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PetersCreek

Brother Borealis
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I started a new project this weekend. The Wife and I have a basket on either side our reclining loveseat to hold magazines and such. Mine is falling apart and we haven’t been able to find anything we like to replace them, so I decided to make 'em.



The model is shown in cherry but I bought some white oak Thursday, which makes more sense because they’re in a sort of mission style. The lidded compartment holds two standard boxes of tissue, one on top of the other. When one runs out, you just switch them.

This will be my first time using Brusso hardware: two pairs of stop hinges that arrive in the mail on Saturday. They're American made: precision machined in solid brass with stainless steel pins. It’s a bit on the pricey side and I felt a bit like I was ordering jewelry.



I broke down a sheet of Baltic birch plywood today for the bottoms Saturday but that’s as far as I got. I had to do a little maintenance on my crosscut sled. The screws in the miter bar had loosened a little. I also had to slightly widen the miter slot in my out feed table to relieve a bit of binding.

On Sunday, I cut the oak to rough size, milled it, and glued up eight panels from which to cut the parts. I definitely need more clamps. I had to do these in two sessions.



 
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Today was the day to put an edge on my trim pieces. Got everything clamped down, swapped the bit on my router to my fancy round over, plugged it in and hit the ON/OFF switch and..........nothing. No thousands of RPM making sawdust, no motor noise, nada. The chord has 122VAC per my meter. It worked a decade ago when I put it away...but seems to have given up the ghost in the meantime.
Any ideas from you guys that do this more than I? It's a Dewalt 618...

Instead of losing the time, I started building a table for a router, with the Hope's of having a working one sometime soon. :banghead:
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No glue, no fasteners yet, just a trial fit tonight.
 

PetersCreek

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Productive and frustrating shop time this weekend. I milled the box sides to final dimensions on Saturday and in the process, I ripped them a 1/2-inch too narrow. Looked at the ruler cross-eyed. That’s not a big deal as far as end use goes but it did complicate cutting the finger joints. I had to shim the dado stack to a width that would yield an odd number (21) of fingers/notches in the given width. I came close and will have an additional smidgen to rip off the bottom.



Dry fit:



The second box is not shown because...well...more frustration. While jointing the final edge, the adjustment lock knob on the finger joint jig loosened, resulting in the one edge not fitting. Not even close. I’ll have to come up with a plan to recover the piece or cut a new one from the spare panel glue up.
 
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A little more progress on the router table today. Cemented 4 layers of hardboard and a 3/4 inch plywood together, framed in oak and a layer of Formica on top.
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PetersCreek

Brother Borealis
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This was a pretty productive 3-day weekend in the shop for me. This project seems to have been plagued by mis-cuts more so than others but by the end of the weekend, I put them behind me. Going into the weekend, I completed the handle cutouts:



And just a while ago, a dry fit of the main box components:



Next, I’ll sand all of the interior surfaces, then pre-finish them with the beeswax recipe, and glue them up. After than, I’ll fit the lid and foot pads.
 

IronW

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I'm building my wife a night stand out of red oak. It's of my own design, with her input and a rough sketch. I've got the legs, base with bottom shelf, and upper shelf the drawer will sit on all glued up and sanded with 80 grit. Pay no attention to the random notch in one of the legs, I wasn't paying attention and used the wrong side of the router jig. I figured no use in making another leg so I just sanded it so there weren't any sharp edges and stuck it in the back.

I've been working on the drawer (slowly, or so I've heard). I had to stop and build a cart for my planer because I was tired of lugging it out and onto a table everytime I wanted to use it. The were a couple other small projects too. Anyhow, the half blind dovetails were already cut and mostly fit, but this weekend I was able to cut the box joints in the back and sides. I'm still pretty new to woodworking so this was a fun challenge. I used a home made jig and a dado blade on my table saw to get it done. I screwed up on the first go 'round and had to make another back but got it to fit pretty nicely in the end. I also cut grooves in all 4 pieces for the drawer bottom, which will be made from 1/4" Baltic birch plywood. A few more adjustments to the fit of the dovetails and I'll be ready to glue up the drawer.

After all this it'll be on to the fun part... finish sanding!
 

jasonsbeer

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Somewhere in there I'm laminating two pieces of plywood together. This is the start of part 2 of my cabinet + bookshelf project. Did the cabinets last summer. Now time for the bookshelves that will sit on top. I should have some dry fit pics soon. I picked up a Freud Diablo blade for my table saw over the winter. That's a nice blade. Cuts really quiet, too.

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Gratuitous saw pictures.
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PetersCreek

Brother Borealis
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Just when you thought I was done with the finger joint jig...

Because the ends of finger joints on the boxes are just a little proud of the surface, I can’t clamp them directly and get pressure on the fingers themselves. So I set about making some cauls, four of them, to allow for gluing up one box at a time.

Each if made up of two pieces. I milled up some Douglas fir lumber, cut the finger joints, and glued them together.




After the glue fully cures, I’ll clean them up, cut them to length, and proceed with glue-up of the boxes.
 

PetersCreek

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And here the first glue-up in the clamps/cauls:



It took some planning and two dry runs to get the process down without needing six hands but the glue-up went reasonably well. I used liquid hide glue for its long open time, since there are so, so many glue surfaces to cover.

The cauls worked pretty much as designed but the wood was really too soft for the application and some of the fingers on one compressed a bit too much for my liking. Before assembling the other box, I’ll make another set from poplar or soft maple.
 

PetersCreek

Brother Borealis
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Catching up on progress made...

With both boxes glued up, I gave them a preliminary sanding to 150g, then made skids for the bottoms:


Next came lids for the tissue compartments:



Followed by some hand work to fit the Brusso hinges:



Since the hinge mortises leave such a narrow strip, I clamped a backing block behind it to prevent blowing it out while planing and chiseling:


Putting the router plane to use. Some of the grain was a bit squirrelly so I had to make long grain, cross grain, and skew cuts:


I'm out of practice making hinge mortises but at least they fit:

 

PetersCreek

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I finished the other lid’s hinge mortises yesterday. That means today was sanding & finishing day. I had pre-sanded everything to 150-grit, so I started with 220 to hand sand a few details and lightly ease all edges and corners. The big flats got the ROS treatment with the same grit.

After blowing all the dust off, I applied my homemade finish: beeswax, boiled linseed oil, and turpentine. I allowed that to sit for about 20 minutes, then rubbed it in/off. Lots of rubbing.



Next, comes fuming.
 
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I finished the other lid’s hinge mortises yesterday. That means today was sanding & finishing day. I had pre-sanded everything to 150-grit, so I started with 220 to hand sand a few details and lightly ease all edges and corners. The big flats got the ROS treatment with the same grit.

After blowing all the dust off, I applied my homemade finish: beeswax, boiled linseed oil, and turpentine. I allowed that to sit for about 20 minutes, then rubbed it in/off. Lots of rubbing.



Next, comes fuming.
Fuming?
 

PetersCreek

Brother Borealis
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Yep. Rather than using stain, you expose the piece to strong ammonia fumes which react with tannin in the wood, darkening it. It's a process that dates back to the late 1800s through the early 1900s and it was typical in mission style furniture. Here's a test showing unfinished white oak on top, fumed at bottom left, and with some finish at lower right.

 
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PetersCreek

Brother Borealis
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Yep, I bought a couple of large snap-lock storage bins for this project. You can also build a frame/tent with plastic sheeting for larger pieces. Heck, back in the day I understand they treated installed molding and trim by setting containers throughout the house and closing it up.
 
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