Friday – Finished Finishing

This morning I completed applying polyurethane to Bryans’ stained cherry tea chest and installed the drawer pulls. This one is now ready to package up and ship out.

The rest of the day will be spent cleaning up the shop, hauling out scrap lumber from this project, doing some cleaning out in the lumber shed and working up a plan for Dan’s treasure chest -- once it gets too hot to work outside. We are heading for yet another record breaking high temperature today, so having an excuse to spend the afternoon hanging out in the AC will be good.

Dan sent me a drawing in PDF form that he got from the fellow who used to make these chests, but the file was corrupted an all I got was one corner. So, I’ll start from scratch and do my own design based on the photos Dan provided.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Doug

Thursday – Finishing Continues

This morning I completed lacquering the natural finished tea chest and installed the drawer pulls. This one is now ready to post to the web site as an on-hand item.

After lunch I began applying gloss polyurethane to Bryans tea chest. This is a new product for us: instead of using the tung oil based poly that we have always used before (which requires 8 hours of dry time between each of the three coats) we’re trying a water based poly. Our first step into “green” finishes.

I got two coats spayed on, then had to do some adjusting because the finish was building up too fast on the drawer boxes and they were binding in their slots.

Once that was straightened out I shot a third coat on the case. That should to it. So I’m going to call it a day and will check it tomorrow after the case has had the chance to harden up overnight.

Doug

Monday – Finishing Begins

Today we begin the finishing process for our two cherry tea chests.

Bryan wants his stained Bistro Walnut then finished with gloss polyurethane. The other will get a clear semi-gloss lacquer finish.

Both start out by getting sanded to 150 grit. Normally, under a gloss finish we would sand to 320 grit, but the stain manufacturer states that I should sand to no finer than 150 or the stain will not adhere well enough and the color will be too light. After sanding I vacuum them with a soft brush tip then tack rag them.

I stain Bryan’s chest first. While the stain is drying in the finishing room, I sand the other chest. When the stain is no longer tacky I move the chest out of the finishing room and set up to shoot lacquer. This stain will need to cure for at least 24 hours before I begin applying the polyurethane.

I give the second chest one good coat of lacquer. Normally I’d let that dry for an hour or so then shoot it again, let that dry, scuff sand it and shoot it one last time, but the day is about over and Marie will be here soon to fetch me away so I’ll get to that tomorrow.

See you then,

Doug

Thursday – Drawers

I have quite a lot to get done today, in many small steps, so I got to work right off.

I started with a task that really belonged to yesterdays assignment, but couldn’t be done yesterday because the tea chest cases were in clamps; that is to fit and attach the base moldings. I had already milled the molding strips, but needed to cut them to exact length with mitered the corners and attach them to the case. If you’ve never tried this, it’s a little trickier than it looks. Getting one corner perfect is a snap – as long as you can cut a perfect 45° miter – but getting both front corners to fit precisely takes some fussing. But I got it the first try… on both tea chests.

Now we launch into today’s assignment: making drawers. I have two, three drawer chests, so I need 6 drawers. I had roughed out the stock for the drawers boxes earlier so today I just cut it into finished sized pieces, add grooves and rabbets where the parts all fit together and viola – drawers!

Along the way, however, I must take care to keep an eye on the orientation of all the pieces. Unlike mass production shops who use very bland, colorless wood so they don’t have to worry about color matching, we like to use “interesting” wood. These drawer boxes are being made of silver maple, which has some nice coloring to it. But that means pairing up the sides and the drawer end so they look like they go together, it also means keeping track of which edge is “up” and which faces are “in” and “out”. It takes a lot of concentration to keep it all straight as we work through the various milling steps.

Once all that is done, I dry-fit all the drawers using masking tape to hold them together and look for misalignments, then test fit them in their slots in the case. If needed, I make adjustments. When I’m happy with the fit, I take the parts for each drawer to my glue-up station and assemble the drawers with glue and small nails. The nails are not so much insurance against the joint falling apart as they are a substitute for clamps. It would take 5 clamps per drawer, 6 drawers = 30 clamps to do all the drawers at once. Or do as many as I have clamps for then go do something else until the glue dries. To get around all that, I just use the nails.

There are drawer stops installed in the rear of each drawer slot that stops the drawer at a precise point. I adjust these until all the drawers line up with just the right amount of protrusion from the case. With the double round-over moldings and the rounded drawer front edges, it all comes together for a very classy look, don’t you think?

The last step is to use a centering square to locate dead center on the drawers and bore the holes needed for the drawer pulls. Bryan ordered our Tea Pot & Cup pulls, which are the only pulls we make ourselves. But I ran out of Epoxy before finishing his, so I’ll stand down until Marie gets here with more.

While I’m waiting I’ll clean up the shop and put away the tools. We’re pretty much done with construction on these tea chests now, ready to go into the finishing stage. Once chest will get a clear lacquer finish and go to the Treasures of Appalachia gallery to sell as an On-Hand item. The other is for Bryan’s order. But, when Bryan placed the order he instructed us to “finish it in dark brown to match the kitchen cabinetry”. But, having never seen Bryan’s kitchen we have no idea what color it is and so can not match that color. His chest will get set aside while we wait for him to answer our e-mails about his color selection. The other we can go ahead and finish.

Tomorrow is my turn to be shopkeeper at Treasures, so I will be out of the workshop all day. I’ll make up for the missed time over the weekend. So, I’ll see you good folks again on Monday.

Doug

Wednesday – Case Assembly

I started the day by trimming to size and installing the drawer rails; these are the parts in the bottom of the case that the drawer boxes will slide on, they also stiffen the case. While the glue on these was setting up a bit, I routed the base shoe moldings. I’m using what I call a double-round-over (I’m sure there is a technical name for this shape, but I have no idea what it is, the router bit case just has a number on it) on the base shoe and the underside of the top plate, so I route both while I have it in the router. Then I switched over to a plain round-over bit and routed the top edges of the top plates.

Another task that I will work on through out the day, while waiting for glue to dry for example, will be forming the stops that will go inside the drawers. These upside down U shaped pieces will spring snugly inside the drawers to hold up the tea bags when the drawer is not full. They are made from oak because it bends well but since I don’t have a steam bending box, I soak the 1/16” thick strips in hot water for a few minutes. Once they are pliable I slip one into the bending form and clamp it. After about an hour I can remove the strip and place it in a “keeper” that holds its shape while it dries completely. Once it’s dry it will pretty much hold this shape.

Next I trim and install the center dividers. These form the tunnels into which the drawers will slide. Their location is critical, so laying them out and placing them takes some time as I triple check everything. If either are off by as much as 1/32 of an inch in any direction it will cause a drawer to bind. Unlike some folks, I don’t make things easier on myself by leaving a lot of slop around the drawers. I like a nice clean fit. There has to be enough room that the drawers won’t bind in humid weather, but no more than 1/32” of gap on each side on drawers this size.

Next I cut the drawer fronts. Technically this is part of tomorrow’s work, but I’m waiting on things again, so I’ll work ahead. I put a slight round-over of the front edges. One of our hallmarks is the way we always cut drawer fronts and keep them in order so the grain pattern flows across the drawer set.

Finally I glue the top plate to the cabinet assembly and clamp it in place. This will need to sit in clamps overnight.

And that completes today’s assigned tasks. Tomorrow we build drawers.

See you then.

Doug

Tuesday – Making Panels

This morning I got right to work on the tea chests. Today’s task was to take the parts that were roughed out yesterday, trim them to finished size, shape them into completed parts and begin assembling the parts into sub-assemblies. The primary goal for today: side and back panels.

I trimmed to size with a fine tooth blade on the table saw, and did the shaping with a straight, two flute bit on the router table. This is the type of operation where some plans will try to really over complicate things. But by keeping it simple, all of the grooving and tenoning can be done with the same router bit, and with just one change over in the set-up. Of course there is some fine tuning to do using scrap pieces before committing the good stuff to the cutter, but that is normal anyway.

Once the pieces are cut I test fit each assembly; the panel fits between the rails, then the stiles slip onto the ends. Everything should take a snug fit, but not too snug; nothing should have to be hammered home. This panel assembly has not been sanded or glued, just being test fitted together.

Once everything fits properly, the panels are disassembled, sanded to remove milling marks and pencil lines. Then glue is applied only to the rail & stile joints, not to the panels: they must be free to expand and shrink, and clamps brought into play. I check each panel to be sure it’s square, if not the clamp can be adjusted to pull it into square.

Once the glue in the panel joints is tacked up I remove the clamo and cut the miter joints at the rear corners of the case, then cut the miter lock slots. By inserting a spline in the slots the joint is locked in position and can not slide under clamping pressure. Anyone who has ever tried to glue up a plain vertical miter joint knows how tricky it is to keep the lined up and held tightly together along it’s full length. This is a quick way to insure that there are no surprises when the clamps come off.

Speaking of clamps, they go on next. It looks like a lot of clamps. Maybe it is, but it is what it takes to clamp the joints evenly in both directions.

This will have to set and dry for a while, so it’s time to clean up the shop a tad and go home for supper. I will come back after supper to glue and clamp the second case body so they will both be ready for the next step in the morning.

See you tomorrow.

Doug

Monday – Making Parts

As is always the case on Monday, I spent the morning doing bookwork, but after lunch I got back to making parts for the tea chests.

This involved roughing out all the case parts, resawing some stock to side and pack panels as well as drawer boxes, and planning the panel and drawer blanks down to size.

Partway through this it became time to replace the planer blades, and partway through that Marie came in with a chore she needed me to go with her to accomplish. That took about three hours.

When we were done, I completed the blade and will shut down for the evening. I’ll pick it back un tomorrow morning.

Doug

Tuesday – Done!

This morning I installed the lower mirror, siliconed the corners, applied Mirror Mastic to the back and glued the plywood backer panel to the mirror and fixed the plywood to the case with 5/8” pan head screws.

After the silicone and mastic had a chance to harden up good, I stood the cabinet up. Why didn’t I install the upper mirror too? Simple; it’d be too heavy for me to lift by myself with the upper mirror in place, and I need to get the doors on and the glass cleaned up. Can’t do that with the cabinet laying in it’s face. So up it must come. I’ll enlist Marie’s help again this evening to mount the upper mirror. Again, that would not be something I could do by myself; it's too large, but with her help it will go smoothly.

I whiled away the early afternoon by cleaning up, putting away tools and working on my floor some. Then I dived into the tea chests again.

Marie decided I should make two. One to fill Bryan’s order, the other to go to Treasures. Christmas will be upon us sooner than we realize, and things like the tea chests, stopper racks and TV tables always sell briskly. It’s time to try and get a head start on it if possible. Of course our customers orders come first, but building two tea chests at once takes very little extra time – at least milling the parts does, I’ll have to put in extra time on the weekends to assemble and finish it. So I went through our collection of short lumber and brought in enough cherry for two three drawer chests, planed it smooth and to thickness and edge trimmed it.

When Marie got here we put in the top mirror, applied mirror mastic and screwed the plywood backer in place. Marie is impressed with it, she said, “It makes me want to start collecting something so I can have you build one for me.”

This completes the curio cabinet. Tomorrow I will install the shelves – temporarily – clean the glass well and try to get a workable photograph of this piece before I start wrapping it in foam, crate board and lumber.

There have been too many times where we built something beautiful and I plan to photograph it, but once I get it done I want to crate it up to protect it and I forget the photo. In each case the client said that they will send a photo of the piece in its new home, but although they each said how pleased they were with it, no one has yet supplied us with a photo to use on the web site. So I WILL get it done this time!

Doug