My new neighbors are blogging about their house. It’s just few blocks away in the neighborhood. Check it out.

Mike  builds  high quality custom furniture in the Arts and Crafts style. He does reproductions and designs original work with a heavy Stickley, Limbert, and Macintosh influence. If you are shopping, you should contact him for a quote. He will build and finish to your needs. Plus he is a nice guy.

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.

We decided that the junk stored next to the garage is completely out of control and will be eradicating that tomorrow. Dump run?