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

Stock Selection
Although the face frame stack is quartersawn, most of the original end panels in our house are plain sawn.

About a year back a neighbor game me some old growth fir.

Tasty!
This wood was beautiful and will become the most visible panel. I also resawed some old beams to create the stock for the second less visible panel.

I left the stock stickered for a few days before further surfacing.

I always lay my stock out with stickers. Never leave it laying without good air circulation, unless you want a cupped board.

Panel Layout
I set the rough length panels out and played with them until I got a grain pattern that pleased me.

The two center boards are from the same board and the outside boards are from the second board.

I marked a triangle across all four boards to preserve my layout.

I also mark “i” and “o” on the edges. This is a code for jointing. I hold the “i” sides inside towards the fence and the “o” sides outside towards the fence. If the jointer is off from 90 degrees this will create complementary angles that must add back to 180.

Jointing

Glue up
I have been doing my glue up on my table saw covered by plastic. I only have giant clamps and really need to get some 2 – 3 foot parallel clamps.

Cleaning Glue with a beater chisel
I try to get as much glue as possible. It is a boring step, but easier than cleaning rock hard glue.

I left the panels to dry overnight.

I unclamped the panels and spent some time scraping and sanding them to the following result.

I think the panels will look great in the context of the cabinets.

Preparing Plywood Parts
In order to conserve plywood I drew out a quick cutting plan to conserve the plywood.

A friend came over and helped me support the plywood for the rips. he is interested in learning how to build cabinets and made a few of the crosscuts.

I use a panel sled for all of my crosscuts.

The panels are surfaced and jointed, but I treat each panel like a fresh board by jointing it, ripping to final width plus 1/8”, ripping to final width and then crosscutting to length.

Here are the panels cut to size.

Incidentally I finally tried out the blade that came with my SawStop. I had stored it two years ago without realizing that it was an 80 tooth plywood blade.

The cuts are perfect: splinter and burn free.

I will be using this for all of my ply cuts from now on. Who knew?

*Final Plywood Part Sizes.”
Instead of working from my original drawings, I am working from the face frames. To determine the length of the plywood rails and bottoms. I clamped plywood and solid panel offcuts to the face frame to represent the panels. I used my folding rule to take an exact measurement.

Then I cut all the rails to the correct length at the crosscut sled.

All of the parts are sitting waiting to be joined.

Next time:
Joining cabinet parts.

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.

I soon realized it is much easier to fit my doors when the fridge doors have been removed and are laying flat.

In the above picture I had already fit the freezer door. I did not take photos of this but you will see the entire process on the upper doors.

I reattached the door to the fridge box.

You can see a center line in the above picture. I sized the freezer door with the desired side reveal of a 1/4.

Aligning the beadboard
My goal was to align the beadboard of the upper doors to the freezer door. When I built the upper doors I made them roughly half the size of the lower door. Each door contains a full piece of beadboard that I could reference to the center line of the freezer door.

Here are both untrimmed fridge doors resting on the installed freezer door. The centers and horizontals are perfectly aligned, but the edges are too wide on the uppers.

I marked the overhang.

Then I trimmed the edge.

I had earlier built a prototype door (basic frame cut to exact size).

Based on the new reference edge of the outside, I came back and trimmed the interior edges for the size of the prototype.

Installing backer panel
I cut 1/4” baltic birch to the specified size.

I then persuaded the panel into place.

Note: Unsafe stool standing.

Rabbeting the doors
The doors are rabbeted to create a 1/8” relief. This allows them to recess into the panel. I set up a single flat bottom blade and carefully nibbled the distances.

TEST BLOCK

Rabbeted doors. Rabbet on top, bottom and right edge.

Then I held the pieces on temporarily with clamps…

… to check the reveal…

Looking good.

Next time
I fancy up the backer board and start finishing. Plus making stainless steel trim go bye bye.

We found a fridge that would accept custom panels. It is 36” wide. and only 24” deep to the doors.

We had to cut back one stud in the wall to accommodate the depth and reinforce the floor for the weight, but the hole/nook is ready for the fridge.

Design
I drew up several designs in SU and settled on the one on the right.

The panels are beadboard with domino-ed bread board ends.

Preparing Stock
I have documented this process several times in my dishwasher and cabinet progress, but here goes.

All stock is reclaimed fir headed to the dumpster and acquired for free from local construction projects.
I comb it with a metal detector and cut to rough length. Time: 2 hours. Cost: Free

I re-sawed all stock in half on the bandsaw.

I left the stock to acclimate for a few days.

I did not take any shots of the stock milling process but it is well documented on my other blogs.

Joinery
Using the table saw ran grooves on both sides of the stock to accept splines. (no pic) This time I sized the grooves to accept 1/4” plywood. Much quicker than milling 1/4” stock.

After crosscutting, I ran the center v-groove on the rounter table using a 45 degree bit. I set up the table with two fences. If the board were to kick away from the first fence the groove would get off center.

The grooves left by the bit are fuzzy in fir, so I ran the edge v-grooves on the table saw. These are really just half of the groove, but look like a full v when two pieces are set edge to edge.

Here is a picture of the milled b-board with grooves.

The breadboard ends are attached with dominos. Here I set the layout for the first piece. I need to trim the edge of the panel, so I placed the domino off center.

I reinforced two of the lateral joints on each of the upper doors where the door pull would stress the joint.

Here is the large freezer panel during glue up.

Afterward I trimmed it to fit and exactly center the beadboard pattern (more on the math involved here next time).
It was freezing in the shop this morning (for So. Cal).

Final shot: Glue dries on a fridge door panel.

Next time
Fitting the panels on the fridge

Home Tour Madness
In two weeks (April 26) our house is going to be featured on the neighborhood home tour. Over 1000 people will be walking through…. gulp.

I have a to-do list longer than my arm.

I’ll give you more details on that later.

Item 50: Build Deck
Previously we had a crummy set of dilapidated stairs leading to our back door.

After some poorly planned landscaping we ended up with a dirt circle. Seen behind me in this picture. On the upside it was a good place to finish furniture.

We hired a contractor to build the foundation of the deck, but I wanted to have a hand in it, so I decided to lay all of the decking and install built-in benches.

Hidden Deck Fastener System Thingies
We decided to use Eb-Ty deck fasteners and avoid holes in the top of the deck. They are fairly easy to install.

1. Cut biscuit slot at joist intersection.

2. Drill screw into biscuit.

The real evil thing is fixing bowed decking. For that I used a Cepco BoWrench: Very cool tool that hooks onto a joist and lets you straighten out boards.

So the deck laying is easy, but time consuming; about two sixteen-footers per hour.

Benches
I drew up a plan for built-in deck benches based on a drawing from the Sunset Deck Book.

I tested a few locations.

I notched out the 4×4’s to sit around the beam….

…and bolted the heck out of them with 1/2” carriage bolts.

I did something new this project. I printed my Sketchup Drawing’s full-size, glued them onto plywood and made templates. Very cool use of Sketchup.

Template for Rails

What’s a project without a new tool? My new Ridgid OSS smooths the curves.

I spent many nights working on this project. Here I am last Sunday under the flood lights. The short rails were attached with deck screws covered by plugs. The long rails were attached with pocket screws.

I built a little jig to hold the top pieces at 6” cantilever.

Plywood spacers set the distance between boards.

More night Work.

!!
in the rain.

Almost done now… Just need to finish the plugs.

Deck ends have been cut square after this picture was taken

Next up
Refrigerator Panels.