Walnut table hutch - in progress

[gary Zimmel]

Looks like you had some good shop time today.
The project is starting to come together.
Quick question. How wide are the 3 small drawers.

Those new chisels sure are eye candy.
And that ultra thin marking knife will make tiny pin layout a breeze.

[Bruce Page]

John, those are soooooooo nice. (Drooling on the keyboard.)

I spent a couple of hours milling up my practice lumber today. All I need are some chisels!!!

Patience Bruce, patience….

[Jim Kountz]

John, that thing is really coming along now and it all looks great. Your work looks very nice with a particular attention to details. Cant wait to see it all finished!!

[John Keeton]

Gary, the two outside drawers in the upper unit are 10.5", the center one is 10". I wanted it just a bit smaller. To my eye, it seemed to help the balance - may not have worked, but it is much too late to change it!

Bruce, the BS are certainly worth waiting on - you will enjoy them!

Thanks, Jim, for the continued interest. I am anxious to get the hutch started today. I need to go thru the rest of the pile of walnut I am working with and sort out the firewood from the good stuff. There certainly is a lot of waste, but in the midst of it - some nice wood.

After church I will hit it hard and my hope is by the afternoon, I have all the stock milled in rough, and perhaps some glue ups for the door panels.

[Frederick Rowe]

Then, slowly taking a shallow pass to clean them up, the first one went great. Then – CRAP!!! The second one dipped ever so slightly, and this is what I got

John - Lately I've seemed to specialize in fixing small mistakes (some not so small). On your panel can you just re-cut the side of the panel with the "dip" making it 1/4" narrower? You'd have to mirror this on any panels needed for symmetry, but then just make the stiles only 1/8" wider (error would be split since there two stiles for each panel). I don't think this would change the proportion of panel to stile width too much.

A suggestion on your router table, use fingerboards as tall as your cutter. This provides even pressure across the width of the cutter. In your case (vertical panel raising bit) you'd have to stack several shop built fingerboards or use one of the models that allow them to be stacked.

Great job on the hutch, keep the pictures coming.

[John Keeton]

Frederick, I had hoped I could recover this panel, but it is damaged beyond repair. The "tongue" is dipped, as well, and would be very noticeable. I really should have run these panels with some poplar as a trial run before using the walnut. Hindsight - 20/20

Good suggestion on the fingerboards - and I had already decided that I needed to rig up a jig for this application. The problem on these panels is that they are narrow - 6.25" - and have very little bearing surface. As I was passing them along the bit, I knew I was getting in an awkward position with my hands, and that is when this happened. Obviously, safety is of primary concern, and I just can't keep constant pressure at the point of contact on the narrow panel and be safe. Before attempting another panel, I will build up a jig to permit a fingerboard at the level of the bearing surface.

I thought cutting the end grain portions of the panel would be hardest because of the narrow panel, but they were actually the easiest.

[John Thompson]

You're moving right along there it appears. I'm doing my best to keep your pace as I have to run to get some slides at noon when Woodcraft opens. Keep up the great work both on the build and the blog.

Sarge..

[Matt Ranum]

I just noticed this thread, John its looking GREAT! Can't wait to see the finished product. I may have missed it, but what finish were you planning on using?

As for Walnut, its dust is definately an irritant. My Uncle, who used to work heavily with Walnut swore that that is what caused his emphazima(sp?) One more reason I started leaning towards hand tools. Less dust.

Here is a link to a wood study:

http://www.vwa.org.au/des_dangwd.htm

European Walnut( Juglans regia )

Possible Health Issues

Nasal cancer, irritation to
nose, eyes & throat, dermatitis

[John Olson]

Watching you on this one. Very pretty piece.

[John Keeton]

Progress today was minimal. Knowing that I would need to redo the raised panels, and taking Frederick's suggestion, I took a little time and built a jig to hold a featherboard against the panels vs. the router fence. It was a fairly quick build out of some scrap plywood, and a piece of track I had left over.

Then, spent about 3 hours going thru the walnut trying to get the stock cut for the hutch top. Believe it or not, I ended up with nearly as much firewood as good stuff. It was either clear and crooked, or straight and full of knots or defects In the end, I have nearly enough cut up. I still need enough clear pieces to glue up the door panels. Made a trip to the barn and pulled out a few more boards. Sometime this week I will cut up the remainder, and try to get the panels glued up. Other than that, I don't expect to have any time until next weekend.

On the bright side, my "sandwiched" plywood turned out great. The glue up was very tight, and they are going to work great.

[John Keeton]

I meant to respond to Matt's question on the finish. I will wet sand with BLO to get some grain fill. Then will go with a brew of SW Classic oil varnish/BLO/mineral spirits wiped on with some 4F pumice to get a little more grain fill. I will start with gloss, and the final coat will be satin. At least that is the plan for the moment.

Might get a chance during the week to start a test board or two and post some pics for comment/suggestion.

Sarge, hang in there with it!

[John Keeton]

Until today, I haven’t had much shop time, but I did start some test boards a few days ago in order to try some finish ideas.

The boards were sanded to 220 first. The first pic is a coat of BLO wet sanded with 400, and then wiped off. The pic was taken the following day. Then, I put a coat of brew (1/3 varnish, BLO, and mineral spirits) and some 4F pumice and worked it in. Then a second coat of brew. As you can see, the finish was a little rough. I lightly sanded it and rubbed in down with brown paper and it looked better - no pic of this.

The last two pics are of a separate board that has one coat of varnish, and a second coat of varnish thinned 1/3 with mineral spirits and wet sanded with 400. I wiped it off cross grain, and the next day put on one more coat of thinned varnish. I rubbed this down a little. I really like the color of this piece. The BLO darkened the walnut a bit, and actually wet sanding with the varnish worked better than wet sanding with the BLO and later using the pumice and brew.

I think I will end up with this schedule. Of course, it will take a few more coats to get the build, but the grain filled very well - or at least to my liking. I am not after a French polish on this piece, but more of a patina. I will need to add just a bit of BLO to the varnish mix to keep it from drying so quickly. The SW varnish straight will dry to the touch in less than 10 minutes It doesn't level well when it drys that fast.

[John Keeton]

I had some shop time today, and was able to make a little headway between trips to town and other interruptions.

The first pic is my shop setup for milling stock. I normally put the planer more centered, but the table/hutch piece is in the way. I was able to mill all of the stock to thickness and size for the remainder of the hutch.

The other pics are the door panel glueups, and leveling the panels using my tablesaw fence as a “bench hook.” I confess to running them through the planer one last time for cleanup on both sides and to take them to final thickness before raising the panels.

[John Keeton]

After getting all the stock milled, I raised the panels for the sides of the hutch. As you may recall, I screwed the first ones up. I posted pics of the jig I built (on Frederick's suggestion) to hold a featherboard against the panels as I ran them across the router table fence. This setup worked much better, and I ended up with a very clean run.

Then I used a 6 mm spiral up cut bit to rout the grooves for the panels in the rails and stiles, and completed the paneled sides to the hutch top. I used dominos to join the rails and stiles. These units are not glued up, as I want to get a couple of coats of finish on the raised panels before completing the units.

To top the hutch I want a cornice board that will be somewhat thicker than the ¾” side panels, and overhang just a bit. It also needs to carry the crown molding at the top. I dug out a thicker piece of walnut from the barn, and milled it down to just under an inch thick.

In order to give it some definition, I ran a bead on the edge. Rather than use the scratch stock I used on the table aprons, I tried out my Stanley 50 that I received today. It happened to have a 3/16” beading cutter with it. Since one cannot bead on the very edge with the Stanley, I set the fence as close as possible, ran the bead, and then ripped the edge on the tablesaw. After a little planning and sanding, the beaded edge turned out pretty well. The bead will go on the bottom edge of the board as it wraps around the top of the hutch – right above the top edge of the doors, and sitting on the top of the paneled sides.

Tomorrow, I will build the top of the hutch as a unit, with the beaded cornice, the plywood top, and crown molding. It will be much easier, I think, to keep the unit square, and will result in a better assembly of the completed hutch.

[Jim Kountz]

John, looking good!! I was wondering if we were going to see anymore progress pics and there they are!! I like the finish concoction you came up with, looks like it really does justice to that walnut. I gotta ask though. Where is your "real" shop, the one you are doing the actual work in. The shop in those pictures couldnt possibly be used for woodworking, TOO CLEAN!! How do you guys do that?? LOL