Water damage...

Last week our washing machine leaked. No big deal, we had it fixed and now all is good. Little did I know, though, that the water had made it across the garage. All 4 cabinet legs wicked water. The legs had water marks between 3" & 5" high, the grain had raised and the legs were still damp in the center. I sanded the outside and it seemed to remove the water marks. I may end up having to amputate the legs at about 6" from the bottoma and make some feet. I got so disgusted this weekend I gave up and just hung out.

All day sand fest...

I spent most of the day sanding. By hand. I started around 8 am using 220 grit to put a mild round over on all the corners of the legs & apron. I cleaned up the glue squeeze-out as I went along. When I got the corners like I wanted I took a double-cut file and rounded over the tops of the legs. Then I sanded those too. Once the legs and apron were acceptable I started working on the stand-offs that attach the base to the cabinet. I ended up make three because I split one when drilling out the holes. I like the idea of having the base separated from the cabinet with the stand-offs. I don't think wifey cared for them too much, though. Maybe she'll change her mind when it's all finished.

Two observations:
1. Hand sanding detail is tedious and makes you sore.
2. The result of hand sanding detail is worth the time.


Oh yeah, and I don't absolutely hate the legs anymore.

Tapered the legs...

I got up early this morning to taper the legs. I wanted to have them kind of curve and taper, but they're a little to small for that. I ended up just going with a straight taper. I tried to make a simple table saw tapering jig, but that was going to turn out to be a bunch of work. So, I did a quick band-saw tuneup and cut the taper. The first cut didn't go as expected. At first I thought I had hit a really hard knot. Turns out the drill press was in the way. Mistake #221. After moving the drill press, the tapers went fairly quick.

Unfortunately, at this point I got pretty into what I was doing and forgot to take pics. Basically, I cleaned up the horrible bandsaw job I did to get the tapers. I used my No. 7 plane and got it down nice and flat, then I took my cabinet scraper and cleaned up the transition. They're by no means perfect, but they'll do.

Once I finished the cleanup, it was time for quick sanding and a glue up. Again, I was on a roll so the only picture of the entire leg & apron glue-up that I have is the one you see here.

While I was letting the glue dry I did a final sanding on the cabinet. I progressed from 100 up to 220 grit and put a 2lb cut of shellac on the cabinet, then set it outside to sun dry. Worked pretty well.

Here's the pic...

Here's a couple of pics of the legs. Notice that my mortises are so sloppy I had to use a band clamp to keep everything together. I'm still learning, though. I hate the legs. I don't know why. I'm hoping I'll like them more after I get the taper on them, but right now I just hate them.

Got the apron done...

I got the apron done today. Didn't have too much time in the garage this week. I'll post pics tomorrow maybe.

No updates this weekend...

Wifey and I are out of town this weekend. So there probably won't be any cabinet updates for this weekend. There is, however, a Woodcraft store and a bunch of lumber yards in Nashville. Oh, yeah.

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.