Shaker Chimney Cupboard - Part 3 finishing the interior

 In the last post on this build, I talked about the housing dados that I cut.  To finish the interior, I had three operations I needed to complete: cutting out the angled feet, putting grooves in the back of the sides to accept the rear panel, half blind dovetails in the top front and rear of the sides to accept the top front and rear pieces.

Running the Grooves

For this, I was going to use the Veritas skew plane.  I haven't used this tool a lot yet so this will help give me some experience with it.  Given the long grooves I need to make, I should get some good experience for this project.  After running the first groove, I finished off the bottom and sides with a shoulder plane.  The groove looked pretty good, however I eventually discovered that the fence moved and I hadn't noticed it.  As such, the groove wasn't a uniform distance from the rear edge.  To fix it, I glued in some thing offcuts of cherry and then used a combo of chisel and shoulder plane.  Now the groove was uniform and given the location for this error (rear of case) it will likely never be seen.

Cutting out the feet

Was pretty easy to mark these out and then cut with a mixture of saws and chisels and rasps to clean up the newly formed edge.  I got more breakout that I would have like on the chisel work but that was completely due to me being aggressive and not sensitive to the work.  Unless someone gets on their belly and then looks underneath, it will never be seen.  Still, it is a reminder to myself to be sensitive when working.  No good can come from beating on the wood.

Half blind dovetails

Cutting the two horizontal pieces with the tails was straightforward.  Given the length of the vertical pieces, it was a bit challenging to set things up so that I could transfer with my marking knife the tails locations.  I found a way.  Needed to use a ladder for the sawing but that is ok.  For half blind dovetails, the way I was taught by Paul Sellers is that you don't need to cut close to the knife lines.  It's chisel work on half blinds that gets you to the final distances.  They came out pretty good all things considered.

Glue Up

In order to get deeper clamping, I used this project as an excuse to buy some Bessy clamps that have a bigger head.  I wanted to get more pressured deeper into the sides.  I am sure I could have rigged up some sort of wooden cauls.  Again, I just used this is an excuse.  One thing I am really fussy about doing is a practice dry run for glue ups.  Though its still stressful gluing up something this big, it was reasonably uneventful.  I did the glue up in two steps.  The first day, I glued up the center horizontal divider so that way I would have less clamping directions to worry about when doing the main carcass.  I didn't talk much about this piece but I did keep grain direction in mind so that way it would be able to move with the main carcass and not create a cross grain situation.

I did have my wife help me as the pieces are big and heavy and I just want to avoid a crisis.  The other thing I do is now use Titebond liquid hide glue.  It has a longer open time and this helps my stress level as well.  I almost always leave things overnight so its longer dry time isn't really an issue for me.

With this all behind, this piece is starting to look like furniture.  Still a lot to do but I kind of felt like the "hard" part was behind me.  This was mostly true but I did done some bone headed use a bigger hammer to pound things together that created problems but I will save that for the next post. 

Hands Made of Iron

 Not really.  When I started woodworking six years ago with hand tools, I found that my hands would be sore.  This went on for years.  At some point, they stopped becoming sore.  I was  happy about this as my hands had finally built up whatever muscles needed strengthening; same with my shoulders and arms.  Two days ago, my company had a holiday get together.  It was a lot of fun; especially so given the last 20 months or so of sheltering in place.

The celebration was at a bowling alley and we bowled.  I used to bowl in grammar and high school.  I liked bowling.  When my career settled down, I joined a bowling league the large company I was at had and even got my grammar school bowling partner to join.  Bought a new ball and we had a lot of fun.  The one thing I noticed was that my bowling hand would hurt after bowling.  Tried tweaking the finger holes, etc.  I found no remedy to stop my hand from hurting.  After one or two seasons, I stopped bowling because of it.  When I joined another large company that had a bowling league (at the same lanes I did league in grammar school), I didn't join it based on recent hand pane.  The few times I had bowled since my hands would hurt after bowling even using lane balls.  

It had been about 7 or 8 years since I last bowled meaning I hadn't bowled since I had started woodworking.  I fully expected my bowling hand to be sore the next day.  It wasn't.  I was very happy about this and am smiling as I type this.  Woodworking has made my hands stronger.  They are not hands of iron but it looks like I can bowl pain free.  I'm very happy about this.  Hmmm, need to see what local bowling leagues are out there.

Shaker Chimney Cupboard - Part 2

The first step was to lay out all the boards and choose the best orientation possible.  Fortunately, the wood that I had was all pretty good so it would have been hard to make a bad choice.  The boards were long and heavy (mostly 1x12's of cherry).  As such, I cut it into rough lengths for the sides and shelves.  Though long boards, conventional hold downs work well to secure the wood for rough cuting.  Rough cross cutting a 1x12 goes quickly.  I actually don't mind cross cutting wood.

Once the wood was to rough length, I used a series of hand planes to get it smooth, square and twist free.  Since I started with S4S wood, this was fairly straight forward.  Took a while but that was mostly due to the size of the piece I was making.  As with all my projects, I sharpened up all my tools before the start of this.

The big decision I had to make was whether I wanted a fixed or adjustable shelf in the cabinets.  Given it's intended use to hold bath towels, etc I figured a fixed shelf would be fine.  I really don't like the way most adjust shelving looks on a a case.  When I eventually make book shelves, I plan to go with fixed shelving as well.  I will take a look at heights of the longer books I own so I will have one shelf that will fit them and then more conventional widths.

Given that this  shaker cabinet has a small face frame, I didn't need to debate whether to use stopped housing dados or full dados.  Full through dado's are a bit easier as I can saw down the sides.  Though the dado's were long and there were a lot of them, I quite like chopping them out.  Most of the shelves got a nice friction fit.

One of the tools that I received several Christmas's ago has really come in handy.  I received a 24" beam for my engineering square.  I use it quite often.  On pieces such as this, it really comes in handy.  Really happy I have it.  With that done, it was time to move onto the rebate in the back and that will be the next post.

Update on My 6 Month Pledge to Not Buy Tools or Wood

 Back in March I had made a pledge to my wife on a PostIt Note that I wouldn't buy wood or tools until November.  She promptly taped it up on the bathroom mirror.  Since now it is now November, thought I'd provide an update on how I did.  

I wasn't perfect but I did really good.  I didn't buy any tools for 6 months.  Even passed up on some really good used tool deals in the local woodworking club I belong to.  As for wood, I broke the pledge once.  For the Shaker chimney cabinet, I had planned to use 3/8" cherry in the front and back frame and panel.  The wood dried and developed a cup in it.  I thought I could flatten it out enough during glue ups to make it fit.  In little test sections, I could but when I tried the dry fit for the whole frame and panel.  I had to make a choice on what to do.  Given the size of the work, my first time working on this scale, I decided to break the pledge on buy some Baltic birch for the back and cherry veneered stuff for the front.  

So yes, I broke the pledge however, that was the only time.  In that regard, I was very happy with how well I did.  

With Christmas coming up, I haven't gone tool crazy.  Also, I have enough wood at home to make some other items before I get to the item I really want to make.  The next piece that I really want to make is a Limbert No 355 bookcase.  I want to make it out of Honduran Mahogany.  It's a wood I haven't worked with and I think it will look nice with this piece.  The wood will be spendy so I need to save up for it.

Shaker Chimney Cupboard - Part 1

 In the Mar/Apr 2013 issue of Fine Woodworking (FWW#232), the cover piece was a Shaker chimney cupboard cabinet built by Mike Pekovich.  Though I hadn't started woodworking at the time, I knew I was close (I had a decade of excuses for not starting - would make for a good blog someday).  I immediately fell in love with this piece.  I must not be alone as there was a video series and DVD that followed.  I really wanted to make it and put this on my mental list as my first dream piece to make.

When I say dream piece, at the time, I didn't have the skills yet to make it.  Some day I would and till then, I could just dream of making it.  In fact, at the time, I couldn't even imagine the order of operations.  In late 2015 (6 years ago), I started woodworking.  Fast forward to 2021 and I now have made this dream piece.  It came out pretty good.  I made it out of cherry.  Since I don't have a bandsaw or planer or jointer, I worked with a local millworks company to provide me with S4S'd "1x12" cherry.  I spent about $1,000 and got twice as much cherry as I needed.  That would allow me to pick the parts for this piece.  Left over wood would get used in another project.  The left over wood will likely become the "15 drawer chest" that Christian Becksvoort has designed (C.H. Becksvoort - Welcome (chbecksvoort.com))  I want to upgrade my shop storage space and Becksvoort piece will be perfect for that.

The wood arrived in Aug 2020.  Though it is kiln dried, I still like it to sit in the shop for a long time before use.  Ideally, 6 months to a year before I need it.  Yes, this is likely overkill.  So be it.  I even get satisfaction of seeing the raw wood just sitting there knowing what it will become.  I started working on it in July 2021 and finished in Sep 2021.  It took 190 hours.

There were many challenges along the way and I learned a lot.  There were a few big boo boos but I managed to fix them.  I am very happy with the way it turned out.  Of course, it could be better.  That comes with time.  I made it as best I can at this point.

For the finish, I kept it simple.  Freshly made garnet shellac on the outside and blond shellac on the inside followed by wax polish.  It is being used in our guest bathroom to hold towels.  In our master bathroom (which gets more humid), we have an inexpensive one that we use to hold towels.  If I even get the bug to make a second one, I will replace the Ikea one.  My wife is happy.  There piece is a transition to larger work I have planned for the home.  All in all life is good.  

The next post will focus on rough cutting stock and dado layouts.

Paul Seller's Clock out of Mesquite

 About 4 or 5 years ago, my brother was living in Austin, TX.  I took my family and we spend a nice Christmas there.  Texas is quite beautiful and we saw many things.  While there, I went to Woodcraft near Austin.  I picked up about some mesquite wood and planned to build a Paul Sellers clock out of it.  I have built about 5 or 6 of these clocks in the past and like them.  They make great gifts.  Plus, since it is my doing the same piece over and over, I get to see how my skill has evolved over time.  The mesquite would add a nice touch and be great way to remember my Christmas holiday trip to my brother.

The clock finally made it to the top of the list.  I was excited as I have never worked with mesquite before.  I mostly work in cherry (I like the way it looks) but I really enjoy trying different woods.  Part of what makes woodworking fun is experiencing the uniqueness of different woods.  

Mesquite did not disappoint.  It is really hard stuff and must dull my irons a factor of 5 or 10 more quickly than cherry.  I just sharpened more frequently.  Despite being so hard, it is also brittle.  Needless to say, I pressed on.  The fragrance of mesquite is amazing.  In fact, I saved all the shavings and gave them to my nephew as he is a huge bbq'er.  I am sure this will be much more fragrant than the mesquite you buy at the store.

I finished it with blond shellac and the wood took on a lovely color.  As best I can tell, the wood will darken over time.  This will be nice, 

The wood was not without it's challenges.  I found working against the grain (as happened for some of the grooves) resulted in some big tear out unlike I've seen with other woods.  Superglue was very helpful.  This won't be my last Paul Seller's clock.  Christmas is coming up and I might make a few more for family.  However, I will make them out of something softer such as walnut.  That's a really nice wood to work with hand tools.  In fact, a few clocks ago, I made some plywood templates for the Paul Seller's clock.  That makes it even more fun when I build it as there is less measuring and more direct marking.  It takes me about 20  hours to make a clock out of cherry.  The mesquite clock took about 23 hours.  Curious to see how long it takes to make one out of relatively soft walnut.