Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Small hanging cabinet with drawers part 7 (the door)

I planed the rails and stiles so they were of a uniform thickness. They were then ripped to the correct width and the edges were cleaned up.

The grooves for the insert panel were made using my trusty Stanley 248 grooving plane. I planed them closer to one side, so the insert panel won't protrude too much.

For marking the positions of the rails and the stiles, I used a trick I have seen in "the essential woodworker" I simply placed the pieces in the door opening and marked the intersections right from there. I kept the pieces tight to the sides of the carcase, so I am pretty sure that the door is either a tight fit, or a trifle too large. But it is will be easy to take a swipe with a plane and make it fit.

I am not very good at making mortises and tenons. But normally my problems are related to when I make through mortises. For this small door I reasoned that I didn't have to make through mortises - it will look better with a stopped mortise, and the strength will be more than adequate.

I don't have a real mortising chisel in my sea tool set, but it is not a problem to make a mortise using a normal chisel, you just have to go a little easy on the levering action so you don't break your chisel.

To minimize the potential gaps at the shoulders, I tried to use the trick of first making a small groove for the saw, using a knife and a chisel. This can really help, and since I don't have a shoulder plane, with me, it is essential that the shoulder should fit tight straight from the saw.

Once the frame had been finished, I turned to attention to the raised panel.

The material for the panel is originally a stacking side for a Euro pallet. It is 19 cm wide, and I only needed a piece which was 16, so I didn't have to glue up a panel. This is a huge advantage in my opinion.
The panel was ripped to width, had its thickness reduced by planing and then it was squared up on the shooting board.
To raise the panel, I first made 3 series of grooves next to each other, so I ended up with some nice wide grooves parallel to all edges of the panel.
I then used the smoothing plane to create a bevel. The end of the bevel had been marked with a marking gauge.
Next I used the grooving plane on the thin edge of the bevel, to make it flat so it could enter the grooves in the frame.
Finally the panel was sanded and everything dry assembled.

I tested the width of the door on the carcase, and it is perfect. I need to reduce the height a little bit, but all in all I am happy with the result.


The wide grooves in the panel.

The first bevel, note the "fence"

The dry assembled door. Notice the "horns"

10 comments:

  1. Thank You for sharing! I wanted for a long time to do a raised panel, but I was afraid to try, because I didn't know exactly how.
    The Woodchipsmaker.

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    1. Hello Eugen
      I am glad you could use the information.
      Good luck with your raised panel.
      Brgds
      Jonas

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  2. Nice! I think it remarkable that you found a wide enough piece for your panel on a pallet!

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    1. Hi Brian
      The panel is not exactly from a pallet, but from one of those hinges sides that you can stack on a pallet - making it kind of a box.
      I still have a bit left, so I am making my own small wood store on board. It is also nice to keep it indoor.That way I don't have to work on some soaking wet wood, but rather on some "first class" dry wood .

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  3. So Jonas, I don't know how your wife would feel about this, but I think you should change your name to Gandalf, or possibly Merlin, or even Harry Potter. All kidding aside, that is truly beautiful work. If I get to produce work such as this one day I'll start calling myself a woodworker.
    Bill

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  4. Thank you very much.
    It is kind of funny, when I am out here I work a little bit differently than at home. I take more time in doing things and perhaps I even concentrate a little bit more. Probably because I know that I can't just take another board and get it ready in 5 minutes if I screw up a joint. I can also take the time I need, because these are all "for fun" projects. As long as the regular work is done, I can use a couple of hours of my off time without feeling guilty over not doing work on the house/stable, driving kids to sports etc. At home I tend to push the "fun" projects in the background, because there is always something that could be done on the house or the other buildings.
    I think my favourite sorcerer is Merlin. After all he was so cool that the British named an engine after him and even put it in one of the most iconic war planes ever. Imagine having a Rolls Royce engine named after you, and having it installed in a Supermarine Spitfire. That means that you have made some sort of impact..
    Brgds
    Merlin (Jonas)

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    1. Ha! that's an engineers dream, to have an engine named for you... I agree heartily, that would be great. Also, what a great door you've made here, nice proportions and use of those palletes. Once again you shame us without even a proper workshop at your disposal!

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    2. Thank you.

      Having an SI unit named after you could also be an option, but it had to be a decent one, like Watt.
      I suppose that fame fortune and glory are still pretty good motivators :-)
      Brgds
      Jonas

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  5. "I simply placed the pieces in the door opening and marked the intersections right from there."
    It's consistently more effective to transfer rather than measure, remember, and mark. Numbers are the devil's playthings!

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  6. Earlier I have mainly measured things, but simply marking is an incredible effective way of working.
    By the way, I can highly recommend "The essential woodworker" by Robert Wearing. I especially like the way he attaches hinges. It is meticulously described, and I have a feeling that it is a more correct way of doing it that the standard method I have employed so far.
    Brgds
    Jonas

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