Part 15: Designing a Dishwasher Panel

Part 16: Dishwasher Stock Selection and Prep

Part 17: Milling Beadboard

Part 18: More Beadboard

Part 19: Joining with Domino Tenons

Part 20: Finishing the Panel

Part 21: Scribing Trim

Part 22: Installing the Dishwasher

Part 23: Hmmd

Part 24: Tilt Out Trays

Part 25: Doors (Hiding the Disaster)

Part 26: Shelves (Organizing the Disaster)

I start by marking the approximate locations of the rails so that I put them in the right place. The sides are of course mirror images of each other and it is important to keep them straight.

x marks the rail spots

Accurate Mortise Placement
To use two methods for placing the mortises. The mortises for the “drawer rail” and “Bottom Shelf” are referenced off the bottom of the machine. I ripped guide rails that place the mortise in the correct location.

I set the rail with a square and held it with some clamps.

I carefully register the base of the Domino against the rail.

Since I am using 5 mm x 30 mm tenons had to set the depth to 12 mm on the panels and 20 mm on the rails. This prevents the mortise from cutting all the way trough the panels, but allows the full length of the tenon.
I cut the mortises to exact width. You can see the settings in the above photo.

The middle panel on one of the cabinets receives through mortises.

For the bottom shelf I created a marked guide rail that allows me cut matching parts by marking quickly. It is a basic story stick.

I only use the three center marks and then register the first and last cuts using the built in guide pin.

A short video showing how quick and dust free it is to use this tool as I cut 5 mortises in a minute.

Ten Mortises

For the remaining cuts I rerenced off of the Domino’s fence. In order to support the cuts on narrow boards I attached the aux base.

Cutting the ply:

Here is the panel with all of its 15 mortises.

The rail mortises are cut with the boards clamped to the table and the mortiser set at 20mm depth and an oversized slot.

I cut the larger cabinet first in about 3 hours or so(105 Mortises). This included a lot of thinking and inefficient moves along with making the spacers. The second cabinet only too 1 hour(60 mortises). Cool tools.

Preview
I dry assembled the cabinets to check the fit and see how they looked with face frames. I set a piece of fir on the top to simulate a cab top.



The solid panel is looking good.

Next Time
Cabinet Backs

to this….

Here are the first 14 Parts of the blog.

Part 1: Rough Milling

Part 2: Milling with a Quatromat Machine

Part 3: Doors

Part 4: Cutting Cabinet Box Parts

Part 5:  Joinery; Biscuiting Cases

Part 6: Cutting Grooves for Cabinet Backs

Part 7: Glue Up of Doors

Part 8: Dovetailing Drawers

Part 9: Z-Braces for the Doors

Part 10: Finishing Plywood

Part 11: Staining Douglas Fir

Part 12: Assembling Cabinet Boxes

Part 13: Final Assembly of Doors, Drawers, Hardware

Part 14: The Contest

A shot of my dining room.

I have received some questions about why I started with the face frame rather than the cabinet boxes. Which is kind of a chicken or egg, pins or tails first type of question. If you do the math right it doesn’t matter one should fit the other. Or build one to fit the space and build the other to match it (my actual method).

For me cabinet building is interactive. I have the liberty of doing either, but like to see the face frames to help me visualize.I draw out the plan, but it is hard to tell how it will look in the kitchen. Kristin wanted a shorter cabinet because she is not as tall as me and the last cabinets are a bit tall for her. So I built one frame, and she declared it too short after seeing it in the kitchen. No problem: Mill up new stock and make another frame to the desired height. Note to future self: I recommend starting with the larger frame first and then working your way down.

Joinery Options

On the original cabinets in these old bungalows, the face frame parts are simply nailed to the cabinet boxes and not joined to one another. They are still operational after 100 years. The method I employ is to make the frame with pocket screws and nail it the boxes. It is semi-traditional, semi-modern. The nail holes don’t bother me at all.

My logic:

My Dewalt biscuit joiner won’t accommodate tiny face frame biscuits. I contemplated Domino-ing the frame together, but a loose tenon system requires a clamp job. True tenons are just too much time and effort for such a simple project. Dowels are pretty basic, but I never bought a dowel jig.

Pocket Screws
You can’t beat pocket screws for ease of frame construction.

I start by laying the surfaced parts out according to my plan layout.
I mark an up arrow on all the parts for alignment purposes.

I have one of the earlier Kreg jigs that I screwed to a plywood base. The jig has three holes at different spacings depending on the width of the stock. I have an old corded drill that I keep the Kreg bit permanently chucked into.

It takes about 10 seconds to drill the two holes.

The 1” stock is a bit unsteady in the jig so I place a wider piece of stock next to it to keep it square to the jig.

I cut all 12 joints in a few minutes.

I then flip the entire frame end for end so that I can begin joining the parts. You have to work with the screw side up visible which is slightly confusing unless you look at the entire assembly.

The Kreg face clamp aligns the faces of the parts flush. I like to hang two corners of the project off a table or table saw. It helps to have someone steady the larger piece or to clamp it. Or just keep fighting it like a “real man”. I am using my thumb here to check the alignment of the two parts.

I try not to measure at all when putting these things together. The area for the top drawers measures 5” so I cut a 5” spacer block to set the distance of the parts.

This is far superior to measuring. I needed a 12” space for the bottom drawer so I used my 12” level.

It is a no-brainer approach which is the best approach for no-brain guys like me.

From there on it is just assembly line with the drill and screws.

I did get a few cracks due to over driving the screws into dry stock but they won’t be visible after glue up. I am not using glue yet. I will assemble with glue after building the boxes and making sure everything fits. It is a royal pain to do so when the project is glued.

Here is a shot of happy guy with a finished face frame (Framed face in face frame).

…and one more frame

I still have not learned my lesson about leaning the frame up against rolling tools. These frames are not very sturdy until attached so I will hide them in the office.

Next time I start the boxes.

I ripped and rough cut up my old fir beams. We had to take this picture several times to get a shot where I wasn’t making the angry woodworker face. My poor little 10 amp  Black and Decker circular saw was not cutting it. The blade kept coming loose (that’s bad). I eventually switched over to my Craftsman 11 amp and got the job done.

I start by surveying the board with my metal detector. Usually I spend a few hours pulling nails, but a I am getting impatient and there were so many nails in this beam that I just ripped off a few inches.

If you have never worked with rough lumber, the next step is to clean it off with a wire brush and then surface one face on the jointer.

Ever since I started working with hand tools, I have been making an effort to work slower with these power tools and to set the tools for light cuts. The difference is a pleasant zipping sound as you pass the wood over the jointer, rather than a tearing/ grinding sound. Note: Grinding sounds in woodshop = bad news. Note 2: Unless you are grinding something.

As soon as one face is 90% flat. I begin to remove stock from the opposite face at the planer.

I took  shots of the wood entering and exiting the planer to show the difference after one pass. This stuff can be a little squirrely to plane as the thickness can vary (especially after Cool Hand Luke here resaws it). So good practice is to measure the thickest part of you board and set the planer at that setting first. Otherwise the planer is liable to come to a screaming halt as the circuit overloads when the thinner 7/8″  stock transitions to 1″ knot or so I have read.

The stock has a nice orange brown patina at this point, but it is very difficult to preserve when you are looking for a specific thickness. In this case I am surfacing all of the face frame stock to 3/4″ and relying on the planers depth stop in case I have to make more pieces. In reality I made the stock in several sessions and it turned out fine.

Once the stock is through the planer with a clean face it is time to start alternating faces. The purpose of flipping the stock face for face is to even out the amount of material removed from each face to minimize cupping or warping. This old lumber is so dry I have never had a problem with it warping, but I don’t take that chance. I also keep it stacked up on stickers for a night before I work with it further.

During the process of making the stock I did re-saw a bunch of the stock.

I recently watched the DVD that came with my Bandsaw which included how to set up the guides properly and account for drift (the tendency of the bandsaw to saw off of the line). Setting it up properly and taking slow cuts helped to achieve a truer dimension.

The upper and lower guides are set a dollar bill’s width from the blade. and the entire guard assembly is set above the stock as close as possible without interfering with the fence.  I also joint one edge square to a face so that the stock runs through with the blade parallel to the faces.  Otherwise you cut out two wedges instead of rectangles. Notice my use of a push stick. Safety first.

Here is a shot of a freshly resawn board. The bandsaw is a significantly better way of resawing stock over the way my first contractor showed me. We used to just rip it with a chalk line and  a circular saw. Scary, dusty, noisy. Then we run it wit the outside face down on the planer. It works though.

I still have a few pieces of leftover  lumpy lumber from those  days. You can see the  ridges left from the saw. Hand tool people would be proud of me. I busted out the draw knife to remove these ridges before moving on to planing the stock.

Next time:

I finish prepping the stock and assemble the face frames.  By the way, It takes longer to write this than it does to do it.

ProblemsUnfortunately two of the doors have significant damage and hack repairs.

Door 1: Missing chunk of breadboard

and chunk of beadboard/ breadboard at opposite corner.

Door 2: Missing corner and bad repair via metal bracket thing

The other end has the same

View from end.

Deconstruction
I pried off the ends. These types of door are really a simple construction. They are stock beadboard with wood ends nailed on. It is probably why the joints failed in some of them.



The doors just fell apart at this point. I marked the pieces and set them aside.

The nails are quite long

Broken Joint
The metal doo dads had been holding together a broken tongue and groove joint.

It fell into two pieces as I took the ends off.

Here you can see the two adjoining beadboard pieces with the broken tongue.

I ripped off the tongue and cut a new groove in each edge for a spline to hold the pieces together.

Repaired!

Grain Match

I thought about just making a patch but decided that this door needed a new piece.

I measured the original piece of damaged board.

Here is a bunch of my old growth stock of fir scraps that I use to match the grain.
I cut a new piece of to replace the damaged section and used the t-saw to cut a v-groove.


After ripping away the damaged piece I matched up the grain as much as possible. with my new piece.
I jointed and glued the pieces.


Above is the repaired piece after glue up.

Here is the piece in the context of the entire door.

I Heart Blue Tape
In the course of the repairs I ended up splintering a piece by picking it up incorrectly.
Blue tape to the rescue.

If you remember the last time I fit the doors in…..

They were all dinged up and “beyond repair.”

Well a hammer and saw later(see last blog) and they were ready to stain.

Procedure: Washcoat, two coats gel stain, shellac, poly.

FrankenHinges
Nothing comes easy around here. I knew the shape of the original hinges but could not find a supplier. So I order two different types of hinges from rejuvenation…

Check out the video of how I mixed the two hinges. Not rocket science.

Gramp’s metal vice put to good use.

The custom hinge.

Mr. Five Hour Installer
These doors took forever to install. Nothing was square!

Finished Shot of the sad doors seen above….. Wait for it….

Sweet home Alabama!

Here they are with the “new” cabinets I made.

The other side
Here is the other upper cabinet in process

No doors= bad idea = messy = I was hungry all the time looking at the food.

Shims in place. These doors are evil.

Oh yeah.

Last shot at the hinge

Installing the Z-braces on the inside of the doors.

First to install a door stop for the doors to close against. If I could do it all over I would have just raised the floor of the cabinet.

I shim out the doors with pennies, paper, and credit cards. See, there is still a use for all three.

I saved the little spacer to set the surface mount butterfly hinges. I just line it up with opening and mark where the hinge goes. Don’t measure if possible is my motto. Just mark it.

I carefully drilled one hole at a time with the vix bit. I drill a hole.. install the screw…. repeat. If you try to drill them all at once the hinge can become misaligned.

My bit snapped so It was off to the shop for a replacement.

I use classic brass cabinet latches. Screwdriver only for driving these. No danger of skipping across the project.


Apprentice

I missed some shots of installing the trim over the ugly concrete but here are the finished results.

Long shot of kitchen. Left is award winning cabinet, middle is dishwasher panel, right is final section from this project.

So much better…..

On to making some shelves and the shoe moulding…

I made the shelves out of vertical grain fir plywood ….

with edge glued lips of solid fir.

I read once that leaving the fronts thicker adds strength to the shelf.

My new Rockler pin jig in action

Antique brass shelf pins….

Shelves installed. The top is only 12” wide. Finish: Shellac and poly.

So much better. Wife is happy.

Next time… The upper cabinet door repairs.

The first step: nailing a steam shield to the bottom of the counter.

I spent a lot of time leveling and fussing with the machine. Here you see me marking the plastic templates that come with the machine. It helps to set the height of the panel. It is marked and then attached to the metal harness.

Finding the centerline on the back of the panel.

Setting the harness. It is alligned along the center line and the marks from the plastic templates (now attached to the harness).

Pre-drilling the harness. Tape depth stop.

I slid the panel on. It fit. (No photo) I attached the hardware. It is actually a brass screen door handle, but it seemed to look right to us. I wanted to be able to grab it overhand, which you can’t do with a bin pull. I use slotted screws for all of the work (phillips were not used at the time of my house’s construction). I always use handtools for hardware attchment (too many accidents with the drill).

Testing the door.

A shot of the controls.

Done?
I cut the rail to close up the bottom of the panel. It is just pushed into place now, but I will attach permanently.

Well the majority of the work is done. I still need to permanently install the bottom rail, stain the trim. Also the diswasher needs a repair (good times). Tech comes on Wed.

I need 11 feet of trim so I pulled a 12 footer from my stash and began the resaw process.

First: Metal detector boogie and pull nails. (About 50 this time)

Getting ready to resaw. Tiny Shop!

Resawing:

My outfeed support.

Planer cleanup. Unfortunately a knot blew out, so I am going to have to scarf two pieces.

Trim stock.

Ran out of steam. It is cold. (58) Hopefully I will get it together tomorrow. It is my first time scribing which I am nervous about. Any advice?

Scribing
I scribed some hardboard strips.

The first two strips did not fit well, but then I switched from the jigsaw to the bandsaw for cut out. It went
so well that I decided to just go ahead and scribe the real trim, since it was lighter and easier to see the pencil lines.

Here I have the trim board tacked up level.

Here I am setting the compass to the distance that the board needs to lose material. I was shooting for 1/8” below the top of the cabinet face frame. It washard to shoot photo and hold compass still, so the actual compass distance was set to the bottom of the trim to about where you see the lead.

I need a darker pencil next time. Look closely.

I bandsawed the two pieces of trim and cut a scarf joint.

Fitting the trim was trial and error.

Clean dishes?

We dragged the diswasher in from the shop in preperation for the install.

First I had to reduce the dishwasher opening by 1 1/2 inches. I previously milled, fitted, and stained two boards for this purpose. Just needed to tack them in.

I set the dishwasher into place and test fit the panel.

Sweet!

I ran out of working time though, as we had dinner plans. Today I finish.