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Mike's tool cupboard build (finished)

This is where we don't want anything but evidence of your finest wood butchering in all its glorious, and photograph laden glory. Bring your finished products or WIP's, we love them all, so long as there's pictures, and plenty of 'em!

Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 6)

Postby Jonathan » 05 Oct 2019, 13:40

Nice cupboard Mike!
10 draws....I would have to get the router jig out!
I'm working on a big face frame jobby at the moment with 27 draws all different sizes....took approximately 2 days to cut the dovetails...

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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 6)

Postby Mike G » 05 Oct 2019, 18:50

First job today was to clean up the door boxes and offer them up:

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I had previously routed most of a rebate out for some ply:

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Now that the corners were together I could complete those rebates:

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Then glue and pin the ply:

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And offer up into place:

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You may remember from a day or two ago where I said the vertical dividers above the "worktop" would form a useful purpose in due course.....well, here it is:

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With a little rubbing strip on the underside of the door, these vertical pieces will help take the weight of the door off the hinges somewhat. Otherwise, loaded down with tools over the years there would be a tendency to sag.

Right, onto dovetails. I started these at about 2.15 this afternoon. Here is an alternative way of marking out the gauge line around the ends of all the boards. As usual with woodworking, there are a dozen ways to skin most cats, and using a chisel to mark the line is extremely quick and clean. An off-cut of the drawer material is pinned to a board to hold everything together, and the board for marking is held against it, vertically. You then just pull the chisel across the scrap cutting a line on the face of the drawer board:

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I almost always start with the tail boards (the drawer sides). Using this technique, I only have to mark out once, despite having 20 drawer sides (ie 40 joints) to cut. I marked out the tails on the ends of 4 boards, and cut them:

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Then, marking one of the boards as "P" (pattern), I take that one off and spin the pile over, before replacing the "P" board at the other end. I mark 2 or 3 right angle lines, but that's all:

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The saw then follows the kerf of the pattern board. Rinse and repeat, cutting 4 boards at a time until you've finished. Then, again with 4 boards, cut out the waste with a coping saw (I'll show later why this is unavoidable):

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That saw was in the £1 bargain bin at my local hardware shop about 25 years ago. You don't need anything more than that.

This is why you need to saw the waste away. This is my narrowest chisel (1/4"). I could make a cut about 1mm above the gauge line only because of the width of the pin mortise, and if you tried to chop out waste from there you'd A/ get pushed back into or past the gauge line, and B/ jam all the waste in tightly into the triangle above:

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A couple of hours of chiseling (and using a marking knife to clean up into the corners), and I'd done all the tail boards. That was 4 hours work altogether. It's like cycling........if you keep turning the pedals you get there in the end:

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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 7)

Postby Malc2098 » 06 Oct 2019, 11:25

:text-goodpost:
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 7)

Postby MY63 » 06 Oct 2019, 12:53

It looks pretty simple when someone else is doing it but I am going to have a go at dovetails as soon as I catch up.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 7)

Postby RogerS » 06 Oct 2019, 16:04

Those look very narrow pin sockets to me. Aren't you worried that the pins won't snap off ?
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 7)

Postby Mike G » 06 Oct 2019, 16:46

They're fine, Roger. Probably a bit finer than typical in pine, but there's no problem.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 7)

Postby Woodbloke » 07 Oct 2019, 12:32

It's amazing how quickly pine drawer sides wear; when I made a very quick pine dresser some years ago for my daughter, I glued on a 6mm strip of iroko to the underside of each drawer side and a corresponding 'wear strip' onto the carcase and to date, there's no wear apparent - Rob
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 7)

Postby Mike G » 07 Oct 2019, 13:32

I've often in the past glued in a strip of melamine edging onto the runners. It keeps things running smoothly, and hugely reduces wear. I'm probably just going to wax these, though, because A/ it's only a workshop cupboard, and B/ there are sticks of wax all over the place out there, and re-waxing is therefore the job of seconds.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 7)

Postby Woodbloke » 07 Oct 2019, 16:58

Mike G wrote:I've often in the past glued in a strip of melamine edging onto the runners. It keeps things running smoothly, and hugely reduces wear. I'm probably just going to wax these, though, because A/ it's only a workshop cupboard, and B/ there are sticks of wax all over the place out there, and re-waxing is therefore the job of seconds.

Sounds a plan Mike - Rob
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 7)

Postby Mike G » 07 Oct 2019, 19:51

My weekend didn't go exactly as I'd planned. I did half a day Saturday, and a couple of hours only on Sunday. With a couple of hours today I am still behind where I thought I might be. Never mind...... First job was to start painting the door boxes:

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Four coats later:

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I'm planting a false frame on the front to cover the join between ply and pine, hence the unpainted margin. Here's the start of that false frame:

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....and then hours later:

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That was all going on during the cutting of half a million pin boards. I reckon the pin-boards part of this is about 4 hours work:

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They're all dry fitted, so of course I had to knock them all apart afterwards. If anyone here finds themselves cutting lots of drawers by hand like this, my biggest tip is to be very very organised and methodical. Keep boards in neat piles. Mark the outside of the drawer on each piece. Mark where the groove will be. Number each piece. Put a letter to each corner, in the same place. When you are offering boards up for marking it is terribly easy to lose where you are, so having a fool-proof marking system is critical. Clear your bench, line your tools up, and work methodically through the pile.

When you need to take a stretch after an hour or two of doing the same thing over and over, take on another short task. I did the painting, above, through the process of doing the pin boards. I also did the skirting board around the bottom of the unit:

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OK, that also involved some dovetails, because mitred corners in a workshop are only going to get kicked open, or bashed open with a broom or a piece of wood......but nonetheless it was a few minutes respite from doing the drawers.

Once they were all made and dry fitted, I knocked all the drawers apart methodically and stacked them prior to putting a groove in the bottom edge for the ply base board:

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I then set up the router table ready to run those through tomorrow. Note the stops at each end, so that the groove doesn't show through on the front of the drawers:

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Yes, these drawers are going to have the dovetails visible on the drawer front. They also have a dovetailed back, with a full depth board........so how is that going to work with drawer stops, I hear you ask. I have a cunning plan for that.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby DaveL » 09 Oct 2019, 09:39

Mike,

Do you want to borrow a few more clamps to allow more draws to be glued at a time?

I have some metal heads on oak beams, some light weight aluminium clamps and some double sided steel ones, but they may not be long enough for the size of draw you are making.

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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (9: nearly finished)

Postby Mike G » 09 Oct 2019, 10:15

No thanks Dave, they're all glued up. Half of them are fitted (photos later). I used two clamps only, to squeeze the joints up initially. I then released them as the dovetails were so tight that nothing moved.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby Mike G » 09 Oct 2019, 14:05

It was a quick job to clean up the dovetails and fix the skirting in place:

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It was a much slower job to glue up all the drawers. Two of them didn't sit flat (presumably due to a twist in one of the components), so I attempted to counteract this by tensioning them the other way as the glue set. As it happens, one I overdid slightly, and one I under-did, but both were much better than they had been in the dry fit:

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Whilst the drawers were drying I fitted the door boxes, using cheap piano hinges:

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This was a bit of a fiddle, and one of the doors came off 3 or 4 times for adjusting. After that, it was just lots and lots of planing, offering up, adjusting, until all the drawers fitted:

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Here's how I supported the drawers in the vice:

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Some years ago I had salvaged a few commercial chests of drawers from a practice I worked in as they headed towards a skip. They yielded lots of nice stuff, including these drawer pulls of solid wood:

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I'm not sure what the wood is. It has prominent medullary rays, but is much too red to be oak. Anyway, I rather like them, so I cleaned them up with some white spirit, then made a jig to locate the screw holes:

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When correctly located you just push on the board and the tips of the screws, which stick out the back, leave a nice clear mark:

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I waxed all the runners and sides, and I now have a completed set of drawers:

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Finally, because of the drawer design traditional stops are impossible. However, there is an OSB wall just 5 or 10mm behind the back of the drawers, so I screwed a couple of screws in behind each drawer box and simply turned them in or out until they stopped the drawers in the right place:

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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby StevieB » 09 Oct 2019, 14:41

That looks really smart Mike - very impressed!
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby TrimTheKing » 09 Oct 2019, 14:58

Very nice Mike

I like the forethought too to extend the sides up so you can cram loads of crap up there without it falling off the sides! :lol: :obscene-drinkingcheers:
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby Andyp » 09 Oct 2019, 15:12

TrimTheKing wrote:Very nice Mike

I like the forethought too to extend the sides up so you can cram loads of crap up there without it falling off the sides! :lol: :obscene-drinkingcheers:


Crying out for a roll top :)
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby Mike G » 09 Oct 2019, 16:05

TrimTheKing wrote:Very nice Mike

I like the forethought too to extend the sides up so you can cram loads of crap up there without it falling off the sides! :lol: :obscene-drinkingcheers:


There'll be a shelf or two in there shortly, plus some doors..........so all the crap that would have fallen off the sides will now be well contained.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby Mike G » 09 Oct 2019, 16:08

Andyp wrote:.....Crying out for a roll top :)


I seriously thought about doing that for the right hand compartment above the drawers, where all the shavings and dust from the pillar drill will end up. However, I'd struggle to justify the time and effort to my wife when we still don't have any doors downstairs in the house, nor a permanent staircase. Indeed, my justification for all this work has been needing the room in the workshop to build the stairs, and then her greenhouse. I don't want to push my luck!
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby Mike G » 09 Oct 2019, 16:09

StevieB wrote:That looks really smart Mike - very impressed!


Thanks Steve.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby Malc2098 » 09 Oct 2019, 17:17

Nice.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby SamQ aka Ah! Q! » 09 Oct 2019, 20:57

"we still don't have any doors downstairs in the ho
use"

Interesting for use of the downstairs loo... :o

"nor a permanent staircase"


I can just see a Khamakhazi descent if it slips... 8-)

Sorry Mike, it has been a long, hard, day and my humour buds have been underused all day, so they've broken out, looking for a victim... :|

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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby Woodbloke » 10 Oct 2019, 07:09

Looks excellent Mike...any finish going to be applied to the pine? (Unless I've missed it :D ) and what about pulls on the big cupboard doors? - Rob
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 8)

Postby Mike G » 10 Oct 2019, 07:58

No, the pine will be left raw. I started mounting some pulls on the big door boxes, but the screw location is such that the screw hole goes into the side pieces of the box In other words, I'd need a screw 6 inches long! I'm having a think on that one..........but the only answer I can come up with so far is locating pins and gluing the pulls into place.
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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 10)

Postby Mike G » 10 Oct 2019, 13:58

Using the last shelf left over from the original shelving unit, I made a shelf for the upper cupboard. This will be hidden behind doors:

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I thought I'd quickly do the piece covering the junction with the ceiling. In for a penny, in for a pound.......so it's dovetailed too:

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As the longer piece across the front is about 1200 tall, I had to clamp a piece of scrap in place so that the tail board had something to rest on when marking out for the pins:

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The original shelves yielded up a reasonable amount of easily re-usable timber, but they also left these pieces:

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Those are the original sides, from here:

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Well, I got to thinking, and decided to re-use them for pretty much their original purpose, but as part of a corner cupboard. That is why I had glued these boards together yesterday:

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So today I de-clamped them and started marking out then sawing:

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The problem I am trying to resolve is this hell-hole at the end of my bench:

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Apart from the vacuum cleaner there are various jigs, bench hooks, shooting boards and so on, a vacuum drop-box, and all sorts of detritus which falls from the end of the bench. When I started looking at the shelf spacing on the old cheek pieces, I had the brainwave of having the vacuum cleaner sit in the bottom of the cupboard, with the hose projecting through side-wall. This meant adding one extra shelf position:

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I calculated that I needed to remove 8.3mm from one edge of the side boards to obtain the necessary angle with the front to make a 135 degree junction, so I set that on the calipers and then used them as a marking gauge:

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I then planed down to that line (using a number 6 Record, for those who like to know this stuff):

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I'd previously cut the corners off the big triangles, and cleaned them up ready to fit as shelves. Now I glues and screwed them into the housings in the old side-pieces:

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Those intermediate shelves are set a few mm back from the inside face of the face frame. The top and bottom will be different though, so I left them out at this stage. Here is what the corner cupboard will look like:

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Re: Mike's tool cupboard build (Part 10)

Postby Andyp » 10 Oct 2019, 18:42

Door handles, suggestion. Screw from outside then plug screw holes with contrasting timber.
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