Saturday's All Right For Making Saw Dust

The remnants of hurricane Noel were passing off the coast today, making for a chilly and overcast day. So I went out into the shop and worked on the joinery for the cabinet. It turned out to be a good day, work wise, though I did scream at one point. No one was hurt, though I wanted to hurt something at one point.

The first order of business was to cut all the leg glue-ups to size. The blanks are 3" long & started out roughly 2.5" x 2.5". I won't tell you what procedure I used to rip them, because I really didn't do it in a very safe way. I thought about it later & realized that, given the size of each blank, I should have actually used my band saw to rip them. This would have been a lot safer. Luckily, I can still count to 10 without removing my shoes. But this isn't what made me scream.

The next operation was to cut the birds mouth joints on the 6" wide sides. The first step was to get a piece of scrap from the oak to use as a test piece. I ended up two offcuts. One was the actual test piece and the second was a piece only about 1/2" long. I used this piece to help lay out the birds mouth on the end of the test piece.

To lay it out, I used my combo square to draw a 45° line from one corner. Then I layed the 1/2" long piece against that line & drew another line that was square to the first & interesected the opposite face. Here's a picture of the test piece taken after the birds mouth was cut, but you can see the remaining layout lines on the end.

Next, I set the blade to 45°. I took my zero clearance insert (ZCI) out of the table saw's throat and inserted the original stock throat plate. I next noticed that the original plate wasn't flat; I don't remember bending it, but it clearly wasn't flat. I tried to make it flat but then I noticed a crack on one side. I guess this was defective from the factory, but since I don't use it often, I'm not going to worry about it.

Using a plastic drafting triangle, I set the saw's bevel angle to 45°. I then used a piece of scrap plywood & using the procedure in John White's Care and Repair of Shop Machines, I verified that the blade was actually at 45°.

Now I placed the rip fence on the left of the blade (my saw is a left tilt) and set it to 6" (the width of the boards I needed to cut) and set up a feather board. Finally, I was ready to make a test cut.

I only pushed the board in enough to nick the corner. I had no idea if the blade was going to cut in the right place or not, so I needed to see where the blade actually cut to make sure I had the rip fence right. Sure enough, I had to move the fence further away about 1/8" or so before the blade was cutting exactly where I wanted it.

Again, I didn't take a cut down the whole length of the board. I had to adjust the height of the blade until it cut to the exact depth I needed. A couple of adjustments and it was there, so I ran the whole length & verified the cut was OK down the whole length.

Next I ran the two boards for the base cabinet. I had to put the outside faces down to get the cut right. After these two were run, I ran the boards for the upper case. These cuts all went fine.

Now that these were done, I grabbed my test piece and turned it over. I had to adjust the fence, moving it in to get the blade to cut in the right place. I also had to lower the blade--I wanted to sneak up on the right height. Once all of the settings were on, I made a full cut to make sure the set up was good.

I ran the boards for the base cabinet. These ran fine and I got great birds mouths. I ran the first board for the upper cabinet. As I finished making the cut, I noticed that somehow, I had run the board with the wrong side down! This is when I started screaming. Unfortunately, my son was home & he heard me. He had no idea what was wrong -- I think I scared him.

So I turned off the saw, hung up my apron, and went inside to cool down. I was much too angry with myself right then to be anywhere near power tools. After watching a little TV, playing some Lego Star Wars I with my son, and eating a sandwhich for lunch, I figured out how I was going to recover from the mistake.

What I decided to do was to finish the remaining board, then reset the saw back for the first cut. Then I'd cut the screwed up board with the opposite face up. This would give me a birds mouth on the same edge, but oriented in the direction opposite of the intended direction. Essentially, the face I intended to show would become the inside face & vice-versa. The interior face was OK, except for one knot I wanted to hide, but it's going to show now. I'll have to fill it with epoxy or something when I finish.

After that, I set up the dado stack & cut all the rabbets. Each board I had just cut a birds mouth on needed a rabbet on the opposite and top edges of the inside face, and three edges of the top / bottom shelves needed rabbets, too. These went fine.

Next, the boards with the bird mouths & rabbets needed dados for the bottom shelves 3" up from the bottom edges. It took me a while to zero in on the correct dado width to make this cut. This was because I forgot that a 3/32" chipper was thicker than a 1/16" chipper. Once I had the right chipper installed, with the right size & number of shims, I got fantastic dados.

Here are the inside faces of the finished base cabinet sides showing all of the joinery cut into them. The bird mouth joints are on the outside and the rabbets are next to each other. The dados are at the bottoms and the short rabbets are at the top.

The sides for the upper cabinet are similar, just longer. All of the joinery is in essentially the same places.

And finally, here is a sample top / bottom shelf with the three rabbets cut in them. The three pieces for the back will fit into these rabbets and be glued & brad nailed through the sides into the shelves. The brad holes won't show because the backs will be against the walls. I'll have to be careful to angle the nailer so the nails don't blow out through the inside face of the plywood. And that was my day in the shop. It turned out to be a productive one with only one mistake. I still have an issue to deal with from that mistake -- the one birds mouth that I screwed up has a kerf in the middle of it. I believe I will mix up some Bondo & force it into the kerf. The bondo will be stronger than regular wood filler and will never show, since it will be hidden in the middle of a joint, and the ends will be either sitting on top of the base cabinet or covered by a top molding.

Tomorrow, if I get into the shop, I'll dry fit everything I've made so far & cut all of the back pieces to final length & width.

Cutting Plywood

With this post, I'll have brought everyone up to date with this project. From the next post on out, you'll be learning of stuff I've done within 24-48 hours of my actually doing it.

A quick recap: I have all of the stock, both solid white oak and plywood. I've laid out all of the parts on the stock. I've ordered and even received all of the hardware. I've determined in what order I'm going to make the parts & put everything together. I've cut out a pattern for the top & bottom shelves. Time to cut up some plywood!

My first task was to get the garage set up for breaking down the plywood. Those of you who have read my postings on WoodNet may have read that my "shop" is actually a 1 car garage, 10' wide by 24' long. I have to share it with our minivan in the winter. But right now, it's all mine. I also have a shed attached to the side of the garage. The only way in or out is a double door with a pad lock. My chop saw, bench top drill press, routers, circular & jig saws, thickness planer, and all my wood live in the shed when not in use.

In the garage, I use 2 metal folding sawhorses with three 2x4's on top, and a partial sheet of 1/4" plywood on top of them as a work table. This is where I do most of my glue-ups, all of my chiseling, sanding, etc. When I do big glue-ups, I just use the saw horses to hold the pieces at a comfortable height. This arrangement is far from optimal, and I'll do something about it one of these days. For now, I just make do.

This work table normally sits butted up against the only unbroken long wall in the garage. For this operation, I wanted the saw horses in the middle of the garage with two of the 2x4's on it. This would let me get to all sides of the sheet & keep me from cutting into the top of my work surface (something I've done in the past).

Using my new panel carrier (shown in the picture below), I carried a sheet of my oversize plywood from the shed to the garage by myself. This was pretty cool since I needed my wife's help to get the sheet out of the van & carry it into the shed when I brought it home. Lifting with the carrier was much easier than trying to lift the sheet up so I could get one hand under it. All I had to do was lift one corner & slide the the channel underneath. Once the sheet was in the channel, I grabbed the top edge of the sheet in the middle with my left hand, held on to the handle of the carrier with my right, bent my knees & lifted. Piece of cake!

I did get a little assistance putting the sheet up on the saw horses. I was afraid that I'd drop the sheet & mess up the good face, knowing my butter fingers & how Murphy likes to look over my shoulder. Thankfully, Mary & I were able to get the sheet up on the sawhorses & 2x4s without trouble.

Now I referred to my pattern for the top / bottom shelves. I measured it's width & length, then added 1/4" to each dimension. This is the size of the blanks I needed to cut for the shelves. This turned out to be 18 5/8" x 33 1/4".

Starting at one end of the sheet, I cut two pieces 33 1/4" long by the width of the sheet using my circular saw & home made cutting guide. Before I made the cut, I did use my speed square to ensure that the corners of the plywood were really square.

I carried another sheet of plywood out of the shed into the garage and set it up on the sawhorses & 2x4's with my son's help (he's only 8, but he's a big boy!) I then referred to my drawings for the rough dimensions of the back pieces. These turned out to be 22" x 26" for the base cabinet and 22" x 41 for the upper cabinet. I then repeated the steps I used to cross cut the parts for the shelves and cross cut two pieces for the wide backs.

After cleaning up, I put the saw horses back in their normal position & set my work table back up. Then I pulled out my table saw & ripped the four pieces of plywood into the blanks I needed. The large pieces left over from cross cutting the sheets with the circular saw went back into the shed. They were a lot lighter going back than they were coming out!

With the rip cuts done, it was time to cut the shelves to rough shape. I placed the pattern onto a shelf blank and clamped it down so the pattern wouldn't move. I placed witness marks on the blank so I could relocate the pattern in the same spot when I was done rough cutting.

I then took a 1/8" wide strip I had left over from another project that was lying around the shed. I cut a length about 2' long off of it with a hand saw and placed that next to one edge of the pattern. I then drew a straight line using the strip as my guide. I repeated this on all sides of the pattern. Next I removed the strip, clamps, and the pattern & made a series of cuts to get the blanks to rough shape.

The set up for the first cut is shown below. The 12" K-bodies are holding the blank to my work table so it won't fall or move. The 6" Tradesman clamps are holding the straight edge guide to the blank.

I made a series of similar cuts to get the blank to rough shape & size. I then repeated this process with the other three blanks. When I was done, I had four shelves that were larger than I needed with some tear out. They weren't all the precise shape they needed to be.

Next I chucked a 3/4" flush trimming bit up in my DW621 plunge router. I then attached the pattern to a shelf with double stick tape (see below). I turned the pieces over so the pattern was on the bottom. Next, I set the height of the bit so the bearing bit rode against the pattern & full thickness of the shelf was cut by the cutter. One pass all the way around, followed by some sanding of the edges of the blank with 80 grit paper on a block to clean up the edges, and I had a finished shelf.

The last thing I did last weekend was to plane the white oak I got from Condon's that will become the 6" wide front sides to thickness and ripped them to rough width. With some luck, I'll get back into the shop this weekend and make some more sawdust!

Making the Top / Bottom Shelf Pattern

The cabinet body, and it's shelves, are all six sided figures. Each carcase has permanently attached top & bottom shelves. Both of these shelves have to be identical. So there is a total of four (4) shelves that have to be cut exactly the same. Due to the angles and dimensions, it's hard to cut this shape on a table saw & get right once, let alone multiple time. So just how do you ensure that all four shelves will be identical?

The answer is to use a pattern. We carefully cut one shelf to size & shape using a cheaper material, in case we screw up & have to do it again. Once the pattern is created, we can then use it to lay out the four copies. These are then cut out over size using a circular saw and a straight edge guide. Lastly, the rough cut shelves are cut to final size & shape using a bearing guided straight bit in a router.

I had picked up a couple of quarter sheets of 3/4" thick MDF from Home Depot a week before the lumber arrived. Home Depot calls these "handy panels". They're a lot lighter than full sheets of MDF. One of these would become the pattern for the fixed shelves. The other will become the pattern for the adjustable shelves when I get around to cutting them.

I carefully laid out the shape of the top & bottom on one piece. The results can be seen in the picture below.

The next step was to cut off the waste on the left side of the pattern. Here's the set-up I used to make this cut. And yes, I'm positive this speed square is indeed square, and that the 45° corners are indeed truely 45°.

I lined up my guide with cut line. Then I clamped my speed square to the blank to make sure it wouldnt't move & to keep the guide square. Then the guide was clamped to the blank. The whole set up is sitting on top of 4 pieces of scrap to keep them elevated above the work surface. Next the speed square is removed & the cut is made.

Now I removed the waste in the upper right-hand corner of the blank. Here's what that set up looked like.

The speed square was clamped to ensure the saw would cut at a true 45° angle to the edge. I started on this side because I had the greatest confidence in the measurements of that corner.

After making this cut, I then cut the other 45° corner off using a similar set up. I wanted to make sure that these two cuts met at a true 90° angle. Here's what the pattern looked like after these two cuts were done.

Now it's time to cut off the short corners. To do this, I turned to my table saw. I set up the rip fence so that the saw would cut off the short corner opposite the long edge I placed against the fence. This takes advantage of the fact that the short corner is parallel to the long edge opposite it. The following picture might make this clearer.

After making this cut, I then rotated the blank 90° and repeated the cut with the fence unmoved. This is what the blank looks like after these cuts are made.

Just one cut left, to form the short edge parallel to the long front edge. This was done by adjusting the fence to the right value & cutting. The finished pattern can be seen below.

After cutting it out, I compared the length of the right short side to the left short side and they are within 1/16" of each other. This is close enough for me; an observer will never be able to see that difference. I am extremely happy with the way this pattern turned out. Thank you, Jesus!

Next: Cutting Plywood