Bookcase - display cabinet

[Bill Holt]

Really looking nice.  That is a boat load of plugs!

I bet you will be happy you decided to mill the boards for the back.

[Chataigner]

Made up the panels for the back and cut rebates shiplap style.  Made quite a few, random widths to best use the boards.



They are also rebated to fit over the edge of the top and bottom cross members and will be tidied up from the back with a moulding to cover the ends.



I've also stained the whole thing.  Decided to go with a spirit stain as I find the colours of the water based ones a bit flat.  This is Liberon chêne moyen.  Quite a challenge to put it on and wipe it off fast enough to keep it even.  Very pleased with the result, it brings up the grain of the chestnut panels beautifully and is dark enough to minimise the colour difference between the chestnut and the oak.  The photo does not really do it justice as there is a mix of overhead lighting and flash which makes the panel look lighter at the top.  It's not really !

The door below is also waxed with a slightly tinted Carnauba wax and buffed out.  

[Chataigner]

Finished glazing the doors today and rehung them.  The back is also fitted and stained but not polished.





The inside of the doors gives away the fact that the muntins are dummies if you look closely, but I dont feel it's really a big deal.  Wow, that glass is really filthy !!!



Afternoon off to go view an exhibition of leather goods in St Yrieix.  Tomorrow I start to fit the ebony dummy pegs and make some handles.  After that there are just two more shelves to make but I'd like to get the main cabinet out of the workshop  - it's too crowded and the adjustable shelves can be fitted once it's in its final home in the house.

[jteneyck]

Wow, that looks beautiful.  And the finish is just stain followed by wax?  Amazing.

John

[Chataigner]

Fitted the bony plugs today.  To make sure they all line up correctly I decided to make some little jigs in MDF that locate against the edges of the carcase and doors respectively, then drilled the jigs for the hole locations so i could reproduce each position accurately.  The jigs were designed to be revesible so that left and right sides match exactly.  Heres the result :



I'm a bit undecided about what to use for a door handle, so made this mock up in scrap quickly on the BS, and fitted it with one screw.  I've decided I quite like the idea of mimicing the cloud lifts in the muntins etc, but that it's too big.  Will make a scaled down version tomorrow and try that.  If it looks right, I could make the real ones with an ebony spline set into the back.



Then again... the media cabinet which will be in the same room, had solid ebony bar as handles - might go for that...?
It would create another design link between the two pieces.



(I've tried 10 different ways to make this photo display - if you click on the link it displays, but wont appear in the post - I give up !)

Would need quite a large piece of ebony though...

[jteneyck]

Your image won't open for me; the URL looks too short for it to work.  Anyway, I love the cabinet - all except that handle.  It's definitely too big.  How about a very small ebony finger pull type knob?  The kind that is curved downward and you grasp it with your thumb on top and your finger fits up under that curve.  Sorry, can't seem to find a picture of one at the moment. 

John

[sysadmin]

Remove the 400x602 from the img tag.  That's what's messing it up.  Images are resizable now anyway.

[Chataigner]

Like veryone said, the ebony is the best option :





Good decision I think.

Tomorrow Isabelle's 6' 6" son arrives to help me move it !  It's going to be fun 'cos it's too big to go through the internal doors in the house except on its side...  I think I'll take the doors off to reduce the weight. I'm not feeble, a bag of cement is no great effort, but with the doors on even lifting one end is a struggle.

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Remove the 400x602 from the img tag.  That's what's messing it up.  Images are resizable now anyway.



Tried that - I only specified a siize as a last resort when nothing else would work.   

The latest post was a real struggle too - if I cut and paste the image URLs, they dont display.  If I type exactly the same info by hand - very tedious - then they do display.  Starting to feel this is too much like hard work...

...and I  note my signature has dissapeared.

[Bill Holt]

Yes, the ebony handles were the right decision!

The bookcase looks GREAT!

Thank you for the documentation.

[Jonothanweeks]

Recently I purchased a display cabinet to keep my valuable stuff in an ordered manner.