Cherry Wall Cabinet - Completed


JohnG

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  • 4 weeks later...
8 hours ago, Chestnut said:

First time veneering so lets make this as difficult as possible eh? From my view it looks like you did pretty well.

Thanks! Definitely room for improvement but I don’t think it will go to the scrap bin so I consider it a success. Veneering doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

I think my main problem at the beginning was that the hide glue wasn’t fully dissolved and warm enough. I used a thermometer to make sure it got up to temp, but I noticed a definite change in consistency through the process as it also go easier. I should have let it sit at temp for a while before starting. 

I’ll definitely do more veneering in the future.

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7 hours ago, Mark J said:

So how 'bout a quick explanation of how veneer hammering works?

Please don’t use this post as a reference or instructional post- I read one blog article and watched a few minutes of a video on Shannon Rogers site and gave it a try. I barely know what I’m doing, and that’s a generous statement.

To start out, there’s no hammering! While a veneer hammer has one side that is sort of like a hammer head, the side you use it like a squeegee. You can also get one that looks more like a heavy duty squeegee (~3/8” thick plastic blade).

The concept of it is really simple, and is somewhat similar to laying down laminate. You put down a layer of hide glue and the roughly place the piece. Then you can either coat the show side with another layer of hide glue, or some people spray with water. You just don’t want one side wet and the other dry, as it’ll curl up before you know it. I went with water. Then use the hammer to press the veneer down and scrape the excess glue toward the edges. As the excess glue is squeezed out, the veneer gets stuck in place. I took a couple passes on each piece, spraying with water again between. Once you’ve got the piece stuck down, its easy to scrape/wipe up the excess glue around the edges and then you can repeat with the next piece. 

Sorry for the goofy formatting, on my phone. 

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1 hour ago, JohnG said:

Please don’t use this post as a reference or instructional post- I read one blog article and watched a few minutes of a video on Shannon Rogers site and gave it a try. I barely know what I’m doing, and that’s a generous statement.

To start out, there’s no hammering! While a veneer hammer has one side that is sort of like a hammer head, the side you use it like a squeegee. You can also get one that looks more like a heavy duty squeegee (~3/8” thick plastic blade).

The concept of it is really simple, and is somewhat similar to laying down laminate. You put down a layer of hide glue and the roughly place the piece. Then you can either coat the show side with another layer of hide glue, or some people spray with water. You just don’t want one side wet and the other dry, as it’ll curl up before you know it. I went with water. Then use the hammer to press the veneer down and scrape the excess glue toward the edges. As the excess glue is squeezed out, the veneer gets stuck in place. I took a couple passes on each piece, spraying with water again between. Once you’ve got the piece stuck down, its easy to scrape/wipe up the excess glue around the edges and then you can repeat with the next piece. 

Sorry for the goofy formatting, on my phone. 

Well you certainly know more than I did.  I figured you tapped all over the to bond the veneer.  

Hey the spray with water trick is a good tip.  I'm planning to make another attempt at making a turning block from layers of veneer.  One of the problems I had was the veneer curling.  

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15 minutes ago, Mark J said:

Well you certainly know more than I did.  I figured you tapped all over the to bond the veneer.  

That’s what I thought too. I had heard of people tapping on veneer to find loose spots, so I thought this was all done with the hammer. 

I had bought the veneer, hide glue, and plywood before I learned otherwise!

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I cut the hinge mortises and they came out really well. I laid out the mortises and the put down blue tape to make it easy to rout out the bulk of the waste. Followed that up with a chisel and ended up with a pretty good fit.

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However, I didn’t pay attention to how much these vertex hinge leaves are offset. The hinges are flush, but I’ve got about 1/8” gap between the case and doors. A little gap is probably good to have, but this seems like too much.

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Now I need to decide whether to deepen both the case and door mortises or just one side. Is there a preferable method for this?

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Is that gap a skinny 1/8"?  If so I would probably pare about a 32nd or so off each hinge landing surface, door and case.  Probably a lot of "right" ways to do this depending on what that dimension is.  Either way it is a small amount of work for a big payoff.  Just take your time and use care. JMHO.

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16 minutes ago, K Cooper said:

That was, IMO, pretty ballsey routing that close to the line/tape! Well done! 

No risk no reward!

The picture might make it look closer than it actually was. With the shallow depth of cut and nice sharp Whiteside spiral bit, I wasn’t too worried about it getting away from me, but I did take it pretty slow. 

 

I got the first coat of finish put on the door frames, shelves, and outside of the case tonight. 

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On 8/30/2019 at 2:11 PM, JohnG said:

Which do you have? I have been eyeing them for a while but can never settle on which size to get. 

It's an ancient Stanley # 71 1/2 that I inherited from my dad several years ago. I'd never even used one until I got this one & it was like the blinds being opened.

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A bit more headway over the last few days. 

I completed the finishing process for the case, drawers, and shelves and installed the hinges again. I made another pass on the case and door hinge mortises with the router set a bit deeper, but somehow the gap is pretty much the same... so I guess I’ll stick with 1/8” gap. I’m still not sure how that happened, because I also didn’t have the tape in place for the second pass, so it should have been a hair deeper than planned. All that’s left is making the drawers and attaching the back.

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A couple thoughts-

I had thought the shelves would look best if they were the same thickness of the case, but now I think they would look better thinner. Maybe 3/8 instead of 5/8. I’ll make some thinner ones and see how they look. 

I didn’t have a good experience with the Vertex hinges. They seem to be nice quality but I have a couple problems with them. The offset between the hinge leaves seems excessive. I know I can mortise them deeper, but then they aren’t flush with the case and doors. The Brusso hinges I used on a box had very little offset. One of the hinge leaves was noticeably bowed and had to be flattened out. Also, the quality of the brass screws are much lower than expected. The slots are not centered on the head and almost every one has sharp burs left from cutting the slots. The offset slot makes it harder to drive the screw without slipping out of the slot or marring the slot. They also seem to be softer brass than the Brusso brass screws. Maybe I got a couple from a bad batch?

 

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Man that is a beautiful wall cabinet. I love the look of that cherry.

I also think the thinner shelves would probably look better now that you say something. It might be worth the effort to think them out now. For me after it goes in service i never come back and correct anything. I just live with it.

Do you like the look of the little resin pockets? If i had a good amount of boards with it, I think it could be incorporated into a project to give a cool effect.

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