Built In Wall Unit - Part IV

Tonight I spent the evening playing in Google Sketchup 3D modelling a part of the room that the cases will be located in - including the outside wall, hall entry and ceiling. Part of this was done to start getting a better feel for any complications.

The first thing was to ensure based on my measurements that there will be a gap between the edge of the case and the wall. The door frame sticks out 3/4" and the face frame frame needs to be show its full reveal infront of the door frame. There is enough gap between the door frame and the case to allow the face frame to slide between the case and the door frame. The wall toes in at the top so the gap near the top will virtually disappear.

On this right case the face frame will overlap the shelf fronts by at least 3/4" (if 1-1/2" face frame) or 1-1/4" if 2" face frame. The face frame I think needs to be uniform across the entire cabinet. Because 2 cases butt against each other the minimum is 1-1/2". Where I'm slightly perplexed is how to deal with the scenario when there is but a single board on the edge. This happens in two places, the middle right cabinet where it meets the right most cabinet - remember right cabinet is 9-1/2" deep and the right middle is 12" deep.

And again on the left most edge of the last case:

Two thoughts come to mind:

1) just put the face frame on flush with the outside edge and let one side have a signicant overlap similar to the narrow case on the far right and ignore the fact that there is a marginal 1/4" overlap on the joints between two adjacent cases.

2) I could add a second board in the left most case so that it is double thick. There would still be an overlap that is deeper then the others but only by a 1/4" vs by 1".  Same goes for the right middle, but there one could double only for the visible part - front 3" and use spacers between the narrow and wide cases to fill in. Less wood wasted.

I've been searching high and low for examples in design books and on the web but thus far I've struck out.

If you can visualize it, this is what the case (minus face frames and cabinet doors, etc) would look in the space allocated for it.

Built In Wall Unit - Part III

Today was a day of planing and jointing one edge of the pine boards straight. Its too awkward to use my old Craftsman 6" jointer to joint the edge of these 10" and wider boards. So I had to resort to using a straightedge and router to joint one edge of the boards. I had to jump through some hoops to get the first board jointed as my straightedge was only 8' long and the boards 10'. After completing that I used the first board as the straightedge for router jointing the remaining 26 boards. It took pretty much the whole day to finish planing the last 10 boards and jointing on edge of all of the boards.

I still haven't planed all the boards to final thickness.. My focus was getting them cleaned up and then I'll take them to final thickness in a few days. I actually want to keep them thick while I do the glue-ups for the base cabinet. The base cabinet being 20" wide will require at least 2-3 boards edge glued. Once these boards have been glued up, I plan on planing them to final thickness using a friend's thickness sander. The sander will accommodate up to 24". Once I've established the final thickness for the boards for the base cabinet, I'll match the rest of the boards to that thickness. I was hoping to be a little thicker then 3/4" figuring it will give the bookcases a little more strength.

At the end of the day I got a pile of boards, planed flat and one edge jointed.

Built In Wall Unit - Part II

Tonight was back out to the garage and planing more of the rough pine lumber. Because I need the garage door open while doing it I have to quit around 9pm. When I can't work on the physical aspects of the project I've been working on the virtual aspects of the project - attempting to draw it in 3D using the free Google SketchUp. While I'm a long long ways from being any sort of expert with Google SketchUp - it takes me forever to do the simplest tasks.

Here are some of the exported images of what I'm building. There is still a long way to go and a lot of things to figure out. The entire project needs to have a face frame added to it. These would cover the joints where the units meet. Doors need to be added to the lower cabinet after the face frame is added and in the lower right case, there will be a grid of small drawers 3 columns x 4 rows.

By taking time and drawing it in 3D I'm hoping it will give me a chance to experiment with some of the joinery and design aspects before I start cutting things up.

From the design you can see that its divided into 5 cases:

Bottom Case - 5 doors with moveable shelves behind them
Right case that is about 9.5" deep with fixed shelves on 10" centers and a lower 3x4 grid of drawers.
Middle right case, one fixed shelf (2nd shelf from bottom) and 3 moveable shelves.
Middle left case, while currently its drawn as a single fixed shelf, this case will have 2 fixed shelves with a a pair of doors with stain glass in them in front of the shelves
Far left case with a few moveable shelves. The case is attached only on the right side and to the wall behind.

Built In Wall Unit - Part I

I'm starting to embark on my next project - a built in wall unit that will include multiple bookshelves, a section of small drawers and a base cabinet. The project will be built out of Southern Yellow Pine. Last Friday I took a drive to Fishersville with a U-Haul trailer and picked up about 450 board feet of 10" and wider southern yellow pine boards for a $1.17 a board foot. The wood is a bit of a mix. There are some really clear boards and some that have a lot of knots. The goal is to use the clear boards for the shelves and cabinet top. The less then clear boards will be used for some of the smaller parts, and narrow strips, working around the knots. Where we can't work around the knots and the knots are still tight, I plan on using those boards either as shelves inside the cabinet or on the dividers inside the cabinet.

Currently I have boards stacked all over the garage. I started planing some tonight. Overall its amazing the grain and the look of the boards. However, the boards seem to be taking a major toll on my planer blades. I want to at least rough plane the boards before switching blades.

There are two headaches that have shown up. In the image below, you can see a few light grey streaks in the planed lumber. They appear to be discoloration in the actual wood itself. These don't show on all boards and some are on only one face of a board.

The other headache involves the grain structure on these boards. Where the grain forms a "circle" the planer is having a very difficult time. I'm experiencing tear out on either one side or the other side of the "circles". Sometimes the tear out is very light and can be sanded out, others are quite deep. I've left the boards at a fairly thick size, figuring that the best way to deal with the tear out issue is to use new blades. By using the older blades it should get rid of the worst issues such as dirt and "candied" resin that I think is probably dulling the existing knives.



Receptionist Desk - Part V

Thought I'd post some pictures of the completed desk. I finished it up several weeks ago.

Receptionist Desk Part IV

Its been over a month since my last post. A combination of a lot of overtime in July and then a lot of concentrated effort to get this desk done. But I'm finally closing in on the finish line on the desk. It seems like the last week or so has been a hard uphill battle. Last week it seemed like every night I had to make yet another trip to Lowes to get something or other. Perhaps sometimes its best to stop, sit down and think vs. running off right away :-(

This week has gone much smoother though a tad slower then I'd have liked. I had hoped to be putting on the second coat of polyurethane this evening but instead I just finished the first coat. My "helper" seems to have disappeared this evening - claiming exhaustion. She's been up the last two nights late helping me get the desk done. We were up till 1am last night staining and she went out there a couple of times today to wipe off any stain bleeding out of the pores. Oak is nasty that way, red more so then white oak, but they both will "swallow" up stain into their pores only to push it back out over the subsequent day or so.

I'm pretty much exhausted myself, so I'm going to post some pictures of the desk in various stages over the past three weeks and leave it at that.