Oak wall cabinet

[William Fretwell]

Welcome Ben, that cabinet is a great idea, saves a lot of bending down, much easier on the back!

[Ben Ellenberger]

Got the carcass glued up. When I did the dry run everything seated nicely, but when I glued up a couple joints didn’t go all the way together. I didn’t catch them until the glue was dry and I was taking the clamps off. They are pretty small gaps and I think I can hide them as I do the final sanding/finishing.

i tweaked the internal divider and shelf to make tall vertical space on the right easier to access. I wanted to have room for a long jointer plane. Right now the longest plane I have is a no 5, but I expect I’ll either buy a metal plane or make my own wooden one fairly soon. I sketched out some curves with a compass, made some stop cuts, then shaped the curves with a chisel, spokeshave, and rasp.

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I had rough cut the rails and stiles a couple days ago, then I got a reference face and edge and let them sit overnight, then after getting them close to final thickness and width I double-checked everything and corrected for any movement. The door will be about 22”x24”, which is the biggest I’ve ever done, so I need to be pretty precise for it to come out straight.

ive got the grooves plowed and I’m starting on the mortises. I’m curious if anyone uses guides to help them chop straight. I’ve made a couple wooden guides before, but I’ve felt pretty good about my results doing it by eye. I take my time clamping the stile to keep it square to the bench, then have a square next to it as I chop for reference. I stand at the end of the bench so I can sight down the stile and check myself as I go.

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[Christopher Charles]

Hi Ben,

Cabinet is looking good. I use a similar set of techniques for chopping mortises. Keep the posts coming.

Best,
Chris

[Ben Ellenberger]

Got the frame of the door together and one pair of panels resawn. The door came out perfectly square and it will just take a little planing to smooth up the faces. Next I have to resaw the second pair of panels and glue them up. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll book match each panel or have all four be symmetric around the center stile.

it turns out re-sawing a 5 1/2” piece of hard maple is a lot of work. I’m using a 26” rip saw with 7 ppi. I’m going to sharpen it before doing the second pair of panels. I’ve been putting off re-sharpening because I’ve been meaning to make a nice saw vide first, but I’ll make do with a couple of battens clamped in the vice for now.

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[Ben Ellenberger]

I got the front door finished and fit. I’m really happy with how the door came out, zero twist and the panels look good to me. I’ve got it 3/32 shorter than the opening. I think that is a little too tight so I’ll probably plane it down a little more to give myself 1/16” clearance top and bottom. But, I’ve set it aside for now To do the back and fit out the interior before I hang the door.

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i just used whatever scrap pieces I had laying around for the back, so the frame has a couple of different grains and colors in it. The stiles have a bit of a bow to them, but I think the panels will help straighten them and the whole thing will be glued and screwed to the back of the case. I re-sawed a couple pieces of poplar and ship-lapped them for the back panel. I left the back pretty rough where it will be against the wall. Oh, and I also cut the panels with an extra 1/4” on each side for the laps and the rabbets that would go into the frames, but forgot that I would only lose 1/2 of that where two panels overlapped each other. So, on my first dry fit my panels were too wide and I had to go back and re-cut the laps and plane them down by about a 1/4” each.

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I’m really glad I did a couple dry runs before gluing up the back. After re-sizing the panels I made shims to space the panels, and on the first run I snapped one off, so I realized they needed to have the grain running in the right direction so I could pull them out after everything was glued. I normally glue up a panel by clamping a stile in my vise, fitting everything with the assembly in the vise, then taking it out to put it in clamps to tighten up the joints and check for square. The shims kept falling out when I tried it that way, so I ended up doing the whole glue-up with the parts laying flat on my bench. I also cut tapers on a couple shims so I could wedge the panels up and down to get the gap consistent on the top and bottom. After the dry runs the actual glue up went really smooth.

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[Ben Ellenberger]

So I got the hinges on the door. The brass screws that came with them were slightly long, so I cut them short with pliers. That worked great, I used a square awl to start the holes, ran a steel screw in first, then the clipped brass screws went in great. I used 3x5 cards to measure the gap at the top and bottom of the door. The total gap Between the door and the case was 12 cards, so I spaced it up 5 cards from the bottom to mark where the hinges needed to be. I got the mortises cut and then realized I had the case upside down. I cut the mortises on the wrong side of the cabinet!

i didn’t throw anything across the garage or cuss, so I’ll say I handled it pretty well, but I decided that was it for the day. I’ll need to cut filler pieces and try to match the color and grain the best I can, then hang the door on the correct side of the case. The bottom rail is wider than the top rail so it just won’t look right if I hang the door upside down on the wrong side of the case. I had been moving the case back and forth as I’d been fitting out the inside and fitting the door, and I flipped it upside down. I didn’t catch the mistake until I was almost done.

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[Ben Ellenberger]

All right, I’m going to call this 99% done. I got the mortises patched and the door re-hung (right side up this time!). I finished it with blo and paste wax. I’m really glad I used a ledger strip to mount this. It made it easy to do by myself. I started the screws in the case, then balanced the case on the ledger strip and pressed the case against the wall. The screw tips marked where I needed to pre-drill. I checked with a stud finder before drilling to make sure I would catch the studs. I used 3 1/2” decking screws and it feels very secure. The ledger strip Is the width of the case minus the width of the side panels, so i could just prop the case on the strip and sight down the line of the dovetails to make sure the case was centered in the strip.

I’m still getting the hang of door hanging. I made my mortises in the case a little too deep. There is a little contact that makes the door want to swing open. I think I’ll need to take the door off and put a shim in the mortise to space the door out just a little.

overall, I’m pretty happy with how this came out. There were a few mistakes, a few almost-disasters, and it isn’t perfect. But, I’ll call this pretty good for a shop cabinet. I felt like I learned a lot doing it. I got better at planing and scraping difficult wood, got more precise at laying out, and got more experience at planning and working through a multi-step project.

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[Mike Manning]

Nice job Ben and welcome to SMC! Thanks for sharing.

[David Eisenhauer]

Nice work Ben. The doors look very good for anywhere, never mind the shop . Thanks for the photos.