Yesterday I completed the staining of the small audio cabinet. Today it is dry enough to do the glue up. I glued up the two side panels this morning. Then I went shopping for lacquer and more stain. When I got back the panels glue was dry enough for me to glue up the rest.
I did try out my new spray gun with the lacquer on a test board. I got it from Harbor Freight for $30, the guys in our SAPFM meeting said that these cheap guns are as good as the expensive ones, so I am going to give them a try.
Today's video is kind of short with just the glue up and clamping.
Now that I have finished the TV cabinet for my wife, I can get back to working on the two audio cabinets for my neighbor. These are made from white oak and the finish that my neighbor wanted was a dark brown. He called it Espresso. Well, Minwax makes an Espresso color so I bought that and another two colors that I thought would be darker. As it turns out he still picked the Espresso color. I think I learned something about psychology in this process.
I have one small hole that I need to fill on the large cabinet. So, I made my home brew wood filler. I made some sanding dust from a scrap piece of white oak and then used some hide glue (old brown glue) to hold it together. The object is to get more wood than glue in a paste ball. Once I made the filler I pushed it in the hole and let it dry. Then is sanded it flush. One benefit from doing it this way is that it take the stain like the wood so it is an invisible repair.
I was not sure what the coverage would be with the Minwax stain so I decided to apply it to the small cabinet first to see how much it used. Now that I have applied the stain, I have some left over so another small can should be enough to finish the project.
I sanded the small cabinet to 180 grit and applied the stain, waited 15 minutes before wiping of the excess as directed by Minwax. Looks good. Now I have to wait for it to dry and then spray satin lacquer for the final finish.
Here is today's video:
In case you forgot I put 7 coats of Waterlox tung oil varnish on the TV cabinet that I am making for my wife. Ten days ago I put on the last coat. I put it aside while I started making the audio cabinets for my neighbor.
Well, it has been long enough for the finish to harden so that it can be sanded.
This time when I used Waterlox it collected a lot of dust. So, I have to wet sand the finish with 400 grit wet or dry sand paper. I usually do this with mineral spirits but I don't like the smell. So I thought I would try using soapy water. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked and with out the smell and glove required with mineral spirits.
I sanded it and wiped it down and let it dry. After that I applied a paste wax with 0000 steelwool and buffed out the finish. It looks pretty good.
My wife and I moved it into the parlor where she watches TV.
Now I have to finish the audio cabinets for my neighbor.
Here is today's video:
I have been working on the audio cabinets most of the week. I cut the tenons on the smaller audio cabinet and then dry fit the legs and sides. After that I cut 1/4 inch slots to hold the side panels.
I glued up the top 24 x 20 out of 3 pieces from the same board.
After all of that I assembled the entire small cabinet. I need the practice to prepare for the final glue up.
So here is today's video:
Well I started on the second audio cabinet today. This one has legs, the other long one sits on the floor without legs. After consulting Doug Moulder about the design of the legs, he suggested that the taper on the legs be about 1/4 inch and only on 2 sides. I was going to taper all four sides but he suggested that it might look odd.
So I had to whip up a taper jig to cut 10 1/4 in taper on two sides of each leg. I did that with 1/2 MDF and a scrap piece of maple. The hold down clap I had on another jig, so I just pulled it off of the other jig. I spent more time making the jig than cutting the tapers. I have another taper jig but it did not work for the kind of taper I wanted to cut on these legs.
Once I cut the tapers, I marked off the mortises on the legs. Then I cut the side and front rails to size and left enough for a 1 inch tenon on each side.
Someone ask how I cut the tenons on the long rails in the last video, well in this video I show how I cut the tenons on the upper and lower rails on each of the pieces. I used the same method on the long cabinet using my radial arm saw and dado blades. I don't use it that often but this is a good application for that set up.
After I cut the tenons, I have started to drill out the mortises with my hollow chisel mortiser. It makes quick work out of cutting mortises. I bought it 10 years ago when I was making art and crafts chairs which had 60 mortises per chair and I made a set of 6. It saved a lot of time.
So here is today's video:
It has been a couple of days since I started on the Audio and TV Cabinets. I have milled the stock and rough cut all of the material to the specifications in the drawings.
I cut to length the material for the longer cabinet, mortised and tenoned the joints and fit the pieces together. So far so good. After fitting the frame, I cut dados in the rails and glued up the botton.
It is easier to see what I did in the video than for me to describe the steps.
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday so I will not be working in the shop. But on Monday I will fit the bottom panel and start to work on the top.
Here is today's video:
Well, a new neighbor came over and had heard that I do woodworking. He asked me if I would make for him two cabinets for his audio equipment and also to put his tv on.
So I went over to his house and measured the area where he wanted to put the cabinets. From his specifications I made two drawings. He reviewed the drawings and approved them. He requested that the cabinets be made from white oak and finished a dark brown (Espresso).
From the drawing I calculated the number of board feet that I needed and made a trip to Yoder Lumber in Millersburg Ohio. They have great domestic lumber prices and good supply. Monday, Doug Moulder and I drove down and picked up the rough sawn lumber. I bought 4/4, 5/4 and 8/4 white oak for the project.
Yesterday I started to mill the rough sawn stock to size and today I finished. So, now I have all the stock rough cut.
Tomorrow I can start to join the frame for the cabinets.
So here is today's video:
Well I have applied 6 coats of Waterlox Original Finish to the cabinet. One per day with a rag.
You can see that there has been a build up of the finish and a lot of dust nubs. I am going to apply one more coat tomorrow and then put the piece aside for a week or two for the finish to cure. Once it has hardened I will use 400 wet or dry sand paper with mineral spirits to flatten the finish and remove the dust nubs. After that I will apply a furniture wax and buff the surface to the gloss that I want. I'll do a video when I get to that point.
So here is today's video.
I received the hinges the other day, so now I can cut the mortises in the doors and fit them to the cabinet. I used a router plane to shave off the material in the hinge mortise. I think it works better than the traditional method of using a chisel and chopping the mortise. I attached the hinge on the door and then match the mortise on the cabinet. The doors where a little large so then I had to plane off a little to make them fit correctly.
Once the doors were fitted I wet down the cabinet to raise the grain and when it was dry I sanded with 320 grit paper so get it smooth again. Pre-raising the grain is often used when applying water based dye. Then I sprayed the dye and let it dry. Then I rubbed it down with 0000 steel wool.
Vacuumed the dust and wiped it down with a clean cloth.
Now I am ready to apply the Waterlox tung oil finish with a rag. I have just applied the first coat but it will take multiple to get a good build up of finish.
So here is today's video:
Well I picked up a Danish wooden smoothing plane this weekend and I think it will be a good user.
I am waiting for the hinges to come from Rockler for the tv cabinet so to keep busy I thought I would spend some time on this plane and recondition it.
I did a little research on this plane since I could not find any maker mark on the plane body I thought it might be a little difficult to figure out. But the plane iron had the name Erik Anton Berg. It turns out that the plane is Danish made and probably had JPBO on it somewhere. It stands for Johan P. Bendixen Odense. The firm is no longer in business since bankruptcy in 1992. The plane was probably made in the 1970's. The Danish did not make the steel so they turned to the Swedes to make the irons. That is why the name on the blade is Swedish.
The wooden body is in good condition but could use some cleaning. The blade needs grinding since it has a lot of nicks in it. So, I started by taking all the dirt and rust of the blade and cap iron.
I used sand paper and a wire brush. Then I started to grind the iron at 25 degree angle on the Worksharp at 120 then, 220, etc. You will see the progression in the video.
Once I got a decent edge on the iron with the Worksharp, I switched to hand honing. I used the 3M micro sheets at 5 microns and .05 microns. I added a minor camber to the blade.
All I did was set the iron and tried it out on a piece of maple. I have some more work to do to get it running good but I thought I would let you know how I was doing with it.
Here is the video:
This weekend I attended the spring meeting of the Ohio River Valley Chapter of the SAPFM in Rio Grande, Ohio. We met at the University of Rio Grande. The university's Fine Woodworking program has hosted quite a few of our meetings and Eric Matson who runs the program is a great host. There were presentations on saw sharpening, making a lowboy and a group discussion on finishing. We had a great meeting.
The show and tell is one of the better parts of the meeting where members bring what they have been working on to show the group. Here is a Newport Tea Table that one of the members brought. It is quite beautiful.
I have had several people ask me for the plans for the turret top tea table. They are full size with a cut list. So here you go.
If you want the PDF's email me at dboeff@sbcglobal.net
