Sisyphus gets to the top of the hill

[Jeff Kahan]

I have been working on this project for an embarrassingly long time. I began, as I always do, with a six week estimate for the benefit of all my loved ones. It was six weeks before I realized that I desparately needed a drum sander if I was to have any chance of completing this cabinet, as my planer was firing largish chunks of sapele at the dust collector from my lovingly shop sawn veneer. Once I had the veneer manufacture process under way, the weather turned cold, and all hope of using urea formaldehyde glue went up in smoke. By early this summer, I started taking time off from work to get the drawer faces done. Collectively, the drawer faces represent 128 individual parts, and were by far, the most time consuming part of the cabinet, which is actually a built in.

Apart from the shop cut veneer, note the wire troughs I ran through the back to pass A/V cabling. The trough covers attach with rare earth magnets to flat head Spax screws that I adjust up and down to level the covers. I feel like the cleverest little monkey in all of primatedom. In the third photo, I show one of the covers slightly raised. You can see two of the screw heads in the foreground, around the speaker cable.

Finishing was also weather dependent, and therefore problematic. The whole project, sans drawer boxes, is finished with Oxford water based shellac -- one coat used as a sanding sealer, and a second wiped on as a toner after sanding, followed by 3 to 10 coats of Oxford water based lacquer (the drawer boxes went right to lacquer). Spraying in Maryland is a, no pun intended, sticky proposition. With daytime temperatures running in the low 90s and humidity that rivals Panama during the summer, I'm pretty much constrained to a May, June, September, October finishing schedule.

[Jude Kingery]

Jeff, I love your cabinet doors, mirrored book ends effect. Nice! A far bigger project than I'd take on - congratulations for reaching the pinnacle with the rock then! Jude

[Cary Swoveland]

That's a beautiful piece of work, Jeff. I'm interested in your experience working with sapele. I've not used it before, but just yesterday bought some on eBay.

Cary

[Joe Unni]

Jeff,

First - welcome!!

Great work! Lot's of thought into the grain matching - I especially like the paired drawers.

Thanks for sharing,
-joe

[Hank Knight]

Sisyphus done good! That is a very nice entertainment center. I love the choice of wood and the grain match. Nice job!

[Mike Heaney]

now I really want a bandsaw and drum sander!!!!

Fantastic use of the materials, the character of the wood really shines, without being overpowering- great job.

So how long/how many hours did it take in the end?

regards

Mike

[Jeff Kahan]

Thanks everyone. I'm glad you liked it, and I'm feeling quite welcome at SMC.

For those interested in sapele, I found it surprisingly workable, with one big exception. It was a bear to hand plane, particularly on the the faces of quarter/rift sawn boards. The way the wood's grain interlocks, the faces of such board ostensibly have narrow bands of end grain. While I had no particular diffiulty on the power plainer (and certainly none on the drum sander), I did experience surprising tear out with a hand plane along those strips of flipped up grain. For those wondering, the plane iron was freshly sharpened on a Tormek grinder. Having planing problems using such a keen blade doubtless speaks volumes about my overall lack of skill with the tool, but the tearout is a phenomenon all potential sapele buyers should beware. If I had the opportunity to rebuild the top of the piece, I would have spritzed a lot water on it before planing.

With the tearout caveat aside, I enjoyed sapele and would happily work it again. It is a little harder than walnut, but softer than oak. Despite tearout when face planing, I had no such problems when cutting joints with a router. The wood has a fairly pleasant odor when cut, although it has a tendency to burn on the tablesaw if the blade was allowed to get pitchy (as opposed, I guess, to some idealized super species I can only dream of).

I love the ribboned look of it, and it was available locally at 4/4 in widths up to 12" for $5.50 a bf. A veritable bargain in exotic hardwoods. My dealer also out 12/4 material (from which a sawed the frame members for the top of the cabinet) at $7.50 a bf. Generally, I had little difficulty resawing to thicknesses as small as 1/16", though I did have some trouble with case hardening, and resulting cupping, when resawing especially wide boards. I found this somewhat puzzling, given that my dealer cleaned the rough boards with a two-sided planer when I purchased them. Thus, the problem may well have been one unique to a troublesome and oddly tensioned board.

Oh, the project took me about 16 months of work, on and off. As I mentioned, the weather was a factor, but so was the rude imposition of my obligations to my employer, the materialization of one other woodworking project, and (best of all) daddy time.

Jeff

[Charlie Plesums]

snip...

Finishing was also weather dependent, and therefore problematic. The whole project, sans drawer boxes, is finished with Oxford water based shellac -- one coat used as a sanding sealer, and a second wiped on as a toner after sanding, followed by 3 to 10 coats of Oxford water based lacquer (the drawer boxes went right to lacquer). Spraying in Maryland is a, no pun intended, sticky proposition. With daytime temperatures running in the low 90s and humidity that rivals Panama during the summer, I'm pretty much constrained to a May, June, September, October finishing schedule.
I use LOTS of Oxford USL outdoors in Texas. Heat (90++ in the shade) isn't a problem, but the midday sun beating on the work, when it becomes too hot to touch, is not good. However, I have worked early in the morning (when there is still dew on the cars), and well into the evening (when the temperature drops and humidity skyrockets) with no problem other than slower drying time. If the humidity becomes rain, that is going too far... DAMHIKT. That is almost the opposite of solvent lacquer, which hates humidity, but can cope with a huge range of temperatures.