01-24-2015, 04:02 PM
I like reading build alongs, but there haven't been many lately so I thought I'd do one on a small cherry vanity and mirror frame I've just started building.
The vanity is 30" W x 21" D x 34" H at the top of the granite. It's a simple Shaker style in cherry, one of the woods I love to hate, while the inside will be maple. It will sit on a separate base; the plumbing will come through the back. Here's the design:
I roughed out most of the cherry stock from some beautiful wood I bought last Fall, almost 100% heartwood and very few pitch pockets.
The Shaker style frames have a bevel on the inside edge of the stiles and rails. I decided to buy Freud's Shaker style cope and stick router bit set, and it is very nice.
You can make tenons of any length with it by removing the top portion of the coping cutter. Don't know if I'll ever use that feature, but thought I'd mention it. Here's the coping bit cutting some rails ends for the end panel.
And here's the other cutting the sticking on a rail. I actually had some tear out below (above in the photo) where the panel fits in the dado. It won't show because the 1/2" panel will hide it on the side panel, but I'll have to figure out how to prevent it when I cut the door components. Perhaps a shallow pass first, or maybe even a very shallow climbing cut but only as a last resort. Got any ideas?
After some fiddling to adjust the dado width for my 1/4" panel tongue the parts fit together quite well. It comes with the dado set for a 5.5 mm (IIRC) panel so you have to add shims (supplied) for any other thickness.
There's no photo of what router is driving the bits, but it's my brand new Bosch 1617EVS. This is the first full size variable speed I've bought. It's very smooth and the variable speed came in handy as the max. speed on these bits is around 16000 rpm IIRC. The rpm seemed to hold steady as I pushed the stock through the bit, too.
The panels are 1/2" thick and are flat on the front side. I used a bowl routing bit to relieve the back of the panel to fit the 1/4" dado in the frame components.
Here's the end panel glued up:
I moved on to the face frame, using my horizontal router mortiser to cut the joinery, here in the rails:
and also the stiles:
Here are the components ready for gluing:
And after glue up:
Sharp eyes might see that the lower rail is not as thick as the stiles and upper rail. That's because the door and drawer fronts will be recessed 1/8" from the face frame, so I want the lower rail to be flush with them.
I mentioned that the inside of the cabinet will be maple. I looked at buying prefinished maple plywood, but the cost is really high and I only need a small part of a sheet, so I decided to make my own. I started by cutting some veneer from some undersized drawer sides I had left over from another project. Don't you love being able to finally fined a use for stuff you botched in a prior project?
Then through the drum sander to get it smooth and down to 1/16".
Some of the pieces had some curl and bend in them and they kept popping the veneer tape about as fast as I could iron it on. After 3 or 4 failed attempts I finally gave up and used 3M blue tape to tape the seams.
I'm back to using Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue after the heartache I had with Better Bond Cold Press PVA glue last year. The penalty is the temp. has to be at least 70 F and the cure time is really long if the temp. is that low. The bottle of Better Bond you see in the picture was just used to hold down the veneer as I taped it. At least I have a use for it. Here's the panel in my home built vacuum bag:
Not shown, but I put a heating blanket on top of the bag. The temp. gets up to about 100 F and the cure time is only about 4 hours at that temp. Still, I left them in for 8 hours. Next I drum sanded the panels.
and then finished them with the ROS sander.
And that's where I am at the moment.
Thanks for looking.
John
The vanity is 30" W x 21" D x 34" H at the top of the granite. It's a simple Shaker style in cherry, one of the woods I love to hate, while the inside will be maple. It will sit on a separate base; the plumbing will come through the back. Here's the design:
I roughed out most of the cherry stock from some beautiful wood I bought last Fall, almost 100% heartwood and very few pitch pockets.
The Shaker style frames have a bevel on the inside edge of the stiles and rails. I decided to buy Freud's Shaker style cope and stick router bit set, and it is very nice.
You can make tenons of any length with it by removing the top portion of the coping cutter. Don't know if I'll ever use that feature, but thought I'd mention it. Here's the coping bit cutting some rails ends for the end panel.
And here's the other cutting the sticking on a rail. I actually had some tear out below (above in the photo) where the panel fits in the dado. It won't show because the 1/2" panel will hide it on the side panel, but I'll have to figure out how to prevent it when I cut the door components. Perhaps a shallow pass first, or maybe even a very shallow climbing cut but only as a last resort. Got any ideas?
After some fiddling to adjust the dado width for my 1/4" panel tongue the parts fit together quite well. It comes with the dado set for a 5.5 mm (IIRC) panel so you have to add shims (supplied) for any other thickness.
There's no photo of what router is driving the bits, but it's my brand new Bosch 1617EVS. This is the first full size variable speed I've bought. It's very smooth and the variable speed came in handy as the max. speed on these bits is around 16000 rpm IIRC. The rpm seemed to hold steady as I pushed the stock through the bit, too.
The panels are 1/2" thick and are flat on the front side. I used a bowl routing bit to relieve the back of the panel to fit the 1/4" dado in the frame components.
Here's the end panel glued up:
I moved on to the face frame, using my horizontal router mortiser to cut the joinery, here in the rails:
and also the stiles:
Here are the components ready for gluing:
And after glue up:
Sharp eyes might see that the lower rail is not as thick as the stiles and upper rail. That's because the door and drawer fronts will be recessed 1/8" from the face frame, so I want the lower rail to be flush with them.
I mentioned that the inside of the cabinet will be maple. I looked at buying prefinished maple plywood, but the cost is really high and I only need a small part of a sheet, so I decided to make my own. I started by cutting some veneer from some undersized drawer sides I had left over from another project. Don't you love being able to finally fined a use for stuff you botched in a prior project?
Then through the drum sander to get it smooth and down to 1/16".
Some of the pieces had some curl and bend in them and they kept popping the veneer tape about as fast as I could iron it on. After 3 or 4 failed attempts I finally gave up and used 3M blue tape to tape the seams.
I'm back to using Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue after the heartache I had with Better Bond Cold Press PVA glue last year. The penalty is the temp. has to be at least 70 F and the cure time is really long if the temp. is that low. The bottle of Better Bond you see in the picture was just used to hold down the veneer as I taped it. At least I have a use for it. Here's the panel in my home built vacuum bag:
Not shown, but I put a heating blanket on top of the bag. The temp. gets up to about 100 F and the cure time is only about 4 hours at that temp. Still, I left them in for 8 hours. Next I drum sanded the panels.
and then finished them with the ROS sander.
And that's where I am at the moment.
Thanks for looking.
John
I thought you would have used something you milled yourself but I guess if you don't like cherry, then you don't seek out those logs? I shy away from cherry, too, but maybe for different reasons than you. Mine concern finishing. Even when I think I'm done sanding, etc, there's always some ROS swirls to be found. However, I love how it ages.