The Cabinet Begins: Friday Update
The long awaited cabinet is underway, but not my sole workshop focus. Last week I said I made some white oak earrings. This week I took a pictures to share.
I also need to make a box and necklace. It is that time of year again for another school auction. This year we are donating my handmade jewelry and they are due this month which means I need to get it done.
Happy One Year!
Last highlight before I jump into the cabinet, this week I wrote a fun little article about one year of blogging. If you haven’t read it yet, here’s the link. I posted it on Wednesday, 3/8, but technically today is the anniversary of my first article.
Celebrate with me by signing up for my newsletter so you can start receiving my monthly email with a summary and curated content, making it easier to keep up with my blog and stay in touch. It’s completely free to you and only takes a few moments to submit. I’ve even moved the signup form up here to make it easier for you.
Piano Roll Display Cabinet
Milling
After milling, lumber needs to be stacked with stickered, which are small pieces of wood, allowing airflow on all four sides of the board. As the wood’s outside layers are planed away, new fibers are exposed to the air which can release moisture, causing the boards to warp. Stickering them allows for the moisture to release evenly, minimizing wood movement.
My usual process starts by breaking out the planer sled to flatten one side of each board. It’s a laborious process, and I’ve written about it before so if you want to know the details click here: Planer Sled: How to Flatten Boards without a Jointer.
Once one side is flat, I flip the boards over and do the second side, bringing the boards to a uniform thickness. Then I hand plane a straight edge on one side, rip on the miter saw, and boom. Straight, flat, ready to go lumber.
The problem this week was my sled was no longer flat. The sled works by creating a flat surface to reference in the planer, then the board is shimmed so it won’t move. Now the top will be cut by the planer, nice and flat. But if the sled itself is bowed that’s a big problem.
So I made a new sled. Extra work for me but ultimately it worked out because the boards I needed to joint were 5 feet long and my old sled was only 4 feet. Here’s a video on how I did it and how to use the sled.
Joinery
I spent the rest of my week laying out joinery. I’m building this piece for myself which means I’m doing two things.
Spending the time to make this a piece that will last forever.
Learning a new skill.
Hence why I am using mortise and tenon’s for my cabinet structure. Mortise and tenon construction is one of the oldest, strongest ways to connect two pieces of wood. One side receives a hole. Typically a square hole. The other board has the end cut down to match the size of the hole. It then is inserted with glue to create an extremely strong bond with a large amount of glue surface and support in the joint and on the shoulders, giving the board spanning across the piece tons of carrying capacity.
It is a slow process. Each mortise needs to be perfectly flat and parallel, otherwise the stretcher will not sit square at 90 degrees. When this happens the entire piece will be off, tweaked out of square.
My focus for the next week is to cut perfect mortise and tenon’s. After those are done, the rest of the cabinet will go together smoothly. If the joinery is off, the cabinet will not go together easily, so the pressure is on.