September 2008

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Gluing up

September 29, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table, Machinery, Woodshop | No comments

The lumber for the hall table has stickered for over a week, more than long enough to stabilize.  I would have worked on it sooner, but have not had much shop time.  I have accomplished a few things, though, including gluing the door veneer to the doors.  This was done using a matched pair of torsion boxes, about 6″ x 18″ x 23″.  I used Pro-Glue, a urea resin glue, for the adhesive.  Since the veneer is being glued to a stable substrate (MDF), I needed a rigid glue to resist any movement of the veneer.  Pro-Glue works well for this, as well as Unibond 800 or Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue.  As with all products, they all have their advantages and disadvantages.  In this case, the Pro-Glue was handy.

I also glued the veneer to the front “rails” and “stiles.”  I know it sounds like I’m building a cabinet when I say I’m building a table, but it’s really a cabinet with a very wide top, so I am using the term interchangably depending on the context.  In this glue-up, I used Titebond.  I just use the regular old-fashioned stuff, not the type II or type III.  For a project like this, I don’t need a waterproof glue, and I’m most familiar with the working properties of the regular Titebond, so that’s what I use.  Anyway, Titebond (all types) is a semi-rigid glue.  Since the rail and stile “substrate” is solid wood, I think a semi-rigid glue is best so things can easily shrink and expand.  Not that there will be much movement in two or three inches, but there will be some.  I’m sure a rigid glue would work fine here, but the yellow glue is easy.  I use a little paint roller (Shurline 3″ Trim Roller) to spread it on both surfaces.  When not in use, I store the roller in a freezer Ziploc bag.

The photo below shows the cabinet sides in clamps, and the rest of the material stickered.  I always sticker my lumber when its being stored.  I’m a bit of a fanatic about it, but it keeps everything nice and straight.

The main reason for the photo is to show part of my shop.  I’ll show more later, when it’s a little more presentable.  I’ve been gradually moving in, after moving out of my rented space almost two years ago.  I had 1200 square feet located in an industrial area in Torrance.  I built this garage to take the place of that space, and the downsizing has been a challenge.  The garage is 21′ x 32′ (exterior dimensions of course), so the space is about half the size of my old shop, and the ceiling is a lot lower too.  And, there’s all the “garage stuff” that needs to fit.  I’m sure you get the idea.

What you see in the photo (machinery-wise) is my 16″ Laguna bandsaw, my vintage Powermatic 66 table saw (circa 1966), 20″ Conquest Industries disc sander, and just the front edge of my Jet drill press.  In the background is all the “garage stuff.”  Note the “loft” up above.  This third of the garage is the single-car-door side, and was originally slated for my wife’s car.  After she saw the space, she decided she wanted it more for her own work space than for her car, so there will be a work table there at some point.

I’ll get into more details of the shop soon.

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Making Sawdust

September 19, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table | 3 comments

I have been anxious to start making sawdust.  I resisted, though, until I had my drawing pretty much in order.  It’s not completely done, but there’s enough information on paper to create a cutlist.  That’s all I needed to fire up the jointer/planer.

I number the parts on my cutlist in order to keep track of the milled parts.  As I cut out the parts, I write the part number on each end of each board, where it won’t get milled off later (hopefully).  I go through the cutlist, finding the largest parts first, then moving on to the smaller ones.  I use my bandsaw and radial arm saw to cut the rough lumber oversize, typically 1″ longer and 1/4″ wider than the final dimension.

The lumber I’m using came from a former student.  It’s a flitch of five 5/4 rift sawn boards from a local walnut tree.  Air dried and very colorful; so much so, that I changed my mind about using the veneer for the cabinet sides.  This stuff is too pretty to cover up.  I will use the veneer for the front face only and use the other lumber everywhere else.

In the Advanced Furniture Casegoods class I’m currently teaching, I discuss the “Fifteen Steps to Squaring Lumber.”  I’m currently at Step 8, stickering.  The pieces have been milled to about 1/8″ oversize in thickness, and are now “resting.”  Tomorrow I will glue the veneer onto the front face pieces, then let everything rest a bit more.  The piece sitting in clamps on the table saw is the cabinet bottom.

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Veneered Doors

September 15, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table | No comments

I was able to saw the two boards (see previous post) into five pieces of veneer each.  I was shooting for 1/8″ thick, but ended up closer to 7/64″.  The fence on the bandsaw was not quite parallel to the blade and I didn’t notice until after the first two cuts.  The color difference on some of the pieces is due to those surfaces being sanded instead of planed.

The door substrate is 1/2″ MDF.  I banded it with walnut, 1/2″ wide, to give me room for trimming and for attaching the knife hinges.

I “paged” through the ten pieces of veneer and have chosen the best two bookmatched faces for use on the door fronts.  Some of the remainder of the veneer will be used for the door backs and other front surfaces.  I had planned to use a different piece of walnut for the cabinet sides, but now that I have all the veneer, I will probably use it for the sides also.  That would eliminate any chance of a color mismatch.  (It would also use up all the veneer, which is a good thing – I don’t need more material in my lumber stash.)

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Wood

September 14, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table | No comments

I purchased some beautiful bookmatched walnut planks about two years ago from Bobby Watanabe at Reprise Hardwoods.  They are air-dried with incredible color, and curly.  I have always wanted to make a cabinet with them, and the hall table project is perfect.  I plan to use redwood burl veneer for the door handles and drawer front.  The burl is left over from a large commission project.

The boards are about six feet long and I only need 32″.  The doors are 22″ tall, but I want all the front face to be the same wood, therefore the 32″ dimension to cover the “legs.”  In order to get enough material to cover everything, I will have to resaw the planks into veneer.  I would normally do that in my shop, but I don’t have any new blades handy, so I’m going to do it at school, where we have a 24″ Laguna bandsaw with a 1 1/4″ blade.  It resaws really well.

In order to see the door layout, I stapled together some 1/4″ plywood into the size of a door.  It’s about the same width as the planks, just over 9″.  I will adjust the cabinet to fit whatever door size I get.

Note the chalk line in the bottom of the photo.  That’s 33″ from the end of the board, and that’s where I’ll cut the board to rough length.

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If at First You Don’t Succeed…

September 12, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table | No comments

My students agreed that my first design wasn’t very good.  I had to go back to my sketch pad.  In one of those late-night aha moments, I had an idea.  Of course, most people would write it down, not taking the chance that by morning the stroke of genius might be forever lost.  I didn’t, and it was gone.  Fortunately though, not for long.  Two days after the insight, it came back to me, and I busily started sketching again.

I was pretty sure I got what I wanted this time.  The subtle curves, the uplifting sense of lightness, the Asian feel, which permeates a lot of my work.  This was going to be it.  The front of the cabinet would be flat, except for the door and drawer handles.  The drawer would be the central part of the semi-circular shape at the top.  It would protrude from the cabinet front about 3/4 inch.  A rabbet on its lower edge would provide a means to open the drawer.  It was time for a scale drawing.

After tweaking angles and proportions a bit, I was very pleased with the drawing.  The mockup showed that I was on the right track, and I was very pleased with the result.  Everyone who has seen it agrees, including the most important person, my customer (wife).

I originally had the bottom edge of the bottom stretcher straight, but it was too static.  I didn’t want to overdo it and distract from the rest of the piece, so I added a very gentle arc.  Also note that under the doors, you don’t see the front of the shelf sticking out.  I wanted the front of the cabinet very clean and uncluttered, so the bottom shelf will butt up against the back of the stretcher.

Astute readers may wonder how I’m going to hinge doors with an out-of-plumb hinge line.  My plan is to use knife hinges, a favorite of mine, and mount them so they are plumb.  In other words, the top hinges will be at the upper, outer corner of each door, and the bottom hinges will be inboard such that they are vertically aligned with the upper hinges.  Yes, that means the door will swing an arc into the cabinet, but it won’t be much.

Other issues I’ll be looking at:

  1. How to attach the inside shelf and web frame (below the drawer)
  2. What will the back look like and how will I attach it
  3. What happens behind the fixed curved portion on either side of the drawer
  4. How will I use the beautiful air-dried walnut panel I have stashed away for a project such as this

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Mockups

September 12, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table | No comments

I’m a big fan of mockups, or scale models, of my furniture projects.  I typically start a project by sketching ideas on paper.  As ideas gel, they become more detailed, eventually becoming a scale drawing.  They don’t always work out, and my first effort for the hall table is an example of this.

In this case, the drawing looked pretty good in a rough sketch.

As it took form as a scaled drawing, problems began to appear.  Proportions weren’t working out gracefully, locations of the “wings” and “feet” were an issue.  I was not happy with the results.  I went ahead with a quarter scale model, though, for a couple of reasons.  One, just to satisfy my curiosity regarding how this would translate into three dimensions, and two, to show my students the process.  It wasn’t pretty.

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Location, location

September 12, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table | 1 comment

The photo shows where this table will be located.  It’s a view of the wall adjacent to our front entry door; the door is on the left in the photo.  The painting, “Toby Running”, was given to us by a friend (long story).  It’s 4 feet x 8 feet and this is the only wall in the house big enough to hold it.   Well, almost.  The other spot would have been in our bedroom, but Toby needed to be where everyone could see him.

The plywood that sits atop the the current (ugly) table simulates the dimensions and height of the top of the table I’m designing.  It’s 14″ deep, 66″ long, and 32″ high.  My preference would have been a bit longer, but Lindsey, my wife, overruled me.  The customer is always rignt…Right?

Almost forgot…the dog poking her head out from behind the coffee table is not Toby.  That’s Rosie, our little 14 month old rescue dog we got from Animals Rule about six months ago.  Cajun, our cat, is sleeping peacefully in another room, out of harm’s way.

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Form Follows Function

September 11, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table | No comments

Louis Sullivan actually said “…form ever follows function,” but we know it best by the title of this post.  I’m a believer; hence, this blog.  I needed a way to communicate the goings-on in my shop to my woodworking students at Cerritos College (and others?).  This form, a weblog, fulfills that function quite well.

The impetus for this is a table I’m building.  Or cabinet.  It’s a piece of furniture which combines the function of both.  My wife, Lindsey, and I need a hall table and another place to store “stuff” in our small house.  It’s based on a piece of sculpture we saw during a home tour.

I like the circular support and the “wings” that seem to balance and float off the table.  Incorporating the shape and feel of this will be the form of my sculpture.

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