Here is a jpg of the top from the sketchup model.

I milled up the kickers then glued and screwed them to the sides of the case. I also drilled holes for mounting the top.

I made some drawer runners and screwed them to the drawer member. The front of the runner is dadoed into the front of the drawer with a half lap. Note the taper on the front of the slot for easy insertion.

Here is the sliding member screwed to the dust frame. I made the holes a little big so I could adjust the drawers.

And some front and back shots.

Now for handles and finishing.

I decided to add a case of drawers for tool storage and I added all the joinery details.

Here is the SU model.

I am interested in the SU community’s input and critique. Since I am almost positive that DaveR is going to say it is “Heavy” I am waiting for him to explain what that means :)

Click for the full size jpg.

I finished installing all 90 some odd plugs and installed some Brusso ball catches to the tops of the doors. This was making me nervous as I have not used them before. I bought brad point bits from LV so I could drill them accurately. That took two weeks of waiting. They turned out nicely though and I really like the way they click into place.

I made a decorative detail for the step downs on the back and sides. It carries the eye down to the panel. This was done by running a 1/8” roundover on the edge of a 1/2” board and then ripping the part off with a band saw. The back was then cleaned up with a hand plane to remove the saw marks and the part was trimmed carefuly with a chisel to fit the panel.

Here is one of the sides with the parts installed. I also applied them to the back.

Next I started making the top.

Here is a blowup of the top.

I jointed and glued up some 3/4” boards for the core. Then I milled some 2 1/2” wide stock for the breadboard ends. The breadboard ends step down 1/8” proud of the core on the ends and stand a little less than that thicker than the core. I used a 3/8” slot cutting bit to make a slot in the end of the core and in the breadboard end. All of the edges of the core and breadboard ends are rounded over with a 1/8” roundover bit except at the bottom where the core meets the breadboard. I also milled loose tenons for the slots. The grain on the tenons goes the same direction as the core for expansion.

I trimmed the tenons with my #4 for a nice slip fit.

And glued them into the core slot.

Here it is dry fit.

I used the hollow chisel mortiser and a 3/8” bit to cut the slots in the breadboard end for the plugs and screws.

And pre-drilled the holes for the screws with a 1/8” brad point bit.

Then I cauled and glued it all up. I only put glue on about 3” of the center so the core can expand.

I used the same slot cutting bit setup to cut the slot for the ebony spline. Since the breadboard ends are thicker than the core, the router needs to be registered on the bottom of the assembly.

Next I used a piece of MDF with the same stepdown as the top to make a cutout so I could get the shape for the ebony splines. I made a test piece from scrap.

Here it is in the slot.

I milled up some ebony for the splines and started shaping them. That’s all I could get done. I hope to complete the tops next weekend. After that there is only.

1. Fastening the tops
2. Making the handles for the doors and drawers
3. Finishing

The End vise in the model was created using the screw component from this Shoulder Vise I got from the 3DWarehouse. I took the screw and created the end vise around it (had to add some threads). I think the Shoulder vise is the same one LN and Woodcraft sell (or a very close approximation). I think it is the one I will use for my bench.

I have not added the Dog Holes yet because I am not sure of their placement. When I solidify the end vise parts I will add them.

So my questions are.

• I have seen other benches using similar shoulder vises. There doesn’t seem to be very much room between the screw and rods and the top of the bench. Is it advisable to lower the vise so the screw and rods don’t go through the face of the bench to increase the clamping area?

• I am struggling with the end vise. The hardware is exactly to scale in the model. I am trying to figure out how to get dog holes in it and support them on the back where the dog hole strip meets the vise hardware.

Here are a couple of jpegs of the model. Click them for a full size image.

You can download the model Here. Feel free to use it any way you like. I’ll be putting revisions up as they become available. I welcome feedback particularly about the construction of end vise as it is the part I have the most questions about.

Thanks for looking.

Start by drilling some holes. These plugs are 1/4” so the drill bit is a little smaller at 3/16”. I drilled a little over the depth of the plugs at 1/4”

I bought a very cheap 1/4” hollow mortice chisel. I flipped the bit upside down and used it to center the chisel over the holes.

Then I squared the bit.

I drove it home with a wooden mallet. I take two passes at this. The idea is to keep the sides well defined. When you pull the hollow chisel out you don’t want to rock it. Pull it STRAIGHT OUT. That keeps the hole from enlarging or deforming.

Here is what I was left with. Clean up the bottom a little with a small chisel. I used a 1/8” because I don’t want to meddle wth the definition of the square hole or crush the sides.

Dab a little glue in the hole to coat the sides. No glue on the plugs. I don’t want any squeeze out.

Chamfer the plug just a little starting about 1/16” from the bottom. Don’t start the taper up too high, you only need a little bit to get it started. Press the plug in with your finger.

Tap it in with a small mallet till the edges are JUST FLUSH with the face. The effect is that the plug is proud because of the pillow, not because it is sticking out of the hole.

As you can see, these are not perfect. For my first run I put the plugs on the back of the case. I think the bottom plug should be a little further to the right to separate them a little more. Also, they are not perfectly squarely aligned. Ah well, it is a good start and I have the process worked out.

The plugs will be set into their square holes with the edges flush to the surface. The tops are pillowed ~1/64” making them sit proud. Each plug must be polished to give it a beautiful sheen.

I started with 6 1/4” X 3/4” X 3/4” ebony pen blanks that I bought off of ebay. They were pretty reasonable and high quality pieces. Ping me if you want the source.

Next I cut them down to 5/16” squares with the band saw. If you make 5 sticks you can do both ends at the same time and make 10 plugs at a whack.

I use this jig to turn them into perfectly square 1/4” stock. Actually they are ~1/64” over 1/4 so they will fit into 1/4” holes tightly.

This is done with my #4. Plane two opposite sides until the plane takes no more shavings, then the other two sides leaving smooth square stock.

I made a jig using Darrell Peart’s model from his book “Greene & Greene – Design Elements for the Workshop”. I won’t reveal the dimensions out of respect for Darrell but the general idea is to spin the stock in the hole rounding off the end. The Worksharp actually works pretty good for this because I can use finer sandpaper than a disk sander (which I don’t own). I highly recommend Darrell’s book if you want to make furniture in this style.

This is what the end looks like so far.

I used my Jointer push paddles with 220 sandpaper to further sand the ends round and smooth. The foam padding makes this pretty easy. It takes about 20 seconds to get each end ready for the next step.

I loaded up a polishing wheel with green polishing compound and buffed the end of each stick. The wheel is actually spinning in this picture. The camera froze it pretty well ;) I will not use the green stuff again. I would rather use jewlers rouge or diamond paste but I couldn’t source it where I live. I’ll be ordering some on line for next time.

I had a hard time getting a good shot of the polished end. It has a nice warm black sheen. The green stuff is hard to clean off.

Next I cut off the 1/4” plugs from each end. I tried to use the bandsaw but it was a little scary when the plug tried to get jammed in the table plate and came shooting back at me. It was just as easy to use my back saw.

A cornucopia of ebony plugs.

It wasn’t a lot of fun but not too bad. It takes about 15 minutes to do 10 plugs (five sticks x 2 ends). Now that I have it worked out I will be more productive in the future.

Next step, making square holes and setting plugs.

Here is a jpg of the model.

I started with some layout.

Then I cut the fingers with a jig I made.

I was left with this.

I ran a rabbett down the drawer side.

The drawer side fingers were left proud. I pillowed them with sandpaper.

More Pillowing

I was left with this.

A glueup.

I didn’t get a picture but I ran a dado on the sides for the backs to sit in and another all around for the drawer bottom.

Here it is with the bottom in.

I glued the beading to the top and bottom of the drawer face.

And it looks like this with some mineral spirits wiped on for effect :) They still need to be fitted some.

I am really happy with the way these turned out. I learned a lot making them too.

First I cleaned off the bench and layed the back and two sides out in sequence. The sides were already glued up in my last entry. The back has a center stile so it needed to be glued in place. That is why the back is dissasembled.

Glue on the back stile tenons, rail tenons and left side mortise. Push it together.

Glue the dust panel and bottom on. This includes the two stretchers which are attached as an assembly.

Glue for the left side, clamp it up and wait about 45 minutes.

Something to note here. I put the knife hinges in place for this glue up so the little sliver on the tenon side would have something to hold it tight against the leg.

Here is what it looked like after the clamps came off and the glue was all cleaned up.

I used pieces of laminate to shim the doors in place. I used my jointer to fit the doors taking very small amounts off (~1/64”) in a pass.

I clamped each door to the front of the bench so the router would have plenty of surface to rest on and routed out the hinge mortises. Then I fit them with a chisel.

This is what the doors look like closed.

And open.

I am extremely happy with the way this turned out. The knife hinges were a little intimidating but they turned out not to be much harder than butt hinges. I would recommend them to anyone wanting a nice clean look. I couldn’t really find any good instructions for installing them on the internet except on some premium sites. Maybe I will blog a real how to after this project is complete.

Off to the shop again. I have one more set of doors to fit.

First I glued up the doors. I sometimes have problems getting my panels and doors to glue up square so I came up with this simple jig to help with the process. It is nothing more than a couple of jointed sticks clamped square to the bench to keep the assembly square.

Once I have the jig all square and secure I put two strips underneath to keep the sqeeze out from making a mess of the panel.

Put on some glue.

and clamper up.

The jig keeps everything square and all it really is is some jointed sticks. Perfect!

So then I set the knife hinges into the top and bottom rails in the door opening. Here I am measuring the bottom rail (the one with the bottom glued on to a rabbet). the hinge sits back 1/4” from the front and 1/16” from the edge of the tenon. The tape was intended to keep the router from blowing out the front (more on that later)

Then I routed between the lines with a 1/4” straight bit.

It still blew out on the tenon side :(

Then I chiseled out the waste to the line.

Here is the hinge in place.

On the top rail I tried another idea. I thought if I cut in the front of the mortise with my little hack saw blade it might not blow out.

It still blew out on the tenon side only this time it was a little worse, because the blowout started at the back of the saw kerf. Dohhhh :(

So I’m thinking that it was really unreasonable for me to think that I could get away with leaving a little 1/16” sliver over on that side. I will just trim it out with a chisel and leave a little gap. I don’t think it really looks bad. Here is the case with the knife hinges installed. I still need to mortise hinges in the doors tomorrow after the glue up sets. I’ll post more pictures then.

UPDATE

I got four perfect ones on the second nightstand. The secret is start on the inside and come out very very (very) slowly with the router bit. I wonder whose side of the bed this one will go on. Hmmmmm.

I don’t own a belt sander so I did this all by hand. I got a lot faster after the first couple.

First I cut the indent detail using a ramped jig. (sorry, I don’t have a picture). This is outlined in Darrell Peart’s book.

I marked a line 1/8” in from the edge all the way around the bottom and another line 3/4” from the bottom on all the sides.

I sanded the edge up to the lines with 150 and a big sanding block making a nice curve.

then I did the other side. I eyeballed the curves from the top to make sure they were fair and the same. I did the other two sides the same way.

After that I rounded over all the edges.

And here is what I was left with.

But this was the boring part. I had to sand 8×4=32 of these little details to round off the inside edges. The end grain part on the bottom was th most difficult. I wanted to keep it crisp.

I don’t have any fingerprints left :(

Sure looks sweet though. All 8 legs are done.

I also made the curve on the bottom on this scrap so I could transfer it to the leg for further shaping.

Here is the first leg all shaped. I have a little more sanding to do but this shows the idea.

Here is a shot of the legs with the indent before adding the taper. I am glad I added this detail.

I have only shaped the curve on the bottom of one of the legs so this shot doesn’t show it yet. I’ll replace this shot with a new one once they are done.

I really appreciate the feedback I got on this phase. I made the jig exactly as described in Darrell Peart’s book. When I was done I was a little dissapointed that it didn’t turn out the way I expected. I lost sight of the fun of adapting techniques to work in the scope of a design (a lesson I have learned before LOL). That’s why I don’t build from plans.

Thanks. This is a great site and my work will be better for it.

UPDATE:

I finished sanding all the profiles. Here is a shot of one.

and a poorly lighted shot of the stand as it is.

I’m really happy with the way it turned out. I’m also getting antsy to finish this piece because I’m dreaming up some new projects. I’ll be working on it all weekend.

Well when I got home I went out to the shop and cut one in a piece of MDF scrap and set it up along side the leg.

Then I sat down fo a minute and looked at it and decided it just doesn’t look right. I don’t like the way the indent intrudes on the rails. They are just too low on this piece for that detail. I tried re-arranging the jig cutting the indent so it is closer to the floor. Still no go. There just isn’t enough room between the floor and the rails. So instead of trying to cram too many details into this piece, I think I’ll just round/taper the bottoms of the legs so they flow to an end and be satisfied with that.

Now I am beginning to wonder if ebony plugs will overwelm the design. If I do go ahead with them, they will definitely be very small and unobtrusive ~1/4”. I really like the lines of this piece and the mahogany grain is beautiful. I don’t want to ruin it with too much detail. There is already a lot going on with all the curves and offset panels.

Here is a shot with the doors sitting loosely in place. I only need to cut hinge mortices for the Brusso knife hinges and I will be ready for a glue up.

Off to the shop, I have some more sanding to do.

Update

I completed both dust panel frames.
Here is the frame all cut up.

And the frame in the case.

It was much easier than I thought. Enjoyable too!

Here is the exploded drawing of the dust panel from my SU model. You can click on the image to see the whole thing but this end is just like the other :)

Here is a cutaway jpeg of the dust panel in the case.

What I am unsure of is how to join the drawer runners to the legs (both front and rear). Right now I am thinking pocket joinery. I suppose I could lay them in with M&T but that seems like overkill for a piece that will not bee seen. It might also complicate my glueup. (Although I do intend to start by assembling the sides)

The other problem I am having is how to join the dust panel back and sides. After I assemble and glue up the sides of the case, I will need to assemble the case back and dust panel in the next step of the glueup. But how do I attach it?

Looking for input. (Dang, I didn’t figure it out yet)

I put the bottoms in today. It took me a while as I was very nervous about screwing something up at this late stage in the game. Also, since the bottom holds everything in place, I wanted to make sure it was the right place :)

So I started by running a 3/4×1/4 dado around the inside of all the bottom rails. I referenced the cuts from the tops because I want the center stiles to have no ugly spaces where they meet the panel rails.

I took a piece of scrap plywood and roughly cut out the corners to reference against the legs. I used this to draw lines on the legs where I needed to remove material for the cutouts.

Now that I had the lines on all the legs, I dissassembled the piece and drew two more lines 1/4 inch down from the edge. This gives me a reference for the depth.

Another job for my sweet little english back saw.

The first cut.

And the second. (My 8 year old left me a birthday present on the bench)

I chopped out the waste.

Here it is all finished.

All finito (Times eight) Note the piece of scrap in the mortice. That is to keep from blowing out the back with the chisel (I learned this the hard way. Not much damage though)

Here is one of the side panels assembled.

And the birch plywood bottom all tucked in.

I am really happy with the way it turned out. Getting close to glueup time. (But it’s beer time now)

I was distracted in March with three birthdays (including my 50th) and a lot of other things that spring brings around. My family visited from the four corners of the earth and in keeping with the Chico tradition we had a big party. So there is a big blank space in this series but not to worry, there was nothing to miss!

So on Sunday I layed in the top stretchers with a dovetail. Here are a few photos of the series of events.

I didn’t get a picture but I started by cutting inside the lines with my sweet little back saw. Then I chopped out the waste with my new AI chisels.

I chopped and pared and chopped and pared. . .

I missed the photo where I cut the dovetail on the stretcher but here is the finished result.

The camera makes this stretcher look like it is a way different color. It is different but not that bad. I will have some color matching to do when I finish the piece. I will likely use an aniline dye.

I hope this wets your appetite Robb! I will start getting busy again.

I cut the panels to match the cloudlift rails. I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble by routing the slot deep but I thought it would be less likely to warp if I followed the detail with a 1/4” slot cutting bit and a bearing. That required shaped panels. I used the same templates to draw lines on the panels and then used a router table and fence set out at 3/8” to cut the panels. I will add more pictures later. Here is the nightstand with the bookmatched panels fitted.

I intend to cut the pieces with the band saw. I this the best way to
size it?

I have Darrels book. I am making some ebony splines for a table. Will
the ebony machine well with a router? I am worried that it might
splinter or shatter.

The ebony is coated with what appears to be wax. Is this common?

Any tips are welcome. I want to start miling it this weekend.

I marked the first hardboard piece using my sketchup model as a reference. All of the cloudlifts on this project are 3/8” deep but the length and direction varies.

I marked a 3/8” line with my marking gauge along the hardboard then made another line where the center of the cloudlift will be. I drew a “fair” curve there with a pencil.

I set up the fence 3/8” from the router bit. The bearing is above the work so it doesn’t touch. Then, starting from the left, I routed the dip out til I got to where the lift starts.

When I got to the fair curve I lifted the right side from the fence still moving left to right and trying to follow the curve. It worked! I was very happy with the appearance of it. I didn’t need to fiddle with it at all. Yipeeeee!

I don’t have a picture of the next step but here is the idea. Now that I had defined my lift. I needed to get it’s mirror image on the other side of the hardboard. To do that I carpet taped the piece I had just shaped to the second piece I started with. Then I duplicated it. This left me with two pieces that had only one fair curve. Next, I simply flipped them, re-duplicated them and that completed the master. The rest of the pieces were made by taping the master in various positions on more pieces of hardboard. Here are various shots of that operation.

The rectangle is where the waste will be removed.

Line up the mark from the master with the one on the part you are making. Tape them together and rout one side. Then do the other.

Here is the bottom cloudlift. Just flip the master.

Here are all the finished templates.

And here are the finished rails dry fitted.

Thats enough for today. I think I’ll have a beer. I deserve it <o>

I won’t bore anyone with making tenons.

It’s coming along pretty well. I’ll be shaping cloud lifts by Saturday.