Guest Bedroom Dresser

[glenn bradley]

OK, first off . . . bless my wife and her incredible level of understanding. I have been a music enthusiast since I could talk (thanks dad). I occasionally hear something come up on the random play list that strikes my fancy. I will crank the shop sound system to a level that will stun goats in the next property an acre away. Just now it was Leslie West, Mississippi Queen circa 1970. I think some things fell off the wall I had it so loud. There are only a few songs that I play air guitar to (I do not play guitar) and this is one of them.

Be that as it may . . . I have resawn some red oak from an old breakfast table that was destined for the dump. I will try to use this material for the back slats which will never be seen.



I am going to make the rear frame from some poplar. It is resilient enough and stable.

I resaw some blanks.

They end up roughed out like so,

I mill them down. I need a flat face and a perpendicular edge on each piece.

I use witness marks as usual.

I plane the faces parallel

If I am going to use high force on the feather boards I back the fence up with a clamp

I keep old gift cards that are reliably 1/32" for such things.

And I get two fat 3/4" blanks to mill down to final thickness.

 

[glenn bradley]

For whatever reason LOML and I have been lazy today. I did get the milled poplar crosscut to length for the back frame.

I got the M&T work done so it goes together like so.

The router table setup is pretty simple. As long as you keep your reference faces common you can be off a smidge on the height setup. It just has to be consistent and within reason.

Same router table setup is used for the slats. Red oak is a bit fibrous and can want to tear out. I run a wheel gauge along the ledge of the rabbet to combat this. I marked it here with a pencil line to make it easier to see.

This gives me a nice clean edge and reveal even though few will ever see it.

Ever onward . . . BTW, thanks to you all for following along. As I have said before, tracking this stuff here keeps me moving forward.

 

[Darren Wright]

This gives me a nice clean edge and reveal even though few will ever see it.

Just those great great grandkids that are removing the paint and restoring the piece that their previous generation put on it that seemed like a good idea at the time.

That will be mostly my pieces though, especially if that previous generation gets my wife's genes.

 

[glenn bradley]

I need a little more of that re-purposed red oak for the back slats. I strip the hardware off of the old round top.

Change out to a rip blade and "carve me up some steaks".



I clean off the under side at the planer which has no film finish on it, just color.

I resaw to approximate thickness and save some of the off cuts for veneer or box dividers.

I got a reasonable amount of material out of that and didn't have to toss it in the land fill.

On we go . . . .

 

[glenn bradley]

I am starting to have the feeling that using recycled material for this back panel was more trouble than it was worth. I comfort myself by remembering that at least the material didn't go into the land fill. Parts, parts, and more parts.

I start to glue the stiles to the rails for the rear frame.

Now that's ready.

OK, lets get some panels ready. I shellac them on all sides to control moisture over the seasons.

This looks a little confusing so I will blah, blah about it a bit . . . I use blobs of silicone instead of space balls. I use spacers to set the panels in place.

The tape is to prevent things from shifting while I glue the remaining top rail in place.

Now I go do something else until tomorrow. The one downside of silicone instead of space balls is that it has to set for several hours but, after 20 years of success it is hard to change. I have plenty of other stuff to do in the mean time.

 

[glenn bradley]

Continuing to bumble forward . . . I have a small, inexpensive vise that I bolted to the side of my outfeed / assembly table. I added a jaw that would accept a dog and a plate with magnets to use as a stop.

It sets like so.

I am using it in this case to align the frame rails for the drawer fronts.

I have a couple of these (at the time) inexpensive pencil sharpeners; one at each end of the shop. I also have some hand crank sharpeners mounted here and there but being able to quickly sharpen one-handed has its advantages during a process.

Back in the day they were under $20 but I don't know what they are today. They come in super handy for a quick sharpening of the point of a pencil during mark-up.

I clamp the frame parts together and mark them for the mortises.

The frame and panel back didn't come out too bad. remembering that it is made up of reclaimed material . . .

The green and yellow colors of the poplar will dull to the choclate brown of my workbench base.

Alas, by the time they reach that coloration stage, no one will see them. Maybe someone will notice when they empty the house

 

[Don Baer]

(I do not play guitar)

I never could get the handle on the air guitar but I do play a fair air cello

 

[glenn bradley]

I never could get the handle on the air guitar but I do play a fair air cello

One of my Bach favorites (there are so many), and favorite artist, and favorite interpretations:

Here is the face frame presentation.

I know I have shown this doo-hickey before. It is a push-plate of sorts designed to interface with the MicroJig Matchfit system. It does many things but in this case it gives me a reliable vertical and horizontal perpendicular reference.

It rides against the sled fence and is therefor aligned by default.

I set it to let me make a spline slot in the small vertical frame members.

The clamps are configurable to allow a deep reach. This does a couple of things; it keeps things aligned as I change blanks and keeps my pinkies away from the meat-eater.

(Read in an Ace Ventura voice . . . ) "Like a glove".

I do up the four parts.

I will use some 1/8" double tempered hardboard as the splines.

These will provide structural strength for the drawer box dividers inside the carcass. This will make more sense after a few more steps.

 

[glenn bradley]

Well . . . Mr. Twinkie Pinhead (that would be me) got ahead of himself and cut the leg tapers before he cut the joinery. Let me re-state that in a better way; always cut your joinery before you cut your tapers or curves. That being said, I used an extra leg blank as a story stick / fence to align the mortises so as not to follow the taper.

I measure off of a known parallel part to assure the line is true.

Normally when working with larger parts I prefer to bring the tool to the work as opposed to vice versa. In this case the Domino table was already setup and I had a work support handy so . . .

With all the mortises cut I can dry fit the front, back and sides.

Time for some lunch.

 

[glenn bradley]

Gluing things up so everything looks pretty much the same. I need to do some surface prep on the front frame and touch up the end panels where they show the sign of me handling them and using them as 'alignment tools'. I'll post a pic once I have the carcass in the clamps. Hopefully that will be before end of day.

LOML has a guest coming later this afternoon but they generally get lost in girl-talk so I can probably keep moving forward in the shop. We have plenty of leftovers so I don't have to stop to cook. My only excuse for not getting the carcass in the clamps may be a nap requirement

 

[glenn bradley]

Finally getting back to this after a little back and hip trouble . .. glad that's over. Glue up the front frame using a reference surface and clamps to try to overcome the slight bow . . .

. . . that I picked up in the parts when resawing.

I keep a grip of 3/4" pipe in a corner behind the door for altering pipe clamp dimensions. I have shorter pieces and couplers as well. Cheap, easy to store and they come in real handy when you need them.

I take a moment to swap out the head and tail pieces.

Same old trick here . . . I clamp a couple of carts together to yield a larger work surface than I want to commit space for. Sets up and tears down quick without dedicating precious shop floor space.

I am getting some more use out of those bed supports I picked up on Amazon when doing the headboard project. I find I need a third hand more often nowadays.

I have a Kreg model 720 which is really great. For these pieces I want the holes positioned for 1/2" material despite it being 1" material. The 720 auto-magically sets things up based on the thickness you clamp in it. I break out a small Kreg jig and set it up to put the holes where I want. I grip the Kreg clamp in the vise and use it like so for these odd-ball dividers.



That's about it for today. I will follow up later on.

 

[glenn bradley]

I know this one is dragging on. In my defense I threw my back out several days ago. I've done this before but never had it last this long!?! Be that as it may . . . back at it. I have slowly but surely started to follow Marc's (the Wood Whisperer) method of gluing in the floating tenons ahead of time. The theory being that you can then "fit" them like regular tenons during assembly. I have done a few test cases on this and find it to be valid so . . . onward I go.

I am usng the longer pieces of pipe discussed earlier.

I also use a variety of squaring jigs. Some commercial, some shop made.

It is a case of if the shoe fits, wear it.

Next I will glue and screw in the drawer dividers. Ever onward.