OK, so I finally started that shop cabinet project that I have talked about for 6 months! I talked about it last week in another thread.
I used Chris McDowell's approach and took suggestions from Jim Becker and others. I used some tips from Danny Proulx's book -- great book BTW.
This project encouraged me to make a couple of jigs -- I always like that. Takes me longer for this project, but saves me lots of time on future projects.
One jig that I made was the shelf pin hole jig in Danny Proulx's cabinet book. It has a piece of steel with hole drilled and spaced 32mm OC. I made it large enought to handle 45 inch cabinet sides. I made a hole in the base to hold a dowel and when I use the jig, I push the cabinet side to the top, drill the bottom most hole first, and then push in the dowel to hold the side in place while I drill the rest. I can do the holes for a 42 inch cabinet side in less than 3 minutes! It use to take me 15 to 20 minutes per side. (I won't even tell you how I was doing it before.)
Last week I made a very simple outfeed table. That is making my life a lot simpler?
Another jig that I made was a Drill press fence to make the shelf hoe jig. I made a fence about 2 feet long. I drilled a 1/4 inch hole and put a dowel in it. I then lined up my drill press to be 32 mm OC from the dowel hole and drilled a second 1/4" hole. This allowed me to drill a hole in the steel, and then move it over to be on the dowel -- making the next hole exactly 32 mm OC.
I also used my router fence for the first time. I guess that is what you call it. It attaches to the router so that you can route a groove a given distance from the edge of a board. I put a small wooden face on it and used it to put the grooves in my side panels for inserting my cabinet back. Worked like a charm. The wooden fence was about 14 inches long and made it easier to keep the router going straight. I found that the wooden fence was catching on the plywood edge, and so I waxed it. That made it move much more smoothly.
and so ... I cut all of the sheets for the cabinets. I drilled the shelf pin holes. I made the groove for the back. I sanded and poly'd the cabinet pieces. I assembled the face frames. The only mistake that I know that I made so far is that I forgot to cut the stiles down from 1.5" to 1". That should be easily fix with my table saw -- just trim .5" off the sides before finishing.
Today, I will put the poly on the last couple of pieces that I didn't have room to do lastnight, and then I will put the pieces together.
You may notice that I didn't mention cabinet doors. I am going to do those as a future project. I am just going to get this up and start organizing some of my things. -- The LOML is anxious for me to make a bed for my daughter -- and I will request design ideas on that in a separate post.
All in all, a GREAT weekend and a great project. I learned a ton. I created a spreadsheet that takes the cabinet dimensions and calculates the dimensions of each piece. If you want it, let me know and I will post it. It is just like the table in Danny Proulx's bookd but adjusts the dimensions to allow a slide-in back in a groove in the cabinet sides and then screw to the back of the top and bottom (as I was taought by Crhis McDowell.
I have neve posted pictures, but I will try to learn how in the next day or so and post pictures of everything.
BTW, I went back and got some bass ply for me cabinet backs -- in case you were following my previous thread.
Ray
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