G&G Inspired Dresser

I am surprised how much I got done on this thing today. I am actually ahead of my own expectations which is an oh-so-rare occurrence:D.

I find a shoulder plane is not just for shoulders. It works well for cleaning up milling marks on narrow surfaces.

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I picked up a De Walt dado set when Amazon had one of those price-so-low-it-has-to-be-a-mistake things. Surprise, surprise; it showed up. The fit is good as I didn't even have to adjust the cartridge from my setup used for the Freud set. I figured this is as good a time to break it in as any.

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It even makes a nice fit in the throat plate without any fiddling.

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I get a lot of use out of this shop-made depth gauge. I built it to do height and fence depth and it comes in handy quite a bit.

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I use my little Colt with a flush trim bit for the sake of speed when trimming back the purposeful overhang on the narrow stile to wide stile joint. The assembly provides some odd clamping but, a milled piece of scrap settles that. The strip clamped to the back is to make things a little more rigid. If the narrow stile was any narrower I would clamp a piece of scrap along it to create a wider surface to ride the router on. As it is, it is just inside my comfort zone.

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Once the overhang is trimmed flush, a little scraper work makes the joint more or less disappear into the figure . . . at least that's the idea.

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cont'd . . .
 
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Time for the side dados that accept the base assembly and the upper trim. For those of you who haven't seen my sled support jig before. here it is (again).

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I use a combo blade to trim the thin stile "ears" that I left a bit proud in order to allow me to trim back for a perfect fit (I picked that up reading a couple of build articles by Garrett Hack).

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Here's the upper and lower dado. You can see the De Walt stack is a little heavy on the "bat's ears". These surfaces are completely hidden so no harm, no foul.

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A card scraper makes quick work of any milling marks. Once those are cleaned up I can get to the hand work.

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Here's one side with all the curves faired and hand shaping/blending done. I took advantage of finishing this one to take a break and come post this stuff. I'll grab a cup of Joe and go finish the other side before I knock off.

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The figured wood showing through the opening is just setting on the table to give me an idea of where I am going. The final placement of this material is in two vertical floating panels with a spline emphasizing the vertical split. You can sort of see this in the SU diagram in the opening post of this thread. Time for coffee . . .
 
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You are going really fast on that project Glenn! I bet you are enjoying every minute on it. A question from a nebwie in TS, I see that the blade you are using has those big gullets, are they for better cooling of the blade or is it a specially devoted blade to ripping or anything else? I don't see those blades here.
 
You are going really fast on that project Glenn! I bet you are enjoying every minute on it. A question from a nebwie in TS, I see that the blade you are using has those big gullets, are they for better cooling of the blade or is it a specially devoted blade to ripping or anything else? I don't see those blades here.

The blade in the picture is a 50 tooth combination blade. This one has 4 alternate top bevel teeth and one flat top grind per set of 5 teeth. Most combination blades I have seen use some version of this tooth geometry. The deep gullet does allow it clear spoil more quickly and may serve other purposes I am not recalling pre-coffee. Being a general purpose blade it is designed with no specific expectation of material, or rather, an expectation of a wide range of materials. I believe the tooth count, shape and plate design is a compromise that allows the blade to deal with the widest range of materials possible while doing a decent job on any of them.

This one from Carbide Processors has served me very well for parts breakdown. It moves from rips in reasonably thick material to crosscuts in the same without issue. If I was one of those folks that puts a blade on and runs it for everything until its dull, this would be the one . . . or maybe my custom version that leaves a flat bottomed groove . . . it would be a tough choice. My standard arsenal is a 24T thin kerf rip, a 30T rip, a pair of 50T's as mentioned above, a 60T and 80T crosscut and a dado stack. With these I have yet to run into anything I wanted to do that I could manage to muddle through. :thumb:
 
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You can see the rounded corners of the floating panel recess here. I square these up with a chisel.

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I resaw the figured material shown in the last picture in the opening post and go about choosing the parts I want. This can require some fiddling and percolating :).

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I ended up here with the keepers on the right and the spoil on the left.

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The floating panels will be colored darker than the balance of the piece but, here's the general look.

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I will have a pretty long break in the activity now what with holiday activities and all. Its a good place to stop since some sub-assemblies are not best left to their own devices for long and these sections are all pretty stable.
 
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Has it really been two and a half weeks!?! Wow, have we been busy; got the house painted but still need to put a new side door on along with the new main door weather stripping . . . this weekend for sure :rolleyes:. I got a little time in tonight. Its interesting how we develop methods (or habits) in how we do things. I half-lap my web frames when they are used the way they will be in this piece. By that I mean as carcass structure and not for drawer support as I will be using full extension mechanical slides.

I tongue and groove my trim and find the grooves easier to do once the frames are assembled. I use an FTG blade and run the frame through one way, then flip it end for end and repeat. If my setup is correct I end up with a 1/4" groove, dead center.

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I went ahead and did the others while I was still setup. I clamp them together to create a more solid "thing" and stash them out of harms way until the carcass assembly begins.

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I'll try to sneak in a little more time here and there but, most of the work on this will happen after the Christmas activities.
 
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What a great tutorial. I have just one question. How come my projects don't look as neat and clean? No sawdust. And everything looks great.
David


The miracle of dust collectors. Its also the secret of not showing what is "out of frame" :D:D:D. Anything missed by the DC or resulting from handwork gets swept to the floor, the floor gets swept when it gets deep enough that I notice it.

CleanUp.jpg
 
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LOML and her mom are busy grocery shopping, baking and wrapping today so I get to squeeze in some time in the shop. the floating panels for the side assemblies use an exposed spline to draw attention. This is just an 1/8" groove that I do pretty much like I did the web frame grooves..

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I will pre-finish some of these parts as they will be darker than the balance of the piece. I also don't want any unfinished peek-a-boo unfinished areas showing when the panels move throughout the year. Like all of you, I use a bright light across the surfaces to make sure I don't miss anything that will become glaringly obvious when I apply the finish. This light is a cheap 500 watt halogen work light fixture with a cool running LED replacement lamp in it. This lamp rig is just another step in my quest for a lamp that is both bright, focused and cool running.

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Time for a little finishing.

I flood the panels with an oil/varnish/dye witch's brew. Wait about 20 minutes and wipe them down to leave a dark base coat. These will get finished along with the balance of the piece once assembled. This pre-finish/coloring gives me the look I am after.

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Here's the same treatment on the tallboy I am matching this piece to:

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This picture makes it look a lot more lively than it is. It is definitely bold but, not as eye-shocking as the lighting in the pic makes it appear.
 
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For the splines and panels I use silicone rubber in place of "space balls". The spline is dimensionally stable but, I still need to allow for the panel movement (minimal as it may be for these fairly narrow pieces). The spline is seated in spots of silicone bead squeezed into the slot that leave about 3/16" between the spline and the bottom of the slot. The sub-assemblies are made over-size and cut to final dimension after the spline is in place.

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There is also an 1/8" of room on each side between the pre-finished sub-assembly and the recess in the side assembly that accepts it. Again I use a sort of dotted line of silicone to act as "space balls" and keep the panels floating and centered. The sub-assembly thickness is scaled so that the web frames will seat snuggly against it while in the dados and do some of the work of holding it in position.

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I should probably mention that I finish inside and out to balance moisture absorption. All unfinished surfaces on pieces like this that will contain clothing or linens that might absorb odors get shellac (as opposed to oil finished). From the outside is looks like so.

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I have template sets for this piece but, of course, the one I am making for myself is a bit different. It is taller which really only changes the scale on the cloud-lift drawer divider. This means I need a specific set. Time to run to the lumber yard as I was distracted enough lately to run out of template material . . . doh! :doh:

OK, got the template material but first, the web frames. Shop made squaring jigs come in handy over and over again.

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The frames only get glue for a few inches at the front. Attachment at the rear of the side panels is via a couple of pocket screws in oversize holes.

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Oh my goodness, there might be a dresser in there somewhere :rolleyes:.

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Funny how things go. I never did get around to the templates . . . in my defense, it was New Year's Eve :champagne:. I got an early start. I use a fair amount of templates and have accidentally gotten reasonably proficient at making them . . . I should spend as much time on my dovetails and get proficient at those :eek:.

I map out small grids on the 1/4" MDF where the details like cloud-lifts will be, draw the small lines by hand and use a fairing stick for the larger arcs. These are basic guidelines kind of like witness marks. I use rasps and files to create the final shapes.

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I end up with four templates; top row of drawers - lower profile, Cloud lift divider - upper and lower profile and the second row of drawers - upper profile. The last pic gives you the idea of the appearance I'm shooting for.

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I'm going to move along as I would like to have the framework for the cloud lift divider in before I have to stop for the day.
 
Alas, I seem to be the interruption magnet today. I've run out of time before I accomplished my goals. Fortunately tomorrow is Saturday ;-)

An unintended benefit of the templates is that I can use them to "frame" sections of material to better select the figure.

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I am so thankful that I have some of my machines on wheels. Whenever I start assembling a larger carcass, fixed machines would become unworkable very quickly.

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I almost forgot to shoot how I do the trim. The material is milled to near-final thickness. I cut grooves on opposite sides of the material and then rip that section off to create a long tongue; repeat till I have all the trim.

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Sorry for the even worse than usual pictures but, as mentioned . . . I am out of time . . . The trim fits into the front piece of the web frame like so:

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I didn't get the cloud lift frame in place but, I did get all the trim blanks cut so I can pick it up first thing tomorrow ;-)

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The large piece is the blank for the cloud lift trim. The small piece with no tongue is for the vertical trim pieces that will be reinforced with splines versus tongues
 
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