diy wood

So now it was time to mount the hinges, but a dilemma arose; the project and I disagreed. I had two sets of hinges ready to go (see picture in previous post), and all I needed was to decide which was best. The cabinet decided that neither set was good enough and insisted on me making new hinges. I tried for several minutes to argue - sure, this first set was a little too large, and this second set was a little too fancy looking for a simple medicine cabinet, but surely we could live with that, couldn't we?



No. The answer was no. Sigh.



It's important to listen to what the project is telling you - so out came what I needed to make some hinges for this cabinet:





A length of piano hinge salvaged from some doomed piece of furniture (not a piano, of course), and a hacksaw.



After cutting two new hinges (of the size the cabinet insisted on), I needed to add some screw holes. For this I used a punch to mark the hole location, and a hand drill to bore the hole (the punched mark helps keep the drill from skating off the spot):





I had thought that I could counter sink the hole screw heads with a slightly larger bit, thus the two in the photo. It didn't work out and I had to redo it as will be seen.



Also, you probably noticed that the hinges look different - not all shiny and brassy. I took them outside and heated them with a torch to antique them. This may or may not have made them easier to drill as well, but I doubt they were all that hard to begin with.



Now that I had my hinges, I needed screws. I couldn't find any that were right in my screw drawer, so I turned to my trusty "tiny parts" catch-all. It's an old cobbler's peg caddy, and I love it! If it's tiny, and I don't know where to put it, it goes here and I can always find it later. A close look will reveal the varied nature of its contents. Sure enough, I found the perfect screws in on of the cups.





Here are the hinges being tried on for size and spacing. I just played with them, moving them around until it looked right. The knob for the door has also appeared, I found it in the cobbler caddy - left over from some older project.





One hour later and I was back to where I had started. Finally, it was time to mount the hinges.



After knifing the edges of the hinge mortise directly from the hinge, I lightly chopped across the grain with a chisel. The router plane in the background is already set to a depth equal to the thickness of the hinge leaf, and will be used to clear the mortise.





And here's the hinge trying its future home on for size:





However, as I already mentioned, the screws did not seat properly in the countersink chamfers I had made, so I had to redo them. An actual countersink chucked in a brace did the job perfectly:





With the hinges mounted it was time to attach the stiles and door to the case. Here's the technique that I came up with: 1. clamp the non-hinge stile to the case; 2. space the door off of this stile and clamp the door to the case; 3. spread glue for the hinge stile, while it is lifted up; 4. drop the stile and clamp; 5. remove non-hinge stile and spread glue then re-clamp; 6. lift door to keep clear of any squeeze out. It worked great - but I almost forgot to take the picture. You can see the stile has already been down and I lifted it for the shot.









And the case with front attached:





At around three hours so far, this project was moving along nicely. Especially considering the whole hinge side trip...



Next up: the cap, back, and paint.

The other day, when I asked my son what he was chewing, he happily exclaimed "Tums!"



Yikes! This project leapt from non-existence to the top of a long list; time to build a medicine cabinet.



From the outset I decided it would be fun (and faster) to just get started and let this one grow organically as it developed. So, no plans, only a vague idea that I wanted it to be "Shakerish". I knew where it would hang on the wall, so I also had some rough dimensions in mind.



I've done other projects like this, and if you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. Without plans, there are no limits, and you are free to exercise your creative energy. You can play with new ideas that you, the tools, or the wood, might have. It's fun, and you can't make a mistake, because, well, there are no plans. You see? Freedom.



So, out to the shop to gather my materials. After about ten minutes, here is what I had dug out of the scrap pile:





Okay, so the hinges were not in the scrap pile...



A few more minutes of experimenting with the stock and I had a working idea of what I could make. I had one nice piece of 1x6 that was 16" long - that would be the door, which gave me the height for the case. The stiles would be cut from 1x3s, so then I could figure the width of the case. Time for the saw:





Alright - that should do it.



Following my "Keep It Simple" theme, I decided to set the back (cedar tongue and groove paneling salvaged from my brother's house) into rabbits in only the top and bottom of the case. So time to plow some rabbits:





At this point I was about 1 hour in - not bad. I started with my goal, just let things develop and had faith that it would all work out. Here's a quick look at how the case was progressing at this point:





I was out of time (shop time comes in short chunks these days - two wonderful kids, so I'm not complaining...) so I called it a night.



The next time out in the shop I started with the two fastest steps - the cleats to hold the shelf and the shelf itself.



First the cleats - nothing fancy - thin stock ripped narrow and drilled to accept brads without splitting:





And for the shelf I was using a chunk of leftover scrap from my nephew's folding book stand project. As usual with stock this thin, I just cut it with a knife.





Now I turned my energy to the front of the cabinet. With a plain "slab" door, I knew I wanted to add some decorative details to the front, but nothing that would look out of place - it's easy to take things too far. To help me in this process, I pulled a few moulding samples from the shelf and played around with various combinations. I did this right on top of the door and stile pieces set on the bench so I could squint my eyes and take a look at things. I could also pick up the moulding samples and hold them at an angle to the light that approximated the lighting in the future home of the cabinet. This let me get a taste of how the light and shadow would play on the mouldings when the cabinet was hung.



Here's a shot of the result of this process:





In the end I decided to leave the door alone, and put a bead on the inside of each stile, and a thumbnail on the outside edge. The two samples that are butted together in the photo represent what the right hand style would look like.



The information I put on the back of each moulding sample when I created it made it easy to find the correct moulding plane for each profile. I could also check for any notes I had left such as whether the iron might need sharpening etc.





If I had been sticking longer mouldings, I would have set up the sticking board; for these short lengths I just used the end vise and bench dog to hold the stock.





The side bead is a very simple moulding plane to use (assuming it is set up properly). It has an integrated fence and stop, so you just plane until it stops cutting.



My thumbnail plain is a bit trickier. First, it cuts with the stock on edge, which takes a little getting used to, but isn't really that different. The real challenge is that it has a fence, but no stop.



What this meant is that I had to be careful that I didn't cut a curved edge by taking more away from the ends (sniping). It also meant I could significantly alter the dimensions of the stock if I just kept planing away (which is only too easy to do - it's too fun!). If I was planing the edge profile on a wide board and then ripping off a stick to apply the moulding, it would not be a problem - the ripping would set the width. On this job the moulding was being stuck directly to the stile, so altering the width of the stile too much would mess things up.



The solution was to mark the edge of the board with pencil lines, so I could keep an eye on how the profile was forming, and stop as soon as it was fully formed.





Here's a shot with the profile forming:







And one of the complete moulding:





At the end of the second work session (a little less than an hour) I could loosely assemble the case and front of the cabinet to get a good sense of how it would look:





Not bad!



Next, mounting the hinges...

Here's my brother's "enhancement" to my last post:




Thanks Josh!

...purple and orange and blue!
I can sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow too!

Listen with your eyes..."

Err...sorry - too much "Captain Noah" as a kid...

Anyway, it was time to decide which color to paint the latest project (full post coming soon) and once again the milk paint color sticks proved their worth. I just selected the options from the "oiled" sticks, and held them up against the wall in the future home of the project:


The winner is - "red". Which actually looks kind of burgundy in this light. Of course, that's the point of selecting the color under the actual lighting conditions.

Now, where am I supposed to send this picture?

Oh Yeah!

"Send your pictures to Dear Old Captain Noah..."

So, I'm sure that regular readers of this blog are familiar with my total lack of time reality. But just in case you might be thinking, "Hey, that Dan guy sure seems like he's on top of things time wise!"* I give you the following example.

My self established goal was to have 7 student created workbenches in our school shop by the end of 2010. How did I do? Well, not too good by that benchmark (err...sorry). It's June of 2011, school is out for summer, and we have one bench 99% finished, and 6 more somewhere around 50% finished.

Of course, in the big picture things are much, much better than that. We now have approximately 70 students who know how to measure, saw, glue, and plane. There's more: they have also been introduced (watching only) to sharpening plane irons by hand; they can bore with bit and brace and hand drill; they know the difference between jointer, jack, smoother and scrub; they have experienced the joy of shavings; they have discovered the satisfaction of working with their own hands to make something beautiful, useful and real. And as a bonus, they can explain (and debunk) numerous theories on the infamous saw nib!

So who cares if my original goal was not met - it was entirely unrealistic in the first place. It's the process, not the product - the journey, not the destination.

Now let's take a look at that new bench:




The bench is 5 1/2 feet long and the two separate tops are each 12" wide, which with the tool tray makes the whole thing about 2 1/2 feet wide. The tops are about 28" from the floor. The slats on the shelf conceal about 120 lbs of cement pavers spanning between the "L" shaped stretchers; combined with the robust build of the bench, that makes these quite heavy.

I went with the split top with tray for a couple of reasons. First, although I don't like a tool tray for myself, I think with students, it will help protect tools from falling off the benches. Second, the tray down the center creates a boundary for each student and should keep bench space evenly divided. Of course, when needed, the tray can easily be spanned (or filled for that matter) to utilize the full width of the bench.

This bench also features an updated version of the hockey puck leveler feet. I'll post more details on this later, but here's a quick summary of the new, much simpler system. First, I bored holes in the bottom of the legs that were slightly deeper than the length of a 5/8" all thread connecting nut. The holes were sized to be slightly smaller than the nut, which was then hammered in for a tight fit. The adjustable part is a 5/8" carriage bolt which is the same length as the nut. The rounded head sits in a shallow hole bored into a hockey puck, with the square shank "nut" part still above the level of top of the puck. This allows for an open-ended wrench to slide in and turn the bolt for very easy vertical adjustment. No jam nut, no washers, no lifting of the bench and puck removal to hold the bolt from rotating... I wish I had thought of this years ago - just simple and effective.

All that remains to do (the 1%) is to plane the ends (they are just straight from the saw), have each student stamp their initials into each piece they cut, plug the bolt holes in the top, bore the holes for our Gramercy holdfasts, do a little more flattening, and make wooden faces for the vise jaws. That might seem like more than 1%, but you'd be surprised how much work/time is already vested.

Oh, and the shop wasn't really that empty - we're getting ready to move it down to the ground floor. Slab floor - no more bouncing! Yay! Exterior door - easy wood handling! Double Yay!

I'm sure I'll get some shots of the new, new shop up early next fall. But wait, that's a time related goal, and you know how I am with those...

* I have no idea why you would ever be thinking such a thing, but let's just go with it...

Well the years are flying by! Recently, it was time for Teague's third birhtday present from the shop - how is that possible? His first present was the skunk bench, and the second his blocks and their chest. This last year he has really been excited to spend time in the shop with me, so I decided it was time to make him his own tool box and start building his tool kit.

Here's the tote style box:




And his starter tool kit:


The kit in the box:


First inspection:


Full Approval:


The boy, standing on the chair from his grandfather's hardware store, and messing with his own tool kit - life is good!


And of course, his tool kit has already grown. His extra-small eggbeater hand drill arrived this week from eBay and has been throughly tested.