Sunday, August 29, 2010

Cabinet Sides... more frames

Moving along to the cabinet sides. They will also be frames with glass set in them, however these are flat and square which made life easier with them! Above, "the spectator sport of free-hand mortising" with no one to spectate heh. I'm using 3/8" thick mortise and tenons in these frames. There's little reason to go with twin tenons here as the sides are fully supported in the cabinet and there's enough width in the styles.
I'd rather not go back to an x-y table until I get get a REAL one ha but if I'm in a bind I can make do with my plywood one.

Tenons are cut slightly too large on the table and band saws.

Then round over and trim/file/sand the tenons to fit the mortises they will be joining.

Because I cannot count on precise cuts with the tables saw I have available I have a little extra work to do. Even if you DO have a nice saw there will probably some clean up to do on the shoulders. I just have to account for a smidge extra in my measurements to be able to get a clean shoulder using my chopping block. Handy things they are.

Rebates made in the back of the frames for glass and more rounded corners to chop square.

Fast forward the edge treatment and pre-finishing the side frames are glued up.
Whilst glue was drying I started on some lumber-core for the top and bottom of the cabinet. I have a little mixed feeling about building lumber-core at the moment, but we'll see once I get them done. Thing is it's tedious, time consuming, and dusty on the band saw if you don't have dust control like myself. I like it because you can do things with it that you just can't do/would be a real pain with plywood such as tapered/curved parts. It is also an "old school" way of making substrate and doesn't use the nasty adhesives that plywood does. I'm using Poplar also so it's relatively light, stable, and is a fast growing tree.
Ha one probably doesn't have to make as small strips as I did, perhaps next time I'll make them larger.

Ok back to the frames, the doors. Before I get going TOO far on the substrates I have to know pretty exactly how big the cabinet will be. I came back to the door frames to make the overlap where the doors will meet, you do have to plan this from the beginning.
Done on the router table with a modified bit to give a nice little round on the inside corner. Because the styles are capped by the rails which are end-grain to the router operation, REMEMBER to use a backer block when finishing each pass! I don't want chips flying out of these nice doors!

The overlap may look about equal here but the styles are set back 3/32" from the rails. So the majority of the overlap seam is thicker at the back and thinner towards the front. I don't like the idea of a cavernous divide ha. So if there's light that shines through the meeting of the doors or when opening the doors the "back" will be right there giving a more delicate overlap with a hardier backer.
Perhaps this is a lot of thought about a little detail, but that's what this kind of craft is about :).

Boy, this seems to be taking me some time to do. I suppose it's because I'm usually using "solid" sides. Cut the plank of wood, or make a veneered substrate and go with it. With these sides each has a number of joints, rebates, lines and details that need to meet up. Now that they are basically done I can start building the cabinet like I only started working on it a couple days ago HA!

2 comments:

--J-- said...

How do you round over your tenons so nicely?

Nicholas Nelson said...

Well mystery J heh, I start out with a chisel to cut away the corners of the tenon. The chisel makes this waste removal quicker. Then I just go at them with a file, I use an Oberg file. Once I get visually close I just keep checking them for fit in the joining mortise.
So no fancy tricks I'm afraid. As the tenons get thinner it is a bit more difficult to keep them nice and round. Don't worry too much though because most of your joint strength is coming from the long grain join, the flat sides of the tenon. Buuuuut also don't get sloppy heh.