I am now down to a short list of activities for this project and getting excited. For the hinges, I went with my default choice. I like the quality and price from Horton Brasses. I like that they include steel screws with the brass screws so that I can get the wood holes pre-threaded prior to use of brass screws. I have a few experiences in past projects where I have snapped a brass screw on install despite being careful. As such, I am now even more careful when using the final brass screws.
Inletting the hinges is something I really enjoy doing by hand (so much so I must have forgotten to take any photos while doing it). It's the one area where that small Lie Nielsen router comes in handy. Certainly a not needed tool but I like trying to use my tools if I own them so I feel like a tool user than a tool collector. Are any of us not tool collectors though? I've given up all premise of being a minimal tool worker. Just want to keep number of tools not too crazy.
As for the door handle, I didn't like the way the Popular Woodworking did it. PW created a sloped groove on the side for your hand to slide into to open the cabinet. While that would work just fine, I wanted to do something different. What I did was take a bit of the left over figured maple and made a little rectangular nub that would stick out. Just a different approach and I'm fine with that. I wasn't after an exact replica.
The door fit very well and there was minimal fitting needed to the opening.
As for the finish, I went with my default cherry finish. I prepared 1-1/2 garnet shellac in denatured ethanol (that doesn't use MeOH as the denaturing agent; I was out of Everclear as I can only buy that when i am out of CA). It's funny how shellac transforms a piece. I spend so many hours working on a piece. Though I can see how lovely it looks, the shellac finish announces to the world that the piece is beautiful and ready. After multiple coats of shellac, with some 400ish grit synthetic sanding pad midway through shellac process to denib, I waxed after about a week.
From there, attached the back, glued on the french cleat (checking at least three times so I didn't glue it in backwards), and attached the door. What I love about French cleats is how super simple it is to install the piece. Took all of 15 minutes to put the mirror image cleat on the wall (technically I go 1/4" shorter in length on wall part so easier to get cabinet on). I'm very happy with how this came out. Perfect? Ha! Not by a long shot. Plenty of errors like most of us have. Still, when I see this piece everyday, I smile because I know I made it and spent on the order of 100 hours fussing over it. Where it's located, the dovetails are a bit hard to see but that is ok. I know they are there and I'm not trying to impress anyone. My favorite bit is on the inside where there is some sort of sap pocket inclusion on the wood (and a separate place on the inside that has a knot). I really like features on board that show where it came from. My sensibilities put these out of site but every time I open up the cabinet I start at these real world tree imperfections. My wife even really likes these imperfections. She even said as much and I hadn't told her my thoughts. Again, one of a thousand reasons why I married well.
Great looking cabinet!
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