Mounting the Cabinet Doors

Over the weekend I knocked out a lot of the little stuff left on my To Do list.  The biggest tasks were creating the drawer face and mounting the cabinet doors to the cabinet.

I chose to use euro style hinges because I like the clean look of not seeing the hardware from the outside.  Also the doors can overlay the frame completely when closed.  Installing them took several hours but actually wasn't that difficult.  I spent a lot of time making sure everything lined up correctly.  My biggest fear was accidentally drilling straight through the doors and ruining the face.

Cutting the drawer face was pretty simple, just a rectangle.  Home Depot didn't carry solid maple that wide so I had to use some plywood which meant more edge banding.  Not a big deal though, it came out pretty good.  What's crazy is that I *think* the drawer face was actually the last thing I had to cut.  From here on out its just some gluing, drilling, a little bit more dyeing and then a whole lot of varnishing.

Cabinet Doors: A Lesson in Patience

In one of my earlier posts I was testing out ways to make the joints for the cabinet doors.  It didn't go so well.  What I learned is that I really didn't have the right bits for making these joints.  So, for my birthday, my sister (thanks again) bought me a set of stile and rail bits made for this purpose:

There's plenty of stile and rail sets out there but most have a 1/2" shank and require a high-powered router (my router can only use 1/4" shank bits).  The above set were from Amana Tool.  Despite the troubles I'm about to describe the bits worked great, and my frustrations were due to operator error more than anything else.

First Attempt

Everything was going great.  I had cut the wood to length, made the decorative edges and made the rabbet on the back side which would eventually hold the glass.

First Attempt:  Stiles and Rails

All I had left to do was to make the end cuts on the rails so that they would nest with the stiles.  This was my fatal mistake.  As I discovered, when making an end cut with a router, as the bit exits the wood it has a tendency to tear out, destroying the edge:

No longer a nicely finished edge

One after another, no matter what I tried, the edges of the rails were ruined.  This was probably the most frustrated I've been in awhile.  After thinking I was so close to being done with the doors I had to start over.  I decided to take a week off so I could come back into it with a clear head.

Second Attempt

Giving myself a week off really helped.  I thought a lot about the process and came up with a new cutting order to hopefully solve the problems of my first attempt.  I also decided to start from scratch rather than reusing the stiles because I hadn't really focused on making everything square.  That would be another big disappointment if, at the end, everything didn't fit together correctly.

Here's the order of steps I came up with:

1. Cut the stiles and rails to slightly more than the desired length
2. Plane the edges to help make each piece square
3. Cut the stiles and rails to the exact length, square
4. Route the decorative edge on the stiles
5. Route the rabbet on the stiles
6. Route the end cuts on the rails
7. Route the decorative edge on the rails
8. Route the rabbet on the stiles

A couple of notes on the various steps:

Step 2:  I didn't have a planer or jointer so I used the idea from Spielman's, Router Basics and used the router as a jointer.  I had to make a fence for the routing table specifically for this purpose as it involves fixing a sheet of acrylic on half of the fence (I used double sided tape).

Fence for jointing

By using this fence the wood is trimmed by a small amount (the width of the plastic) with each pass.  I had mild success with this but I found the hardest thing was getting the fence to be in the exact right position.

Step 3:  I had a hard time making cuts square with the router.  I'm sure there must be some jigs or other tools out there that excel at this, but I wanted to try to do it with just the tools I had.  Here's what I came up with:

Jig to help make square cuts

Lining up the cutting line with the MDF guide

I used a piece of MDF that I made square by very carefully measuring and cutting.  Then I clamped the piece I wanted to cut up against the MDF while lining up my cutting line with the edge of the MDF.  Finally, with the help of a flush trim bit, I clamped the guide for the router on top of that making sure the bearing on the bit came into contact with each end of the MDF while the router was riding against the guide.  Needless to say it was tedious making these cuts, but worth it in the long run.

Step 4:

Step 5:

Step 6:  By routing the end cuts on the rails before doing the other edging I could prevent the tear out.  For one, there would be a lot more wood to help hold it together but more importantly, I could hold it against a piece of MDF as I was cutting.  The idea here being that the bit would pass cleanly through the wood into the MDF as if it was one contiguous piece, reducing tear out.



Sadly, I forget to take pictures mid-process but here's the finished rail:

The completed rail, NO TEAR OUT!!

Finally, the end result:

Assembled Frame

Stile meets Rail

Back side with the glass in place

So I guess it's true, we learn the most from our mistakes.  I was so incredibly frustrated but taking a break and starting over was definitely worth it.

At this point I *think* all the major stuff is done.  There's a ton of little things though, so I'm working on making another list to help keep me focused on finishing this.
  

Sanding, Dyeing, Gluing

(I'm going to try to catch up on logging the work I've done over the past month today, hopefully that's not an April fool's joke).  

So, first the boring stuff.  Sanding took the majority of a weekend and nights during the week.  It was really tedious and monotonous and any other -'ous' word that really just means boring.  There's not really any pictures worth posting on that.  The edgebanding is also complete, the edges are noticeable (or rather no longer noticeable) in the upcoming pictures. 

After the sanding, I decided to pre-fit the drawer slides.  I figured it would be easier to work before everything was glued together.  

Attaching the drawer slides

It turned out, unfortunately, that the drawer was just slightly too wide.  It pressed the wheels of the slides against the rails making it very hard to move the drawer.

Wheel pressed right up against the rail

So to fix this problem I decided to route out a groove where the slide would sit on either side of the drawer.

This groove was less than 1/16" deep but it was enough to fix the problem

Once the grooves were done I re-fit the slides and the drawer moved much smoother.

On to dyeing.  Much like sanding, dyeing took several days to complete.  I used much more dye than I thought I would need and had to go buy more.  (Here's an earlier post about the dye I'm using.) 

Getting ready to dye

The most tedious part was probably trying to get the dye into the vents on the side pieces.  I still need to go back and touch it up.  I chose to dye before I glued anything because I wouldn't have to worry about getting the rag into tight places and, because the dye is water based, it wouldn't hinder the glue joints.  

On to the gluing.  It took me a few days to work out a gluing strategy.  I wanted to break it up into steps so I wouldn't be frantically trying to fit the cabinet together and position all of the clamps before the glue dried.  I should have written the list down because towards the end I forgot one of the steps and ended up doing just that:

First:  Gluing the inner walls to the bottom

Next:  Gluing the outer walls to the bottom

Finally:  Gluing the inner back and top to the walls and bottom

That last picture is when things got frantic.  Trying to fit all of the pieces into the dadoes and clamp it all together while looking out for dripping glue was difficult.  As a result I did end up making one mistake.  One of the inner walls and back did not fit exactly into their dadoes.  I was able to fit them in after the fact using some clamps but because everything else was glued together I couldn't re-glue that joint.  So, begrudgingly, I used a bracket to hold that joint together.  It was the easiest and safest fix at this point and luckily it's in the back of the cabinet so it won't be too noticeable.

The next step would have been to varnish the cabinet, however, I decided I needed a break in the monotony and decided to build the doors instead...

Cabinet Picts - Part 2

More progress has been made.  I've been sitting on this pictures for a few months now and am finally getting around to posting them so this post may be a little lengthy.

First, I finally took on creating the vents in the sides for real.  I was nervous about this step as screwing up would mean having to make a whole new side.  I had my trusty jig though so I was ready to take it on.

Setting up the first side.

A little more than half way through (so far so good).

Completed.

All cleaned up.

The jig was great, it saved me so much time and I got beautiful results (IMHO).

Next up was cutting the vents and wire holes in the two backs.  I'm embarrassed to say I don't actually remember what type of plywood I'm using for the backs.  Home Depot didn't sell 1/4" in maple so one of the guys pointed me towards what's normally used as backing.  Of course, I don't think this stuff is meant for this type of cutting.  As you'll see in the picts below the very top layer chips and peels away with some of the cuts.  However, it does have once good side so not really that big of a deal since I can hide the bad sides from view.

The wire holes only run through the inner back, the vents run through both

Here's the inner back finished except for the holes for the media PC

Close up of the right side

Moving on.  Next was the dowel joints for the top:

The dowels inserted in the top

And the corresponding holes in the sides

This was another step I was nervous about.  I was so relieved when the holes lined up and the top snapped on.  For those curious, I used a doweling jig, I can't imagine trying to do this without one.

Then, finally, I built the drawer box.  I originally was planning on cheating here and just ordering one because I wanted the drawer joints to be dovetailed and I don't have a dovetail jig.  However, it was going to cost $60 with shipping which defeats the purpose.  So I used dowel joints instead of dovetail and it came out pretty good.  I'm actually glad it was too expensive now.  For wood, I ended up having to use poplar instead of maple as, again, Home Depot didn't have maple in 1/2" stock and I thought 3/4" walls were too thick.  (I also don't have a planer so I couldn't make my own.)

The drawer box assembled but not glued

Glued and dyed

The drawer was also the first thing I dyed.  I thought it would be a good test as it'll be on the inside anyway.

OK, so, where are we?  I still need to finish the edgebanding, sand, and then glue the cabinet together.  After that, I need to tackle the doors and finish the drawer.

Cabinet Picts - Part 1

I've made a lot of progress on the cabinet and took a lot of picts.  At this point all of the cabinet pieces have been cut out, the dadoes and grooves have been made, nothing is glued together and there's still a lot trimming to do.  So rather than write a full blog post I'm just going to post a bunch of picts with some captions:

Bottom with dadoes

Top with dadoes

Fitting the bottom and sides together.  The two backs will slide into these slots.

Close up of the fit, things are lining up nicely.

Bottom, sides and back put together to check fitting

Added top and middle shelf, still needs a little trimming but fits together pretty well

Preparing to cut a deep groove in the 1x3 that will be the top piece of the removable back

Two hours later, finished.

The endless groove, kinda reminds me of a scene from the Labyrinth

The removable back fit together with the top piece

So far I'm really happy with how everything is turning out.  The cool thing about all these dadoes is that I could assemble the thing without actually gluing it together or using any clamps to see how it fits.  I still have a ton of little stuff to do that will probably take a ridiculous amount of time but oh well, that seems to be the story so far.  I'll post a second set of pictures after all that little stuff is done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Finally Starting to Build

It was tough to actually commit to cutting the real wood but this past weekend I finally decided to start building the cabinet.  Right now I'm just concentrating on making the cabinet itself and will hold off on the doors and drawer until that's mostly constructed.  So far there's not a whole lot to show.  I'm currently working on cutting out each piece which is taking some time.  In order to be as accurate as possible I'm cutting each piece slightly larger with the circular saw then trimming it down to the proper dimensions with the router.  The flush trim bit is coming in very handy for this, especially when I have to make multiple pieces exactly the same (sides, shelves, etc.).  Here's a few picts of the progress:

Cabinet pieces laid out in 4'x8' groups 

I laid out all of the pieces in SketchUp in groups of 4x8 sections to plan out how to cut each piece.  I ending up buying two sheets of 3/4" plywood and one sheet of 1/4" plywood for the back.  If all goes well that should be more than enough.

Raw materials

Using the router to trim the edges

Trimmed pieces so far:  Top, bottom, sides and middle shelf 

So I'm making progress slowly but surely.  I will post again once I have more interesting pictures.

Edge Banding and Dowel Joints

So I've been slacking a bit on posting my progress.  I've actually started to build the cabinet but I will talk more about that in the next post.  First, some back fill.  In my previous post the last thing I mentioned I wanted to test was edge banding.  Edge banding is this pretty nifty stuff that's used to cover the edges of plywood so it looks like solid wood.  I'm using the kind that you iron on.  There's glue on the reverse side, the iron heats the glue which bonds to the plywood.  Edge banding is slightly wider that the plywood so you can trim it perfectly flush with the wood using an edge trimmer or a router with a flush trim bit.  I used a scrap piece of wood left over from my joint testing for my first practice test.  Here's some picts:

Ironed but not yet trimmed

After trimming

Trimmed flush with the surface

I was amazed at how easy it was to apply the edge banding and to get a nice looking result.  The router made it very easy to trim the banding perfectly.  This led me to make another design change.

Originally, I had wanted the top edges of the cabinet to by mitered in order to hide the plywood edge.  I tried a few times to make a successful lock miter joint but it was too hard to be consistent.  So, with the success of the edge banding, I decided to change the top joints to dowel joints and cover the exposed edges with edge banding.  I tried it out and I think I'm pretty happy with the results:

Plywood joined with a dowel joint, edges covered with edge banding

Next post will have some picts from me finally starting to build the cabinet.  Stay tuned...