Bedroom Dresser Part 1

About a year ago, Amy Sheep and I refinished an old dresser I've had in one bedroom or another for many years: 

I've since learned that it was made by the Hickory Manufacturing Company and comes from their "Tung-Si" collection which also included these units:

The only problem with our piece of furniture is that it is not big enough for our combined needs. We've been looking for a complimentary piece for ages so that we can ditch the battered old thing on the other side of the bedroom. Finally, I decided to make a similar dresser myself.

The inspiration piece has twelve drawers in a 3x4 grid. The construction consists of a box which holds the drawers and is suspended within a framework of darker material. My dresser will also be twelve drawers, but in a 2x6 grid and the drawers will be narrower. I will be using modern drawer slides instead of integral wooden slides, and my construction will differ slightly in how the weight is transferred to the frame.  

I'm also using different materials. I was originally planning to build with white oak and some unspecified darker wood. However, after spending an hour or so browsing at MacBeath Hardwood in Berkeley, I ended up with a mixture of hard maple, African mahogany and maple plywood. Apart from the fronts, the drawer parts will be made from Baltic birch plywood. This batch of material cost $706 out of the door. I'll be keeping track of costs on this project; for context I would have been willing to spend up to $3000 on a dresser from a store or online, but we could not find anything to complement what we already have. 

After a couple of months of being preoccupied with other projects and/or finalizing the design and/or letting the wood acclimatize to my shop, I was ready to begin construction. I've been waiting for an excuse to swap out the blade on the table saw, so I started with that. I'm using a new "Woodworker II" from Forrest, which is ten (10) inch diameter with 40 teeth and is a very popular multipurpose blade. 

I've been having some issues with the sled I use for crosscutting. It's fine most of the time but it loses accuracy on the longer cuts. The design is fine for making cuts of twelve (12) inches or less on either side of the blade. However, for the dresser project I need something I can rely on for longer cuts.

My new design, which is a mishmash of other folk's ideas that I've seen on YouTube is intended to make cuts on the left side of the blade only. This means I can build a much longer fence to support my work piece. The fence is made from three (3) pieces of 3/4" birch plywood instead of to (2) for enhanced rigidity.

When the work piece passes through the saw blade the off cut is small enough that support at the right side of the blade is not required:

There are key reasons why this sled works as well as it does. One is the slides which fit into the miter slots on my table saw; this particular brand can be minutely adjusted such that wiggle is entirely eliminated. The other is the fine tuning of the fence which was achieved using this version of the 5-cut method.

The basic cabinet will be constructed from three (3) upright panels (left, right and center), a base panel and several stretches at the top and between the second and third drawers. Cutting the panels from 3/4" maple veneered plywood is straight forward. The first embellishment is cutting a 1/4" wide by 3/4" deep rabbit in the front-facing edge of both side panels. This will allow the drawer fronts to recess within the side panels which is a design feature of the inspiration piece. 

I'm making my own veneer by cutting 1/8" strips from the maple stock:

Veneer is attached with a mixture of glue and pin nails and clamped while curing:

The photo below shows how the side panels look after adding veneer to both front-facing edges. There is no need to add veneer at the other exposed edge since it is not obviously plywood.

The stretches were trimmed to length at the miter saw and pocket holes were bored: 

Veneer was added to front-facing edges:

Dry fitting the panels and stretchers:

Post-assembly: 

Once the cabinet is complete, pocket holes will be visible only at the base panel when the lowest drawer is removed.

All front facing edges were veneered even though none of them will be visible when the drawers are closed.

In keeping with the inspiration piece, the top panel is a separate piece constructed from a large plywood panel with maple side "wings." I started by making the wings from two (2) pieces of stock, which are a little bit bigger than I need, and jointed one edge on each piece:

The maple plywood I'm using is exactly 3/4" thick, so my material requires planing down: 

The boards came out of the planer so smooth that they look polished. I did change the blades on the planer very recently, but the finish mostly comes from the beautiful maple wood.

The next step is to trim the boards to the final width (3-3/4") and cut an 11-degree bevel:

Mockup of the wing and the plywood panel, which has been veneered at the front edge:

Biscuit slots were cut in the wings and at both ends of the panel.

Glue up:

The most important aspect of the glue up is that the top edges must be flush. The panel is slightly too wide by design and the wings overhang beyond the panel.

Top panel after sanding and trimming to final width:

Glue up:

As well as being glued, the top panel is secured to the cabinet with wood screws which were installed from below the stretchers:

Basic cabinet with top panel installed:

The back panel is made from 1/4" Baltic birch plywood which is recessed into the cabinet. The upright panel at the center of the cabinet and the stretches below the top panel have been made 1/4 inch  smaller than the top, sides and base panels. This means that there is no need to cut anything away to accommodate the recessed back panel:

The side and base panels do need to have a 1/4" x 1/4" rabbit cut at the inner edges:

I learned while doing this that I need a new rabbiting bit for the router - fortunately the burn marks will be obscured by the back panel.

There are some spots the router cannot get to...

Which have to be cut out by have with a chisel:

Gluing and pinning the upper section of the back panel:

And the lower section:

After installing the back panels, the basic cabinet is complete apart from wood filler, final sanding and staining/finishing. Before that I need to make the drawers and construct the frame which will support the cabinet.

Table Saw Room Refinements Part 3

At the beginning of May I built some display cases in the table saw room. Since then, I have mostly been sorting through LEGO and working on one or two other projects, but I have also been making progress here too. 

My main concerns for covering the display cases are cost, durability and the perimeter seal, so I'm going with acrylic panels which I can hold in place with a few screws.  I had the panels cut to size at TAP Plastics in El Cerrito, and I drilled the holes myself. I actually bought a special drill bit for use with plastics, but I managed to break it after just a couple of holes; fortunately, a regular drill bit, on a slow setting, worked fine.

I installed self-adhesive "furry" weather-stripping at the perimeter of each cabinet. I am hoping this will contribute to a dust-tight seal. 

Proof of concept:

Once I was happy with the fit of the first panel, I went into mass production mode and banged out the other five.

The two far left cabinets are going to have doors in due course and will be used for storage.

At this point I have four cabinets filled with LEGO and one other cabinet of "collectables." It is easier to take photos of the contents without the panels. I will be looking at installing LED lighting in some of the cabinets in the future. The eighth cabinet is looking like it will be storage for the time being.

Garage Ceiling and Lights Part 4

A couple of months ago I installed insulation material at the garage ceiling/underside of the deck and boarded out the ceiling with OSB sheathing. At the time I didn't staple any of the lighting cables to the ceiling because I wanted to paint it, so it looked like the photo below. It could have stayed like this indefinitely, but, as it happens, one of the cables was hanging right above the front of the '68, and it kept getting in the way when I opened the hood. 

I had to choose between stapling the cables to the ceiling "temporarily," or getting the painting done. Once the ceiling is painted, I can hang all my "art" back up inside the garage, so that is the way I decided to go. I started by taking down the lights at the back of the garage. The lights at the front are recessed into the sheathing so I can paint round them.

This is after the paint has dried, the lights have all been re-installed, and the cables are in the process of being stapled to the ceiling:

The ceiling is made from Oriented Strand Board (OSB) which has a very rough surface. I used an appropriate high nap roller to hit it with two (2) coats of primer/sealer. I didn't bother with any topcoat because it's the garage and what I have done is plenty good enough.

I also painted the area at the front left where the plywood paneling has been replaced:

A few days later, I backed the '68 out onto the driveway for the first time in months. To do this I first had to move the '67 F250 out of the way, something that will be covered in a future post. I'm taking the time to property clean out the garage since there are still small bits of fiberglass insulation here and there and traces of drywall dust all over the place.

I started by removing everything that touches the floor except the benches and toolboxes and the engine hoist, and then the floor was swept and hosed down with the pressure washer. While the floor was still wet, I blew down everything in the garage with compressed air and then swept the floor again.

I finished up with a second go round with the pressure washer and then dried the floor with the wet vac. The floor doesn't get perfectly clean anymore which is the legacy of using a light-colored epoxy coating and pulling/dropping at least three V8 engines in the last couple of years.

Wall cabinets re-filled and signage re-installed: