| Blog series by CaptainSkully | updated 51 days ago | 8 parts | 3022 reads | 37 comments total |
Part 1: Ripping the Legs
As you may or may not know, last year I cut off my middle finger while ripping the legs out of the glued up blanks. I didn’t have a splitter, riving knife, pawls, or blade guard on the table saw and was then surprised when my finger was gone. This year, I put a Uniguard blade guard w/ riving knife/splitter on my table saw and have been using a MagSwitch religiously. With the courage engendered by my recent successes, I got back on the horse that kicked my ass. This evening, I ...
Part 2: Going Topless...
I’ve been working the graveyard shift all week (which has seriously impeded my woodworking habit), helping my defacto brother-in-law with his concrete polishing business. It’s pretty cool, especially if you start with the right concrete, dye, aggregate, etc. I was seriously thinking about making the tops for my night stands out of polished black concrete. It would look like granite, only I could do it myself (with his help). It would be water resistant, if sealed properly, so ...
Part 3: Some Assembly Required...
Today, I took the rough parts and managed to achieve a few dry fits. The first one was to make sure the dadoes and tenons fit. The second one was to see how it looked with the bow cut out of the bottom piece and with the pre-finished panels installed. A couple of thoughts: be sure your table saw is waxed properly when cutting tenons like this. It helps if you don’t have to use force to push the piece through the saw. I realized I’m already using some of the stuff I learne...
Part 4: Sides...
I sanded the appropriate parts of the parts (don’t sand anything that mates with another part, it will round the edge over and ruin the joint). I then clamped up two sides at a time (because I only have enough clamps for one project). Then, I cut all the rabbets and dadoes in the sides to accept the drawer/shelf. I also plugged the dado on the legs. The next step is to make the mortises for the cross-pieces. Thoughts: address chip-out (tape, backer board, etc.), better edge trea...
Part 5: Dry Fit!
I was able to plane the stock for the shelves yesterday. I glued up a large enough blank for two shelves, then used the fence to cut them parallel. I then used the cross-cut sled to square the other sides. I got to use my Delta new mortiser to make all of the mortises (3 on each side x 4 sides = 12 total). Luckily, they were all 3/8” and had the same offset from the front/back. This meant that with one setup, I could knock them all out. If I had done them with a chisel, ...
Part 6: Almost Done!
Today, I made the drawers, using a square lock joint on the table saw. It was trickier than I expected. Cutting the ends of the drawer faces 3/4” deep was a bit scary, regardless of feather boards or push sticks. I used poplar instead of oak for the sides and back (because that’s what I had laying around). I also made the dust frames out of plywood rails & stiles that was Kregged together instead of solid panels (because that’s what I had laying around). I used th...
Part 7: Glue & Mold
After finishing the parts with TransTint #6003 Reddish Brown and three coats of hand-rubbed poly, I was able to glue them up. It went reasonably well. This design doesn’t have a back panel, so it’s easy for it to get out of square. I glued one of the shelves in backwards, but learned my lesson on the second one. After cooking for a couple of hours, they went into the house to get out of the garage. It was now time for me to start working on the concrete tops. My brothe...
Part 8: The Pour
If I didn’t pour today, it would be several days until I’d have time to do it, so I slammed a beer and started mixing concrete. This is what I started out with: The BuddyRhodes system is two bags of countertop concrete to one can of dye, so I mixed one bag into two five gallon buckets and poured about one quarter of the dye into each. On the first batch, I put water into the bucket first because it says it’ll keep the dust down. Don’t do it! It’ll star...
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