Turning Bad Wood Good...and Then Into Cabinetry

"Sarah"'s comment from the "The Crappywood Challenge" has convinced me that reader interaction is a good thing and I'd like to encourage more of it. She went into one paragraph of the blog and pulled out all of the great band names from it. I thought it was hilarious; let's see more of that.

Now back to the garage (with a detour through the bathroom).

Our guest bathroom cabinet drawers and doors stink:

The hinges are loose, the doors are warped and don't shut flat, the drawers are crooked, and the knobs are all messed up. Ordinarily I'd just slice up some plywood, paint it, and call it a day but my wife said she'd let build some rail-and-stile door for our house if I practiced frame-and-panel construction on smaller stuff--so there you go.

I wanted nice stable wood for the project, but didn't want to spend much money on it. I think wood is like steak: you can spend a lot on it and not have to work very hard for good results or you can spend less, put some effort into it, and still get good results. I bought the metaphorical cube steak:

Yep, dimensional lumber from Home Depot--good ole' southern yellow pine. Lumber from Home Depot always come with a really high moisture content and therefore moves and warps a lot when you get it home.

The above photo is from Chris Schwarz's blog. Chris has got to be the number one SYP advocate around, but even he concedes that you have to baby it.

I noticed something as I was walking around Home Depot the other day: a lot of the larger boards for sale are sectioned right through the pith (see three pictures up^^^). Now, I don't want the pith--nobody wants the pith--but on either side of the pith are prime pieces of wood, essentially quartersawn. I decided to just be selective and buy these underpriced boards and cut out the good stuff.

The boards were too big for me to safely handle by myself on the table saw so I busted out the old Skil 77: what a beast. Moses was, however, unimpressed: he being a bigger beast with a louder whine. You can see how wet the wood still is by how clumpy the sawdust is in the above photo. I suppose this is a good thing, as I don't really want all that stuff flying around everywhere. 

Then I just ripped the nominal 2" boards in half and had some good-sized wood for the cabinetry:

You can tell how a board is going to warp by just thinking the rings want to be straight. So now you can understand how these radial cut minimize any cupping.

Half way finished:

Construction will be pretty straightforward: a four piece frame mortise-and-tenoned together with an interior groove capturing a raised panel. No funky stick-and-cope molding nonsense...just keep it simple.

This gave me the opportunity to try out a new toy:

This is a Record #043 plough plane I just got off eBay. It's pretty versatile and a real pleasure to use. It's also probably about 70 years old and still looks great. You gotta love nickel plating: if I somehow come into possession of another one maybe I'll make it into a hood ornament. It can make a 1/4" groove half an inch deep up to 4" from the edge of a workpiece. Here it's making a narrower groove that's shallower and closer to the edge...but hey, it's my first time with the thing. This is the groove that will contain the panel. 

Here's how the mortise-and-tenon works:

I believe this is what is known as a haunched tenon. You can see how the tenon has a little nub that fills the groove to the right of the mortise. This is a good little trick that makes a stronger and cleaner joint.

Come together:

Right now:

Over me:

In the last picture I'm actually only gluing up half of it. One of the stiles (long pieces) can be popped off so I can slide the panel in when it's ready.

Speaking of the panels, it's time for those. My plan is to tongue-and-groove three boards together and then just be able to saw off sections to length as needed for the panels.

Tongue-and-groove, mortise-and-tenon, stick-and-cope, rail-and-stile, frame-and-panel...sheesh.

Anyone need any fire starter?

So that's where we stand now...waiting for some glue to dry. Tomorrow I'll make the raised-and-fielded (there's another one!) panel for this prototype door. Later.

Rigor Mortise and Tenon

I added that last bit of the skirt the other day. It went on with no problems and was just a matter of gluing the tongue and dovetails and clamping it up. Because of the length of the benchtop it required my longest pipe clamps to be supplemented with additional Pony clamps. I don't like doing this because the tension along the axis of the clamp is always a little offset where the clamps meet. Not a big deal in this situation but there are times when it is potentially a little dangerous.

I then went ahead and installed the two vises. I'm afraid I didn't photo-document this part. I blame this on the frustration level involved in the tail vise: it uses two little steel guide-ring bushings that truly tested my patience. They really improve the performance of the vise but my word, they were a pain to install. At one point I was tempted to go blow $50 on a right-angle impact driver (Yes, I own the JobMax. Yes, it's a great tool) specifically for the task. Must resist impulses to buy tools for one-time needs. In the end I got the SOB installed and am pleased with it. It really reduces the amount of play in the vise. The face vise doesn't have the guide bushings and has a remarkable amount of play in it. *sigh*

Completed benchtop:

Well, kind of completed: the general construction is done but there is plenty of detailing to do.

Then I flipped it over to start work on the leg assembly. One nice thing about traditional woodworking vises is that you can use them upside-down! Not an asset 99% of the time but it was nice here. This picture reminds me of the expression "building a plane in midair:"

I just thought of something: this project makes extensive use of the three types of joints: butt, corner, and angle. The floating tongues were butt joints, the ostrichtails were corner joints, and now time for the mortise and tenons. There are 16 of them total in the undercarriage: 8 blind and 8 through. I don't really enjoy busting these guys out. There is just too much chopping with the chisel. It's loud and tiring. I cut a few tenons by hand and then decided to just go with the bandsaw. I feel I've put in my time cutting tenons with the ryoba, don't particularly enjoy it, and I'm not especially good at it. As I mentioned before, this is my last project with the Japanese saws, so farewell big ryoba:

Big, chunky joints; but darn if they aren't solid.

I was joking with my mother-in-law about "the next workbench I plan to build." I was kidding, but this picture does suggest a man who needs even more space, doesn't it?

Among handtool aficionados its trendy to refer to power tool use as "burning electrons." I'll tell you what, it takes a lot of red-ox reactions to complete a mortise through a 2" thick piece of maple. My body is killing me from all the work today. Here's the result:

(FYI: trashcan o' shavings II went out to the curb yesterday, as did an empty 50lb. dog food bag stuffed full of dust)

The next step is to complete the tapered mortises through those projecting tenons and make wedges to secure the legs longitudinally. I know that may not be clear but you'll understand when it is complete. The goal is to have a really solid bench but be able to dis-assemble it if needed. I don't plan on moving in the next couple of years but I'm sure it will be appreciated when I do. Why the quick-clamp in the photo? Yeah, I had a little blow-out on my last M&T. Did I mention I don't enjoy mortise and tenon joinery?