with drawers just like you describe above. Simple and easy. But one thing you get with that approach is the drawer doesn't always stay centered in the opening and can bind. Not a big deal, but they just don't always pull out and go in smoothly. The center guide makes the in/out action smooth, keeps the drawer centered in the space to give a consistent reveal, and the guide acts as a stop for the drawer. It's not a hard thing to do, a lot easier than 2 side guides.

I learned the center guide drawers when I purchased Marc's Krenov Cabinet project. I go back to those videos all the time. He did an absolutely super job showing how to do this drawer guide. It also is a great project to learn dovetails.So glad I bought that project and it was cheap when you consider all the skills I've used from it. That project made my skill set grow so much. 

[curlyoak]

I love your work. Always good joinery. My eye preference and also stronger doors with wider bottom rails. Most frame and panel exterior doors have a wider bottom rail. The bottom joints have the most stress. A longer joint helps offset that. For my view It seems like it should be wider. And the bigger the doors the more important is is to have a wider bottom rail. If the door does not have a coped joint from matching router bits then I add a profile to the face. Mostly a chamfer or an OG. And I don't like the profile routed in the corners. I like a stopping point that allows the inside corners to be square. My current evolvement...I think start and stop chamfers in the hand tool era were called goats mouth? That is leaving square corners. 

 

[Chestnut]

2 hours ago, Bmac said:

Ha, Gumby, you are right there is one pic that it does look out of portion. Nevertheless it's great to hear feedback, that's why I posted. I think this style leg has grown on me, it's the 3rd piece I've used it. This piece has the biggest flair of the three. 

Center guide drawers are a skill that I'm glad I learned. I've done many pieces in the past with drawers just like you describe above. Simple and easy. But one thing you get with that approach is the drawer doesn't always stay centered in the opening and can bind. Not a big deal, but they just don't always pull out and go in smoothly. The center guide makes the in/out action smooth, keeps the drawer centered in the space to give a consistent reveal, and the guide acts as a stop for the drawer. It's not a hard thing to do, a lot easier than 2 side guides.

I learned the center guide drawers when I purchased Marc's Krenov Cabinet project. I go back to those videos all the time. He did an absolutely super job showing how to do this drawer guide. It also is a great project to learn dovetails.So glad I bought that project and it was cheap when you consider all the skills I've used from it. That project made my skill set grow so much. 

I have not had any bad luck with an inconsistent reveal or binding not sure if it's just a matter of time yet or not. I also taper my drawers at least 1/16" and set 2 stops on the rear. It allows me to cheat and make sure the face of the drawer is flush on both sides. I suppose the same could be done with the center guides as well. The part that I've had the most hang ups with is vertical contraction. I've had to tape drawer heights very slightly front to back to make sure they fit perfect and have a consistent reveal. I would probably have that trouble with center guides too though.

His Chester Drawers project was really good for the center guides as well. I almost implemented it on the walnut dresser i made but there were a few things that held me back. Mainly i didn't plan ahead and got caught with the dust frames and didn't have a good way to implement the center guide after the fact.

[Bmac]

5 hours ago, curlyoak said:

I love your work. Always good joinery. My eye preference and also stronger doors with wider bottom rails. Most frame and panel exterior doors have a wider bottom rail. The bottom joints have the most stress. A longer joint helps offset that. For my view It seems like it should be wider. And the bigger the doors the more important is is to have a wider bottom rail. If the door does not have a coped joint from matching router bits then I add a profile to the face. Mostly a chamfer or an OG. And I don't like the profile routed in the corners. I like a stopping point that allows the inside corners to be square. My current evolvement...I think start and stop chamfers in the hand tool era were called goats mouth? That is leaving square corners. 

 

Very interesting you saw that, I went back and forth on the width of the frame. Originally the plan was for 3"wide frame. But two things factored into my decision to make them more narrow.

First, as I was making this I was reading and referring to Krenov's "The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking". A good read for any woodworker, but a very good read if you are making a Krenov inspired Cabinet. In his book, he talks about frame and panel construction. He advocates for thinner frames both thickness and width wise. He said for a 2 ft high panel you want the to keep your frame down to 1.5" and at most 1.75" wide and 3/8-7/16" thick. That was way to small for me so I went with 2" wide and 3/4" thick frame construction with a 1.25" tenon. So this was one factor that made me go with a skinnier frame.

Secondly is my panel. I wanted to show that wood off, to me those panels make the piece special and not the frame. So in the end I did make a more narrow frame then what I originally was thinking.

Thanks for you feedback, it's really interesting you picked up on something that I really struggled with in the design side of things. We'll see in the long run if my longer tenons hold up and if my choice of frame width was wise. Great thing is I used hide glue, I can always do a redo.

 

 

[Bmac]

4 hours ago, Chestnut said:

I have not had any bad luck with an inconsistent reveal or binding not sure if it's just a matter of time yet or not. I also taper my drawers at least 1/16" and set 2 stops on the rear. It allows me to cheat and make sure the face of the drawer is flush on both sides. I suppose the same could be done with the center guides as well. The part that I've had the most hang ups with is vertical contraction. I've had to tape drawer heights very slightly front to back to make sure they fit perfect and have a consistent reveal. I would probably have that trouble with center guides too though.

His Chester Drawers project was really good for the center guides as well. I almost implemented it on the walnut dresser i made but there were a few things that held me back. Mainly i didn't plan ahead and got caught with the dust frames and didn't have a good way to implement the center guide after the fact.

Good stuff Nut, you are putting more thought into those drawers than I ever did. With that said I firmly believe the use of the center guide system has made for a much nicer end product. It's subtle, but people that have seen my last two projects have often commented on the drawers. They usually ask how did you make these drawers slide in and out so nicely. 

If you try it in a future project I would love to hear your thoughts. I actually have found it simplifies my drawers.

Other than that I think we are picking at flies in a pile of manure. Both ways work.

[Ronn W]

Wonderful piece of work. I like it.   ....and I like the center drawer guides.

[curlyoak]

7 hours ago, Bmac said:

Secondly is my panel. I wanted to show that wood off, to me those panels make the piece special and not the frame. So in the end I did make a more narrow frame then what I originally was thinking.

I like to show off match grain figured wood too. I chamfer the inner edge which gives the appearance of narrow. 

A wider bottom rail is stronger and fits my eye. Regardless your frames will last 2 lifetimes or more.

I use a center rail system too. Mine is reverse of yours. The drawer bottom has the small piece of wood. And a dado U shaped channel built into the drawer pocket. The bearing is on the drawer sides and the center is guide only. I first attach the small piece morticed into the back of the face. I slide in the drawer with the other end unattached. By centering the face it locates where the guide belongs from the back before the cabinet backs are on. Mark and screw on. Fast easy and accurate.