Friday, January 3, 2014

Small hanging cabinet with drawers part 5

After some bad weather we were fortunate to get an evening alongside, so I decided to unwind a little by continuing the building of the cabinet.

I finished the dovetails, and they were OK. I have even tested them by making a dry assembly of the carcase.

I wanted the shelves to be mounted in stopped dados. Since I was going to make a lot of dados, I figured that I'd better make a small router plane to clean up the bottom of those.
A router plane is a really handy tool in my opinion, but I didn't include one in my tool set for the sea originally. Simply because I didn't have a small router. The good thing is that you can get by using a chisel, but it is more difficult to make an even bottom in my opinion.
It took me about 10-15 minutes to make my small router plane. The body is a piece of spruce, the blade is a 6 mm bolt with a filed head and the holding mechanism is a V shaped groove and two round head Philips screws.
The bolt is a steel bolt of the quality 8.8, so it is hard enough to retain an edge for some time, yet soft enough to be machined with a file.
The blade could probably be sharper, but for cleaning up dados it is OK.

The dados for the shelves are 4 mm deep(5/32"). I first marked the position and then sawed out the walls using my small Japanese saw. I then removed the bulk of the waste using a chisel and finished up the dado with the router plane.

The vertical dividers are also going to be inserted in stopped dados. I marked out their positions according to my plan for drawer lay out. These are only going to be 2 mm deep (5/64"), so instead of using a saw for the sides, I opted for a Stanley knife (hobby knife). I used a steel square as a guide, and the walls of the dados looked fabulous. The only problem is that I made the dados a little bit too wide. So the dividers have a little loose fit. I hope I won't show too much, otherwise I'll have to blame it on the weather.

Home made router plane.

I don't know why the dado looks tilted? (It really isn't)


4 comments:

  1. Brilliant solution! I love your plane.

    That dado really does look tilted. Are you sure your square is accurate? haha.

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  2. I have checked the square. I guess it is my impressively inadequate photo technique that is finally showing.. :-)

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  3. I don't know what you used to take the picture, but if it was a wide-angle lense (many cell phone cameras use one these days), the "fish-eye" effect might explain at least part of why the dado doesn't look square.

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  4. I use the engine room camera, a low cost standard Canon point and click type. But I guess it is not super for close up photos.
    I must admit that I am better at woodworking than I am at photography.
    Brgds
    Jonas

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