Legs...

In earlier posts you saw the legs were quite wide. At first I was
going to make them 1 3/4" x 2 1/2" x 36". Then I got to looking at them and that was just ugly. So, I decided to make them smaller & square. They're still 36" long but now they're 1 1/2" inches square. I spent most of the day making these legs. I was able to dimension them fairly quick. Then came time to make the apron. This is my first attempt at mortise and tenon joints. I'm actually quite proud of them. I did the first one entirely by hand with a small backsaw and some chisels. After the first I used the table-saw to cut the tenons, and the drill press to hog out material for the mortises. There's a pic in the list where you can see the comparison between the handcut tenon, on the left, and the tenon cut with the table saw.

I have a tenoning jig for my table-saw. Unfortunately, the cheek cut on the tenon was so small I couldn't use the jig. So I made the tenon the way I've seen Norm and David do it. I nibbled it away a little at a time. I always thought this would take forever, but it's actually very quick. Especially when the alternative is hand cutting the tenon.

Clamped up!

Glue-up first thing in the morning is awesome. I needed to get to work on the legs for this cabinet and gluing up the carcase was a good way to ease into the day. The clamps went on easy enough. I wish I had larger F-Style clamps, or smaller pipe clamps. 3/4" x3' pipe clamps are heavy. I used Titebond III for gluing up the carcase because I wanted a long open time. I thought I may need the extra time to get the carcase square.

Stain part 2...

It was a gorgeous day today. Unfortunately, all I had time to do today was put another coat of stain on the inside pieces. It didn't really darken the piece any. So, I figure one of three things has happened.

1. Between the seal coat and the first coat of gel stain all of the wood pores are filled and there's just no place for the stain to go.

2. I didn't leave the second coat of stain on long enough.

3. Gel stain is a one shot deal.

I'll probably post in some of the wood forums soon and try to figure out why the second coat failed. It's not big deal, though. It didn't hurt the color of the cabinet.

Retro project...

Here's another one from the way back machine. This is, pretty much, my first true woodworking project. I needed a place to hang up my guitars. They're not the finest instruments in the world, but I still take care of them. The boards are cherry, that Dad picked up from a co-worker. I sanded them smooth and used a router to round over the edges. Then I made the noobie woodworker mistake and tried to stain the cherry. Not only that, I stained it with "American Cherry" colored stain. Hey that was over a year ago, I wouldn't do that now. You can see in some of the pictures the classic "blotchy" stained cherry. From a distance though it still looks good. And yes, that's wood "stickered" on the guitar hangers. It seemed like as good a place as any. I used wood screws to attach the boards to the wall. Those boards are going nowhere. Then I attached the Herculese guitar hangers to the cherry. At least I was smart enough to drill pilot holes as not to split the cherry.

 
 
 
 

Cabinet legs...

I got all of the leg blanks glued up for the cabinet too. In the first pic you can see 2 leg glue-ups after they were sanded. The second pic shows one leg that just came out of the clamps and the second one clamped up.

Visit to the sawmill...

I went to the local sawyer this morning too. He hasn't been able to saw because it's been so cold lately. Water is used to cool the saw blade as it cuts, ans since it's been so cold the water freezes and the blade can't be cooled. Ironic isn't it? So, I still don't have my workbench legs, but I did pick up some very nice poplar for the legs of the cabinet.

Lesson learned...

The stain job on the back of my cabinet didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped. It seems my sanding job was, well... it sucked. Notice all the scratches down the center line of the board? (The center line runs left to right). Apparently, in my haste I bore down on the ROS and gouged it the wood. So, now I'm making a "distressed" Krenov Cabinet.