| Blog series by JeremyPringle | updated 183 days ago | 17 parts | 24835 reads | 51 comments total |
Part 1: And so it begins.
A few months ago I bought two nice pieces of highly figured maple. 8/4, 9” wide and about 4’ long. And the best part… I got it cheap. So it has been in my shop while I sat around trying to decide what to do with it. I made up my mind. About 16 months ago I made a spice cabinet out of pine and dyed it to look like walnut. I love it, loved everything about it. But I want to make another one, a better one, one from awesome wood. So, thats what I am going to do. This is...
Part 2: Half blinds for the top.
Since I want to dovetail the case. but I dont want any of them to show, because I dont want to distract from the wood and the shape of the finsihed product, I am going to use half blind DT’s to join the side to the top. I am going to use moulding to cover the DT’s so they do not show. Step one. Marking everything. I use two marking gauges with wheel cutters. I set them both and I leave them alone until I am done cutting the HB’s. That way if I have to remark somethin...
Part 3: Long division... the short way.
I spent the last few days trying to decide on my drawer layout, as it has a huge effect on the next step. Since I am done the top, bottom and both sides, its time to make and fit the inside drawer partitions. I decided on 5 levels of drawers. I also decided to graduate them. There are a few ways that this could have been done. One of them would include measuring and math and blah, blah, blah. Too much work and too time consuming. I prefer to use dividers to do this task. I first r...
Part 4: Pictoral of making the graduated drawers
I was re-reading my last blog entry, and boy.. was that dry. So I decided to take a bunch of pictures that will better explain the process. I found my wifes tripod and stole her camera. So… here we go.I make my start and stop point with a pencil.Set one set of dividers to the thickness of the drawer blades.Step off 4 with the dividers for the 4 drawer blades.Step off 10 more. The 10 comes from the other drawers. As each drawer is larger than the one above it by the thickness of one...
Part 5: Making the stopped dados for the drawer blades.
Now that all the marking on the drawer sides is done, its time to cut the stopped dado’s for the drawer blades. As seen in the picture, these are the tools that I will be using. I am going to be using my plane stop to hold the work instead of a vice, this gives me some mobility while I am working and I can move the wood as I need. Then there is a 1/4 chisel, crosscut carcass saw, router plane with a 3/16 blade and an x-acto knife. I use a drafting square and the knife to scribe ...
Part 6: Turkey for you?
Since everyone knows that this weekend is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada… which basically means two things. Hockey season has started, and its going to snow soon. So while the family was busy making turkey and stuffing and all the fixin’s, I was able to sneak away and get a few pictures taken and rest of the drawer blades and dividers done and installed. Since the last entry, I cut dado’s in the horizontal blades for the vertical blades using the same method that I u...
Part 7: A series of unfortunate events.
Well, unfortunately I have not been able to get any more work done on the spice cabinet since last post. But that does not mean I have not been busy. Quite the opposite in fact. I have been very, very busy working on some commission projects. My shop looks like it has become a box factory. I spent 4 days making 6 apple crates for a local flower boutique. I burned in the name of the shop and a bee on every crate and nailed it all together. I tried to make them look as ‘rustic’ as I c...
Part 8: #8 Return of the Jedi......
It has been close to 5 months since my last post, and thats not because I have been lazy. Its been 5 months because I have not touched this project in almost 5 months. But I am so happy to finally be back working on it. The last 5 months have brought about job changes, family crisis’, multiple commissions and a ton of everything else to take away my time to work on my personal project. I had left off with the carcass dry assembled, and I had finished making the drawer blades out o...
Part 9: The blade master, and I'm not talking lightsabers!
Hello again. It has been quite a week. I have been able to get work done every night so far this week and I have made some good progress. I left off #8 getting the three horizontal drawer blades sized and fitted. So I’ll pick up there. To fit the rest of the blades, I had to cut them to size. I used my crosscut carcass saw and a bench hook to get them close. Then I used my plane stop and planed them really close to thickness. I had to use the toothed blade for most of them and...
Part 10: Half-blind DT pictorial.
Hello again, welcome back. In the last week I have been making the drawers for the spice cabinet. There are 14 in total. That meant there was A LOT of sawing and planning to get all my drawer sides and back to thickness and width. Since I have gone through that process already, I did not feel taking pictures would be very important. Even though I have covered dovetails already, since I am going to be doing it for the next week, I decided to do a more detailed pictorial of the process. ...
Part 11: Mantra adjustment, moulding & ogee feet
Well, it only took 3 weeks, but I finally finished cutting all the drawers. Time to make some moulding and the ogee feet. But I have run into somewhat of an expected/unexpected issue. When I started this project I was determined to do everything with hand tools. So far I have been mostly successful. Until now. I think a lot of this is also due to my blissful ignorance. I knew that I was going to run into some issues, but I decided to ignore them and try to deal with them when they ca...
Part 12: Drawers and double door
I have been slacking quite a bit on this project. I was at the point where I needed to plane all the drawer fronts to final thickness and glue them up and nail the bottoms on. Well I have my next project picked out and that means I have to finsh this one. And I find that when I am working on a project I am really excited about it, and this is no exception. Once I finally got to planing the fronts and assemblying the drawers, I started to see that this project is getting close to done! ...
Part 13: Computer issues.
it has been about a month since my last post, and I just wanted to keep you all posted with my progress. Unfortunately my PC has decided to have some issues, and since I am not very computer sauvy it is taking quite a while to fix it. I am using my wife’s tablet right now. I am still working, and i am taking pictures, so once the computer is fixed I will post some more. Thanks,Jeremy
Part 14: Completing the double arch door
Once again I find myself apologizing to all who are following this build. Three months ago we ended up having to get a new computer. And right at the same time, I ended up getting a few smaller commissions. Once those were done, there was little time left to get everything made for an art show that was this past weekend. Now.. I can finally get onto the rest of this project. I am going to try my best to get this done before my next commission which is in the design process right now, and...
Part 15: Dying and Boiled linseed oil
I am happy to report that I activly working on this project until I get it done. I am so close to being done that I cant see myself setting it aside again. Also, I have a couple of large jobs coming up and I need the space. Since last time, when everything was planed to fit and everything tightened up. I just made sure everything was flat and smooth and sliding/fitting nicly. Ready for the finish. I may have mentioned it already, but I am using aniline dye for the colour, and the co...
Part 16: Cutting shellac
I am on the final stages of this project.For a final finish I chose amber shellac, for a few different reasons.1. I love the orange tinge and warmth is gives the fnished product.2. It is a traditional finish, it has been around and has been used for thousands of years.3. I enjoy the process. I buy my shellac in flake form (right) on the left is seedlac, the same product but you can buy it in different forms depending on what you are using it for. The seedlac is some I borrowed from a Luth...
Part 17: And now we return for the exciting conclusion!!!
DONE!!! D-O-N-E, DONE!!! A note before I continue. I will explain what I have done in the last week, but because the process is quite time consuming and messy, I did not have my camera set up, so I have very few picture of the process. Basically what I did, I brushed on 4 more coats of the amber shellac that I mixed up. Sanding gently between coats. Then I wiped on 4 more coats of a clear ‘french polish’ finish that you can buy. I let it cure for 2 days until I was sur...
