Kitchen Build Thread

[mound]

I took Friday off and spent most of Friday and Saturday taking 125bf of 5/4 rough sawn hard maple and turning it into oversized blanks for drawer boxes.  Would have used soft maple, but couldn't find anything locally (which is very strange to me). Oh well. 

Having one of those "holy cow what have I gotten myself into" moments but in a good way.  

   
(That's 100bf in this photo)

Most of the material was 9-12" in width, and while sold as 5/4 was a strong 1/8" thicker which was helpful for my re-saw technique.  I have a 14" Grizzly bandsaw with a 6" riser block giving me 12" of re-saw, but I can't quite pull that off through 12" of hard maple without cheating a bit (perhaps one day I can figure out how to really tune this thing in for such things.)  

For any drawers/pull-outs that were 4-6", I ripped the material first a bit oversized, and re-sawed with the table saw alone (blade full height, pass from each side) after having jointed one face and edge.   

But I have lots of boxes that will be 8-10" tall, so for these, I jointed one face, then both edges, then ran a deep (full blade height) table saw kerf down the exact center of both long edges and one short edge. This gives a good guide for the bandsaw blade and reduces by ~5.5" the thickness the bandsaw needs to cut through. The kerf on the short edge allowed me to place the bandsaw blade inside it before turning it on, to ensure I start right within the kerf. 

So this all now sits stacked and stickered, all at just shy of 5/8 thickness and will sit here until I'm ready to start actually making drawer boxes. I should be able to achieve 1/2" for the final parts, perhaps just shy of, after the final milling. 

I guess next up is to start milling all the rough oak to get all the rail/stile and other solid parts down toward final thickness, that will be a similar process of milling, stacking and stickering, only without any need to re-saw anything (the oak is all 4/4)

Before I pulled the trigger on the maple, I did a quick cutlist in SketchUp to see how much 1/2" plywood it would take to make all these boxes.. Worked out to 7 sheets of 8x4 and I think like 10 or so of 5'x5' Baltic birch. So while using solid is more work, much more work, it worked out to be a few hundred dollars cheaper than going with plywood, and I think in the end I'll be much more pleased with beautifully dovetailed solid wood drawers than plywood for what's really only a day or two of extra work.

   

   

   

[Snipe Hunter]

I like these threads.
I've built 2 kitchens. #1, I made the cabinets. #2, I bought the cabinets.... there will be no #3 (hopefully)

[jteneyck]

I like these threads.
I've built 2 kitchens. #1, I made the cabinets. #2, I bought the cabinets.... there will be no #3 (hopefully)

#3 is the one you pay for!

Good start Mound.  It gets easier after you get the wood roughed out.  Maple drawer boxes are a lot of extra work compared to using Baltic birch but I'm sure you'll be pleased with the visual improvement after it's done.  FWIW, single piece box sides look nice but it's hard to keep wide stock that thin from cupping.  It's pretty important that the wood be at EMC with your shop and that the RH stays relatively constant until you get the boxes glued up.  Good luck.  

John

[mound]

#3 is the one you pay for!

Good start Mound.  It gets easier after you get the wood roughed out.  Maple drawer boxes are a lot of extra work compared to using Baltic birch but I'm sure you'll be pleased with the visual improvement after it's done.  FWIW, single piece box sides look nice but it's hard to keep wide stock that thin from cupping.  It's pretty important that the wood be at EMC with your shop and that the RH stays relatively constant until you get the boxes glued up.  Good luck.  

John

Thanks John. That does worry me a bit. Gonna leave these rough milled parts stacked/stickered for at least several weeks at this point in hopes of preventing that.

edit: Didn't mention in my writeup, for a handful of the widest blanks (probably 5 of them) the widest rough stock (11-12") was already fairly cupped.. So for those, I ripped them where it was cupped, jointed/squared those sides then glued them back together, before re-sawing..  Barely perceptible seam. Hopefully that will help by having already removed some natural cupping.

   

[mound]

I was looking through random woodworking pictures and suddenly had an "oh crap" moment, which is probably nothing, but relates to all the maple I milled down.. I re-sawed all my 5/4 into 1/2" stock for the drawer boxes.. If I'm planning to dovetail them, did I make a mistake by not making 3/4" stock for the fronts?? These will be "5 sided drawers" with false fronts, but I started looking through some pix online and started realizing that lots of drawer boxes seem to have thicker fronts where the dovetails are. Will dovetails look funny if the front and side are both 1/2"? perhaps use a steeper angle? Thoughts? Grand scheme of things I know this isn't a big deal

[mound]

Most of the white oak first stage milling done, stacked and stickered (shorter front stack below).. This material is all now ~7/8" thick, most of the parts as stacked here will be further broken down (both ripped and crosscut) for the various rails and stiles.  The stickered maple seems to be staying flat.. I do see a couple of the very widest parts cupped a bit, but I can rip/square/re-glue a bit later as needed as I still have lots of extra width.  Note to self -make sure all sticks fully support all parts full width! By the way the stickers are just strips of scrap plywood. 

   

Then I turned my attention to preparing all the veneered panels. I had already cut up the various 1/4 and 3/4 MDF substrate blanks.  I got a nice stash of 1/16" rift sawn white oak veneers from Certainly Wood.  Got a 40% discount buying "the whole lot" so I'll be left with ~80sq/ft or so for some future project (basically one entire roll is unused).. I really like using 1/16" thick veneers, much easier to work with... I use the track-saw for cutting them down and edge jointing any mating pieces (though with such wide veneers, not many panels require a joint)

   

   

   

I can't imagine how wide the Oak tree had to be to get 13" all rift veneers out of it!

This is another of those "is it really worth the extra work" moments?  Essentially making my own MDF core plywood but with a full 1/16" veneer thickness and the ability to arrange grain exactly as I see fit.. Also the veneers can then extend over the hardwood edging, which I prefer.  Something about veneering panels, the whole process I do enjoy, plus I wasn't able to source any rift sawn oak plywood anyway, so I suppose yes, it's worth it!

The 3/4" MDF was edged with solid oak whereas the 1/4" MDF (which is the majority of it) doesn't need any HW edging as they'll be enclosed in rail & stile frames.  

First cut blanks for all veneers and HW edging where applicable, organized in the rack:

   

Then a couple days later (yesterday) pulled out the vacuum bag (a JoeWoodworker system I built probably 15yrs ago and has worked perfectly since!) 

HW edging is 1" wide - not because it needs to be, but because these all remain oversized at this point. The edging was milled ~1/8 over the 3/4" MDF thickness, then once dried a few passes with my Stanley #7 brought it flush with the MDF..  (There wasn't a ton of it to do, and when I pulled out my trim router to use a flush trim bit, I realized the collet was broken, so I couldn't use it anyway. I'll have to fix that before I forget about it and have to realize it again next time I reach for it!) 

   

The blue tape wasn't really even necessary.. To glue these on, I ran a bead of PVA glue, but had 3 spots, left, center, right where I used a gel CYA glue plus activator to hold it tight while the PVA dries.. No clamps needed.  I really only trust this method here because the veneers glued to both sides will tie it all together in the end.

   

   

   

At this point I've got just under 60hrs of shop time into this project.

[Snipe Hunter]

Thanks mound. Love these threads

[jteneyck]

I was looking through random woodworking pictures and suddenly had an "oh crap" moment, which is probably nothing, but relates to all the maple I milled down.. I re-sawed all my 5/4 into 1/2" stock for the drawer boxes.. If I'm planning to dovetail them, did I make a mistake by not making 3/4" stock for the fronts??  These will be "5 sided drawers" with false fronts, but I started looking through some pix online and started realizing that lots of drawer boxes seem to have thicker fronts where the dovetails are. Will dovetails look funny if the front and side are both 1/2"? perhaps use a steeper angle? Thoughts? Grand scheme of things I know this isn't a big deal

False front drawers have 6 pieces, 4 pieces for the box, a bottom, and a front that's screwed to the box.  I usually use 1/2" stock for the box and 3/4" for the false front.   

Beautiful veneer you got from Certainly Wood.  They do a really great job.  They're in East Aurora, just S. of Buffalo.  Their warehouse is eye candy for a woodworker.  

John

[mound]

Thanks mound. Love these threads

Glad you are enjoying it!

[mound]

False front drawers have 6 pieces, 4 pieces for the box, a bottom, and a front that's screwed to the box.  I usually use 1/2" stock for the box and 3/4" for the false front.   

Beautiful veneer you got from Certainly Wood.  They do a really great job.  They're in East Aurora, just S. of Buffalo.  Their warehouse is eye candy for a woodworker.  

John

Thanks John.. That's what I'm planning. The false front (which will be itself a frame & panel) will be 3/4" thick.. But I was thinking the front of the drawer box itself, the maple board that's dovetailed to the maple sides, needed to be thicker.  But after having looked closer at some other cabinets, it seems it's normally half-blinds between parts of the same thickness. 

Yah Certainly Wood is great. Friendly and fast.  I keep meaning to drive out there sometime, I've never actually been there.