Doug Fir Alaskan yellow cedar master build.

[Patrick Walsh]

Oh yeah and this,

I looked across my shop today and noticed the flat grain of these two boards.

You just gotta love nature. I can’t stand the flat grain of fir but this just gave me a warm feeling inside and made me happy with the world even if just for a second.

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Then this made me happy again, reminded me of my youth and again brought warmth to my insides and a smile to my face.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt1gbbpIa24

Ended the day with this.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rpuGFvFda5E

These where the soundtracks of my youth. Man what a good time I was having when I thought I was having such a bad time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9qqXqn2940w

I just love to,e spent in my own shop. It’s unbelievable therapeutic.

[Patrick Walsh]

My intent was to resaw the 12” boards edge joint and glue to get my panels with only one glue line.

Well my stock was not clean enough to yield such results without completely going through all the AYC i purchased. Enotialy I was not so inclined to do so and more inclined to leave the inclusions. To be honest I kinda like them but it’s just not the clean steril look I’m going for. I want the space to be still and quite, completely peaceful soothing so much so when you step into the room you instantly find yourself calm but don’t know why.

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Above is the panel for the entrance door into the room. It is also the largest of the doors and the only full size passage door. The rest are odd sizes that access storage or closet space in the eves.

I almost went with the mineral streaking, in the end I just could not bring myself to do it. This resulted in me sorting through every stick of AYC and getting kinda wasteful. I still have plenty to finish other aspects of the project baring the shoji for the windows. I knew for the get go that I would run short on AYC for the shoji so I’m not so worried. I was beginning to think I might luck out and have enough.

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In reference to a recent thread bout how flat to preps stock for a glue up. I say perfectly every step of the way. Imop this assumes the most stability long term. It also means little work is left after the glue up is done. I get good enough results with multi board laminations that I barely need to even sand the glue joint post glue up.

I get these results by milling my stock over days. Always checking my stock with a straight edge and insisting it is as flat as the tables on my jointer at every stage and using calipers to check uniform thickness. I also use straight edges to assure I’m not introducing any cup or bow to the workpiece do to clamping pressure.

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All pretty standard protocol but i90F25926-9639-48EA-8DCA-C19B2EE089AA.jpg know many who could not be bothered to do so and see no need.

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Again nothing like a perfectly flat surface for glue ups. At this stage all I’ll need to do is cut the panel to exact size and run a smoothing plane over it. After that it’s done.

Perfectly flat triple lamination of 8” wide boards. My opinion is perfect matters every step,of the way when doing a glue up.

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Two more panels to get done today. Well I hope to get done. Back to it now.

[Patrick Walsh]

Well Being I’m on vacation and I I kinda disappeared mid day or for the most part all afternoon. The pup wanted some quality time and it was sunny and like 50% out today just outside Boston.

I did get I a bit more shop time thought. Today was a day of Alaskan yellow cedar surprises. I keep running into inclusions, knots, mineral streaks, big damage you name it when I resawing for my door panels. It feels very wasteful to say the least. It’s also making a task that should been quick and easy kinda agonizing as I waste all kinds of time after slicing a board open going back and forth do I use it or cut into another stick. In the end I keep just cutting into another stick and I’ll forever cringe when I look at one of these doors and think man I wish I was not such a cheap ass and had just cut into a few more boards. My rational is kinda like so, I spent $8K on the lumber somwhats another couple grand if I run short vrs living with one door I just can’t stand as it does not match the others.

This is what I found when slicing a board for my last panel. I was a little upset to say the least as I was getting tired and really just wanna be done with these panels at this point and move on. I can smell the end of my vacation at this point and I’m not going back to work without these doors and jambs built or they are never getting done and I know it.

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Anyway I settled on slicing another board open only to find more issues. Let’s see if I have a photo of that board. I finally caved and said you know what it’s late. I’ll cut into yet another board in the morning when im not so inclined to just say it’s good enough cuz I want to be done.

Nope no picture of that but let’s just say it wasn’t good enough for me.

This panel is for the one full size door and entrance to the room. Originally I had planed to only have one glue joint and a perfect book match. Clearly it did not work out that way for me. I was a bit frustrated but I’m over it at this point as it looks pretty good in the end. As o said I am kinda throwing AYC at $11 bf right into the dumpster.

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The level and straight edges make my argument for taking serious and not saying “good enough” when milling material for laminations.

These boards started as 8/4x12x20. I cut them to length two days ago and jointed two sides followed by planing till each was flat on four sides and as far above finished dimension I as I could get. The following day I re jointed two sides and planed making sure everything was “perfectly flat and exactly the same thickness”. Next and imop very very important is gluing them up on a perfectly flat surface.

The results speak for themself. I can easily run smoother, card scraper, or lightly sand and these panels are ready to go. I left them a bit proud of the 1/2” so I can hand plane them to a expect finished dimension. I could cheat and bring them to work and throw them through the widebelt but I won’t!

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Out of clamps just sitting on my perfectly flat bench. Ok I can see a whisper lifting on the one front corner. That will all but be done once I cut them to length.

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Second panel on clamps. I just love this material. Pictures do it no justice. In person it is exceptional. The smell is also wonderful. Not to mention it’s a dream to work with. It ha d planes like you cheating or getting away with stealing something.

I’m running out of room. I really need another perfectly flat bench. If only I had the time. In the back where you see the metal based bench or my sharpening station will someday be another massive Roubo. I so happy I did not listen to those whom suggested I not make my bench 28” wide and 9” long. I personally love the 28” and could be happy with 32” to be honest.

Two panels stacked atop each other in clamps cuz I have no place else to put them to insure they stay perfectly flat. I have two more panels ready to go but they required no laminations somthere is nothing to really show.

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[Patrick Walsh]

This is for the guy that was asking about jointing large material and how to setup for it.

There is a million things you could rig up as others suggested. However and at least for me nothing is more annoying than trying to joint a board and or being able to get a perfect result for whatever the reason. On my Felder unit the extension tables are indispensable and I’d gladly pay double what they cost to be able joint material with the ease they allow for.

I use a long straight edge to set them exactly to the same height as the jointer tables. The only thing one needs to know is to adjust the infeed to exactly the cut depth you want then put on the extension table. If you don’t it can affect the cut creating a concave vrs convex joint.

I get as a good a result and can joint a board just about as long as I can with my 12’ Martin. Well I guess if I put extension tables on my Martin I could joint a telephone pole but you get the point, this works pretty darn good. I have zero issues managing stock upwards of 12’.

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Ok maybe tomorrow I end up with something that resembles a door?

[Patrick Walsh]

It’s kinda looks and more so to me feels like I’m just moving around lumber. I kinda am, I really gotta make it a priority to make another bench.

I’m also half thinking when the slider moves in the chop saw station goes and all tools are hung on the wall or moved into mechanics toolbox type storage. Stuff on flat surfaces is just always in the way. At work I have very large Snapon box and nothing is ever on my bench or sitting on a machine. We also have 2500sq ft but that’s besides the point.

My hat is off to Felder yet again they just can’t seem to ever get the most important details right. To me it feels like if I contracted to build a house and but the e roof leaked like a sinking ship and the builder said sorry Mr Walsh we didn’t use ice and water shield, undelaymw t or step flash. They just seem to continually miss the mark on every single machine and normally exactly where it really counts and matters most.

Case in point my RL125. It’s a great dust collector when the gasket isn’t being torn off resulting in the inside of the machine filling with dust the little yellow light going off and me just waiting to blow a capacitor. His feels much like the festool kapex not being suited to plug into a CT but being market to be used with it. I would have to say regardless of what gasketing or adhesive I use to replace the Felder gasket that It falls off within the first month of light.

It’s simple, all Felder had to do was design the gasket in such a way that is snapped in or locked onto the machine or was self indexing or something. But nope instead and on machine that cost double it’s competition Felder probably as a cost saving decision yet again and like the bone heads they are instead of cutting the beautiful stainless facade that draws in sheepish newbies like I was when I purchased the machine decided to cut something right at the heart of the function of the machine that only becomes problematic in use.

Anyway whenever this happens it takes a good couple hours to get up and running again. It’s not fun, not fun at all and imop makes the machine a complete deal breaker.

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Other than that I founded issues with many of my previous dimensioned sticks for stiles and rails. I milled them up leaving them large for a umber of reasons. It seems if I cut one board for two stiles and two rails to get a nice grian match one board becomes problematic forcing me to sub in another board or just cut into a whole new stick and scrap the material for another aspect of the project namely base or case.

I’m good to go now on my stiles and rails. I’m not thrilled with the variation from door to door. Each door is however cut for one board. The stiles are cut left and right form one 12” board to create the left and right stile. The top and bottom rails are also cut from the same board. This was time consuming and wasteful but it would had been rediculous for me to do anything less.

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The panels are also complete at this point. Well I have to size them and run a smoother over them.

Probably a days work in reality, maybe a half? I will drag them to work to size them on the slider so I suspect it will flame aday all said and done.

Now I just have to get through all the sticking without any tearout. If I ruin a piece after being so picky I’m gonna have a meadow.

Sadly I think I’ll be making the stick cut in a number of light passes

[Jim Becker]

Patrick...suggestion: Portable work surface so you can adapt to larger projects without "permanently" taking up space that could otherwise be used for large assembly, etc. Simple torsion boxes that are flat combined with alternative hight options maintain maximum flexibility and also allow less back strain during assembly processes because you can work at the "right height" for whatever you're doing. A lot of that kind of thing doesn't require a heavy, permanent bench...and you already have one of those monsters for when you do!

[David Helm]

Living in Washington I still have access to some old growth Doug Fir. Typically, the yellow is sap wood and the pink is heartwood. The pink will darken over time (I've been working with cvg doug fir for many decades so know whereof I speak). When I buy fir I tend to go through the stacks and only pick out heartwood. Harder to do when you don't get to see it before you buy it. Hope your project works well for you.

[Patrick Walsh]

Ok so finally some progress.

I have lost kinds of excuses for my lack of forward movement. Well a only a couple but it’s something.

So I had planned on doing most all this work on the sliding shaper. With limited tooling, mostly adjustable groovers and slotters I had two options. First option was a 2” single tenon flipping my workpiece and having to adjust the spindle being to get my full shoulder cut as a result of the cutter being only 1/4 and me needing 1/2 shoulder.

Second option was to use a larger aduatingle slot cutter that could get my shoulder cut it in one pass but would only get me a 1.75” tenon.

I setup for the 1.75” tenon and I just could not bring myself to do it. With 4-5” stiles I wanted at least a 3” tenon. Now I only have one shaper so going back and forth been cope and stick or tennon and stick is a bit of a pita vrs if I had two machines. At this point I’m used to operating in such a way as we have three shapers at work. Thank god I have digital readout as it makes getting back to exactly where you were and swapping between operations at least possible. Still highly annoying though.

To add to my indicision I had originally intended to buy a large stack of three tenon cutters from Rangate for this project. I actually have five more doors to build when I’m done with these five. Non the less having ten doors to build does not really justify buying $3-5K of tooling. I suppose if I had that t23 sliding table I had my eye on I would not hesitate w]and probably had just purchased the large tenon tooling.

What I’m trying to get at is I went back and forth back and forth with this. The good news for my wallet is I had this meltdown Monday or Tuesday and Rangate was closed.

Not able to bring myself to a tiny tenon I turned to the bandsaw and table saw. All I can say is the Minimax purchase this past year was worth every darn penny. The machine really is a dream. Could the cast tables be better “YES” but all in all it’s a really really nice machine and performs like a dream. Using it the last few days I could not help but think I’m never disappointed when I just spend big and cry once on a machine. In contrast every time I get cheap or try to practice restraint It normally ends up I have major regrets and a machine that’s a pita.

So to the work.

[Patrick Walsh]

For thing was to get my finished panel thickness determined. I struggled with this as trying to get two finished .75 pieces out of a piece of 8/4 the lengths and widths I required was a tall order.

I said o would not do this but in the eleventh hour I cheated and brought the panels to work and threw them through the widebelt post glue up. I mostly made this decision as despite my best attempts to insure they stayed flat throughout the glue up one developed some cup. I need 22” width finished and I knew if I took a hand plane to the panel I’d end up thinner than .75”. I could have made my tenon 7/16 or something but I really wanted to stay with the rule of 3rds and I suspect I would had ended up more like .5” panel and tenon had I used a hand plane.

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Second I want to say all this would be so much quicker with a dedicated door cutter set but I’m not much into stub tenons dominoes or dowels. What can I say I’m a romantic.

[Patrick Walsh]

With the panel thickness determined I got to work cutting my tenons on the bandsaw. I made the cheek cuts on the bandsaw and the haunches on the tablesaw. I was completely floored by how absolutely cinsitant and perfect a tenon thickness I was able to get on the bandsaw. I guess you don’t know what you don’t know till you know it. I still want those huge tennon cutters as I really don’t have time for all this back and forth but the bandsaw worked just fine. The whole process through I kept thinking with those tenon cutter and only five doors I coulda had my tennon cut and been mortising in like 1.5 hrs max including setup, probably less to be honest.

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[Patrick Walsh]

Moving on and with a exact slot to tenon and panel match I got to work running the slot for the panel in the stiles and rails.

I really do love a pair of calipers combined with digital readout on a shaper. It makes something otherwise finicky very easy. Plus you can get back to exactly where you were if you take notes and find the need.

First step at least for me is stacking the slot cutter. Yes a 3/4 cutter woulda been quicker paired with a stack with a perfect 3/4 spacer. A man can dream right.

First thing first is finding exact center of the stiles and rails and gettting the spindle on the shaper set exact. I gues it sounds easy but never really is. Maybe I’m special or something but it’s always kinda pain in the rear end getting a exact center. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about exact center and just run all my piece with the same side referenced up or down “i do” but that kinda attitude leads to mistakes and sloppy work so I like to take the time to get things exact. Sure I can just throw the doors through the widebelt and fix any of these small discrepancies but imop that’s bad practice, no fun as it’s not really any kind of challenge and really I’m just raining myself to be a hack. Then there is the simple fact that if I don’t at least shoot for perfection the finished product is miserably sub par. I’m not really interested in sub par and really like perfection. I’m light years away for the “perfection” some have obtained but if I don’t at least try I will surely never get there. To some this might be child’s play and in all reality it really is pretty basic. Don’t do it everyday though and you try getting it perfect on the first try every time and doing it efficiently.


Perfection and success!
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The Doug fir is miserable with tear out. It also dents so easy. You really have to be extremely careful every step,of the way with it. As a result I took two exuberant precautions. First I used a marking gage and scribed a line exactly where the slot for the panel would be on all my stiles and rails. I then took a 1/8” pass on all my pieces. I finished up with a second 3/8 pass for the panel. This also slowed me down substantially as every piece had to be run twice. Maybe I could had gotten away with a full depth cut but I don’t think so. I experimented with rpm power feeder feed speed and settled on two passes. I figured the extra time spent running my parts twice would be nothing in comparison to having to make up new parts from scratch. All my stiles and rails for each door are from a single board. Kinda overkill and not nessisary but again I’m not doing this to make money but because I enjoy it.

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A perfect fit. The slightest gap between the stiles/rails and panel will look terrible with the df ayc combination.

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[Patrick Walsh]

With all that dialed in and figured out I then set to work cutting the mortise on the slot mortiser. I ran through the whole process in full building one door as to get every machine setup and dialed in assuring everything was perfect. Again with a cope and stick door set I wouldn’t have worried at all and just run everything all at once. I didn’t really want to take those chances in this case and opted for covering all my bases.

I have no pictures of me cutting the mortise nor of me cleaning the corners. I really enjoy this aspect of the work. Probably just because I get to play with my pretty chisels. For real thought I really really like the slowing down and focus even the smallest amount of hand work can offer.

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[Patrick Walsh]

One down now I just have to mortise the remaining stiles, clean the corners. I also have to clean up the tenon as I did not want to cut exactly to the shoulders and left a bit of meat in the corners. I also will chamfer all sides of the tenons as I don’t need any accidents at this point.

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I purchased a number of large Kiyohisa slicks a few months back. I didn’t really pay attention to the sizes when they were offered to me as I have been searching high and low for Kiyohisa slicks for a couple years now. When they were offered I just said yes. When the tools showed up I remeber opening the package and thinking omg these things are huge I’ll use like two of these. I also talked myself immediately into needing to make a Japanese gate to my garden as to actuallynuse these huge tools even if on and ever for one lousy project lol.

Anyway two of the largest of the chisels came in very handy today. They made very quick work of cleaning the bits in the corners of the shoulders. They also made quick and exacting precise work cleaning the cheek portion of the mortise.

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[Patrick Walsh]

So this is where things sit today.

Sticks stuck...

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Tenons cut.

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Panels ready to go.

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Tomorrow I clean the tenon, mortise the remains stiles then ponder if I shall pre finish the panels prior to assembly. If I do I really have no idea exactly how to do this. I suppose if I was going to have done this I should have finished them and measured accordingly for my slot. My fear is the panels shrink and I see raw edges sans finish. I see this with stain grade work all the time at work as out finisher refuses to finish panels prior to assembly as I guess it makes more work for him “rollyeyes”

Oh and Jim,

I do have torsion box type tables on saw horses. I’m not really fond of setting up tearing down setting up and storage. I’m also stupid about a flat surface being flat when worpeicesmrewuire flat. I’ll go so far as to setup a laser level and the levels to assure its perfect. For me and as a result of me being rediculous I just assume build another bench I don’t have to wonder is it flat or not and or take the time to make sure it is.

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Really I just need more room. Ok I don’t need it I just want it. I feel lucky to have what I have though so i]your not gonna hear me complain. This is so much better than paying rent, electricity, heat, commuting and or worrying how ill pay the rent when the work dries up. Not that I use my shop to make $$$ but on occasion I have and I always shave the space in my back pocket should anything ever happen and unlike those whom rent shop space in a slow economy I’d be fine.

[Jim Becker]

There's no way I would fret about having a wide-belt available and using it for a project like this. While I know that some folks draw a lot of satisfaction from using their hand planes, I personally would use the sander here, too, simply because across multiple units like you are building you're going to get more consistency in thickness for those panels. Interestingly, the editorial in the current issue of Woodshop News actually touches on this very subject...