Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 37

Thread: Floating Wall Cabinet with a Floating Top

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    22,494
    Blog Entries
    1

    Floating Wall Cabinet with a Floating Top

    Times change and we no longer use a receiver, disc player, etc. in the house. This gives me an excuse to build a new cabinet to hold those things associated with how we watch TV and listen to music today. This also gives me a great excuse to steal the existing media cabinet out of the living room and spirit it away to the shop. It will live on as my PC and stereo cabinet for the shop and the outdoor music system. I'm shooting for something like this.

    This has full SWMBO approval and will be walnut. It will hang from the wall about a foot off the ground. The front panel is a fall front door for access to bluetooth stuff and maybe an eventual cable box if we ever decide to get cable TV.

    I pull some promising looking stock from the racks. When trying to match material I find that a couple of swipes with a hand plane and a squirt of mineral spirits will get me a pretty good idea of which boards match and which don't.





    I enjoy plotting out where I will pull my parts from.



    I generally do this with chalk as things often change before I get all my parts sources selected.



    I break things into manageable pieces with a jig saw and start milling things.



    I leave the top and bottom till I am closer to final assembly. The balance of the parts don't look like much but, it is a smaller piece at about 16" x 18" x 42".



    I plan to make the floating panels by veneering up some of this reddish walnut I have been hanging onto.



    Often I will want a board with figure running some way other than the way the sawmill yielded.



    The answer to this is a bandsaw and a jointer.



    With a reference edge running along the grain like I want I just rip the blank at the tablesaw. I go ahead and rip a lot of the other blanks to the max width of the parts that will eventually come from them.



    I then crosscut most of them to length. I rip those crosscut parts that require it and get ready to do some joinery milling.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    22,494
    Blog Entries
    1
    I find ganging identical pieces together with a bit of tape is seldom a bad idea when cutting joinery. When I am using typical dimensions these setup blocks make things go pretty quick.



    I'm a "fixed mortise / tune the tenon" kinda guy. A cutoff from your parts makes a good sample blank to test joinery setup on.



    A few swipes with a shoulder plane and you can see how things are going to fit before you start cutting on your actual parts.



    I go ahead and cut the joinery on the other parts for the front (fall front) door.



    And you can now get the idea that this is not a large piece despite having an 18" by 46" top.

    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    22,494
    Blog Entries
    1
    I know I re-cover some methods and techniques ad nauseum. I do this under the assumption that some newbie or experienced person unfamiliar with the method may drop in to our little world here . Hmm, I seem to have this recurring need to explain myself . . . .

    The door stiles need stopped grooves. Here is another example of how setup bars can help out. I again use an off-cut and do the proposed joinery cut on it.



    The setup bar acts like a big feeler gauge to tell me how things are fitting.



    All is well? Off we go. Many of you have seen and done this operation before; a stopped groove on the router table. The fence setting is already known as show by the result on the scrap shown in the previous pics. The stop position will change for each of the two parts.



    The part, controlled by the stop, fence, and your steady mitts, is lowered onto the spinning bit, moved to the other stop and lifted off.





    I used a down-cut spiral since I wanted a very clean edge. The parts are asymmetrical lengthwise so, as mentioned earlier, the stops are changed from one part to the other.



    The actual dimensions match the drawings so I will confidently move on to the side panels where the joinery is a bit more challenging.
    Last edited by glenn bradley; 03-05-2022 at 6:04 PM.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    22,494
    Blog Entries
    1
    The center divider was a smidge too snug off the saw. My de-snugger took care of that.



    There we go.



    Cut all the panel slots.



    I haven't used a lot of the smaller dominoes as of yet so I took a few minutes and made some domino stock.





    That oughta do it.

    Last edited by glenn bradley; 03-05-2022 at 6:05 PM.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    22,494
    Blog Entries
    1
    I know there are folks on here who are a lot more familiar with the Domino than I am. Here's something I picked up working on darker woods. I mark across the pieces to be joined with my usual pencil that rides along in my apron.





    Before I cut the mortise I write over that pencil line with a white pencil. You don't even have to be careful, the graphite pencil shows through the white marking.





    This give a little easier target to hit with my old eyes. One of the things I have enjoyed about floating tenons (way before the Domino) is that you can cut parts to actual length. This allows clamped up dry fits to measure off the piece for additional joinery if required. You can see that I used stub tenons on the fall-front dividers for no particular reason.





    Once you're happy you cut mortises on both halves of the joint and add the tenon. Although a new tool for me I can see that the Domino makes quick work of this operation.





    And you can kind of get the idea of the look here.


    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    SE PA - Central Bucks County
    Posts
    65,688
    A very kewel project there for sure!
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    SE Michigan
    Posts
    3,222
    Thanks for sharing, Glenn. All the makings of a beautiful piece. The white pencil over the graphite is a great tip!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Collegeville PA (30 min west of Philly)
    Posts
    1,143
    Blog Entries
    1
    I greatly appreciate the instructional telling and learn a ton from it, so THANK YOU. Also, I again realize that I know nothing about woodworking
    - Bob R.
    Collegeville PA (30 minutes west of Philly)

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    22,494
    Blog Entries
    1
    I failed miserably on getting pics of the veneer re-sawing and preparation. I spent the morning helping a neighbor with his boat. Short story is that we had to be towed back in to the ramp . . . don't ask. Certainly could have been a worse place to wait for a tow.



    At any rate, time was short so I just plowed through. This is the best I've got.



    You may notice the Veneer is a bit thick. Veneering is very new to me; this is my second run. I should have made the panels first and then cut the grooves that will hold them. LOML has specified that she wants the panels flush with the rails and stiles. This means a rabbeted edge on the panels.

    I calculated using whole imperial dimensions (like 1/4") for the substrate. BB ply is metric so it will be a bit shy . .. Doh! My solution was to go thick on the veneer. I will drum sand it back to the dimension I want. 20/20 hindsight. I'll try to do better next time.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    SE PA - Central Bucks County
    Posts
    65,688
    True craftsmanship is adapting to changing conditions, including those one imposes on themselves because they, um...made a boo boo.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    MT
    Posts
    698
    Looking very nice Glenn.
    Regards,

    Kris

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Grand Forks, ND
    Posts
    2,336
    I always learn something when I see your posts Glenn, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to more progress.
    A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. My desk is a work station.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    22,494
    Blog Entries
    1
    Thanks for the encouragement guys.
    I buggered my knee (somewhere besides the shop) and had to knock off early to ice it. I did manage to get a little more done before I squatted down to get a piece of sandpaper and realized my knee wasn't bending so good .
    If you have a Domino a pair of parallel piers work great for pulling stubborn dominoes after a dry fit without damaging them.



    I altered the plan a bit. I was going to back the side frames with 1/4" ply to make them extra stout. I decided some 1/8" substrate will be enough to create the surface strength am after. This may make more sense as I show the side assembly better. 1/4" or 1/8" it means milling a "receiver" into the frame assembly.

    Some parts have through cuts.



    Others require a little thinking outside the box.



    All required a little hand work to clean things up.







    Here's a before and after on one part.



    Love the shoulder plane.



    Some corner clean up.





    The center dividers were milled from the same blanks as the surrounding frame members for a good color / figure match. They are 1/8" too thick. I cut a channel at the router table.



    And cleaned the leftovers off with a #4.



    The final side panel profiles look like so.



    I should be back on my feet tomorrow and hope to catch up a bit.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    SE PA - Central Bucks County
    Posts
    65,688
    If you have a Domino a pair of parallel piers work great for pulling stubborn dominoes after a dry fit without damaging them.


    Suggestion...make a set of Domino stock in the sizes you use that have been slightly sanded for non-sloppy, but "finger slip fit" and dye them some obnoxious color. Use those for your dry fits to avoid having to use pliers to remove them. Using the pliers can slightly damage the Dominos in some cases, so having a set specifically for dry fit eliminates that risk and makes for very tight final glue assembly.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    22,494
    Blog Entries
    1
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Becker View Post
    [/COLOR]

    Suggestion...make a set of Domino stock in the sizes you use that have been slightly sanded for non-sloppy, but "finger slip fit" and dye them some obnoxious color. Use those for your dry fits to avoid having to use pliers to remove them. Using the pliers can slightly damage the Dominos in some cases, so having a set specifically for dry fit eliminates that risk and makes for very tight final glue assembly.
    Excellent tip Jim! I think you've mentioned this before and I totally forgot about it.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •