Monday, October 26, 2015

Shaker hanging cabinet, North Sea edition.

While I am still going to continue with my drawings for the small barn, I really need to build something again, to get myself out of the low productivity period that I seem to be having.

I have spent some time pondering what to build, and though I know that some time ago I made a lot of suggestions on the blog, and also received some from nice people commenting, I have chosen to do something completely different.

As you are probably all aware of, I have had a tendency to build chests out here. One form or another, which is technically OK, but I need to do something else. I can't keep on with the same projects over and over again.

Out here I have so far only built one small cabinet though: The hanging cabinet with many drawers. It was an interesting build, but I eventually finished the drawers at home. I.e. it was a bit of a large project to complete in a limited time. But the cabinet itself was interesting to build.
So suddenly I got inspired to build a North Sea version of a Shaker hanging cabinet.

The initial plan is to be inspired by the small Shaker cabinet from New Lebanon. I'll base the size on the availability of wood (pallet sides again).
I am not planning on doing anything really fancy, just more or less build it like I did together with the boys a couple of years ago: Shaker hanging cabinet.
To not completely forget how to dovetail, I think that I'll attach the bottom and the top using half blind dovetails. I suspect that the Shakers would have approved of that too.

First task as usual is to find some wood and get started.

It turned out that one frame of pallet sides should provide enough material for this cabinet. There is going to be a lot of planing, in order to reduce the thickness to something that will look acceptable.

Today I just sawed the pieces to rough length and glued together a back panel. The top and bottom were smoothed out and that was about that.

My next move is going to be to prepare the sides and the top and bottom so I can dovetail them together. I'll also need to make a shelf and cut a couple of dados for it.

But that will be another day. So far I am content with just having started a project again.

A future cabinet.


8 comments:

  1. Nice, looking forward to see how that turns out.
    You are a very resourceful person Jonas, I'm sure it would be another success

    Cheers
    Bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Bob.

      Thanks for the very kind words.
      I am often a bit sceptical at first, since the wood is usually quite cupped.
      I can't quite remember the size of the original cabinet, but it is not very big. This one is basically designed from the idea that the door should be the width of a board (7.5"), the total width of the cabinet will probably end up in the region of 12", the height 14" and the depth around 5.5". At least that is my idea at the moment.
      Brgds
      Jonas

      Delete
  2. Hi Jonas,
    Glad to see your back at it. These projects you take on while aboard ship are always fun and interesting to watch.
    Best,
    Greg

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Greg

      Thanks for the encouragment.
      I just didn't feel for making anything last time I was ou here, I don't know why.
      Brgds
      Jonas

      Delete
  3. Hi Jonas,
    I'm always fascinated by your projects. It's interesting to see how you are doing stuff in a limited space and with a limited tool set.
    Don't worry about the cupping. I think you will have to remove enough material for thinner parts of this small cabinet. Maybe for the back board you can laminate the parts in opposite grain directions. That will somehow counteract the cupping.
    Cheers,
    Stefen

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Stefan.

      Thank you for the nice comment.
      I have already glued up the back panel, and since it should end up being around 1/4" I should be able to plane the cupping out of it.
      The good thing about all that planing is that is some sort of exercise. I am admittedly not very good at visiting the gym, so any physical exercise is good.
      Brgds
      Jonas

      Delete
  4. Jonas where do you get pallets with such big boards in them? The pallets around here the boards are barely over 3" wide.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Ralph
      Those wide boards are not the pallet itself, but from some hinged sides that you can stack on top of a European pallet to make it like a box. They come in standardized sizes for the pallet types (half pallet and whole pallet) . But they all seem to be the same height.
      I'll try to remember to take a picture of them for the next post.
      Brgds
      Jonas

      Delete