MBR Vanity

[Darren Wright]

It's a good thing my keyboard has one of the silicone rubber covers. I drool when I see the organization you have in your shop.

 

[glenn bradley]

It's all in the secret of the camera angle. Just out of frame dwells a dystopian nightmare!!!

 

[glenn bradley]

Breaking out blanks for the rails and stiles of the divider panel; left side of the drawer case, to the right of your knees when seated.

Witness marks as previously discussed.

Here again there is a defect in the material but I will cut out my parts around it . . . happy fire pit

I use a couple pieces of the material to be resawn to setup the feather boards.

With a rip blade in place and using a feather board I get pretty clean cuts right off the saw.



I keep some of the dimensioned spoil to help me setup for joinery later.

My favorite wheel gauge has gotten a lot of use lately. Time for a sharpening.

A squirt of mineral spirits on a 1200 mesh diamond stone. I just rest my finger on the top and move the wheel in a random pattern around the stone.

This quickly puts an edge on it suitable for its use.

I slice the fibers on the rails and stiles.

This yields a nice clean cut at the router table.

Here's the joinery for these frame parts.

It goes together like so.

I need to final-size these panels and rabbet them to fit in the frame.

I hope to get to that before end of day because I can lay on the initial color coat. Floating panels get colored prior to assembly to assure there is no bare wood exposed during the seasonal movement.

 

[glenn bradley]

These end panels are glued and cured and ready for surface prep so I will set them aside until I go into my surface prep marathon prior to slapping on some finish

These are the floating panel blanks for the knee panel shown in the previous post.

They get cut to final size, rabbeted and so forth. Sorry about the color discrepancy. I took a couple of these with my phone and it tried to "fix" stuff. At any rate, the outer panels have some reversing grain so I take a really light cut to establish the rabbet's shoulder. Then a couple more passes to make final depth.

This gives me this reveal.

I pre-finish the panels like I do all floating panels.

Time for some late breakfast

 

[glenn bradley]

Didn't get a whole lot done today but don't feel too bad about it. I was helping a neighbor get some stuff down at the rear of his property so, paying it forward. He helps me out all the time as well. I had pre-finished the edges of the frame panel recesses since they can be hard to reach. I have done them before with an oil painter's brush but thought this might be easier.

I position the floating panels with the little dabs of silicone I use as "space balls". I use some curved cauls to clamp the assembly flat to a work surface till tomorrow.

The previously assembled end panels mount at an angle. I failed to pay attention and did not angle cut the top rails prior to assembly . . . Doh!

I add a couple of section of sac-fence to the rip fence to support the odd shaped lower portion and allow me to cut the bevel.



There we go. How often is our woodworking "recovery" woodworking ;-)

I lay out some marking on the leg pieces and will cut the mortises tomorrow.

 

[glenn bradley]

This morning is about the opposite of yesterday. Sometimes you spend a lot of time and have little to show for it. Other times you do very little but it looks like a lot. I use a 1-2-3 block to transfer my mortise position marks from the panel to a piece of scrap I will use as a story stick.

I re-task my template routing sled to hold the story stick to the leg to act as a fence.

I use the Domino to cut a series of mortises.

One side on one panel.

Both sides on both panels.

I will set these over in the "surface prep" pile for final profiling, sanding, whatever.

 

[glenn bradley]

I wander over to the old swinging plywood rack.

Baltic Birch, as wonderful as it is, can vary by a 64th in thickness so I measure.

This shop made doo-hickey makes it easy to set bit depth to match the plywood thickness.



I use the aluminum extrusions again to expand the capacity of the router table fence.

I run a shallow cut between the stops to set the shoulder.

Then two more passes to reach the 1/2" depth I am after. This is a 1/2" rabbet to accept the ply and a surface depth to match the actual plywood thickness. The outer panel is angled so I add a vertical plywood panel to accept the drawer glides.

I have tried a few of these corner "knock out" chisel setups. The Veritas magnetic one is the best so far.

And we end up with this receiver for the plywood panel.

I'll do the other three and knock off for the day. It is pathetic but I just run out of gas so much quicker than I used to . . .

 

[allen levine]

i read glenns threads and wonder why I continue to woodwork. never attaining the level of his skill. not getting close, I have fun, but fun isnt skill.

 

[glenn bradley]

i read glenns threads and wonder why I continue to woodwork. never attaining the level of his skill. not getting close, I have fun, but fun isnt skill.

I call nonsense! You would apparently be surprised how often I run to show LOML one of your projects. “Look what Allen did“.

 

[Rennie Heuer]

I call nonsense! You would apparently be surprised how often I run to show LOML one of your projects. “Look what Allen did“.

Ditto! (Says the proud owner of two of those "Allen Originals")

 

[allen levine]

Can't compare scroll work to furniture building
Fret scrolling the room for errors is tremendous
Cutting 100 holes to make a picture no one would know how many times it wqwnt cut on the line nearly impossible to tell
If I was off 1/32 of an inch on a door or frame or cabinet it was shot

 

[glenn bradley]

I imagine many of you have used the iron and damp towel trick to raise dents. This iron is pretty cheap and keeps me from stealing the one out of the house when I need one. I use it dry and lay a bit of damp paper towel on the dent . . . presto.

I glue and clamp one side of the vanity.

Let me spend more of your money for you or suggest a 'wish list' item for Christmas. These little card scrapers are inexpensive and super handy for tight spots.

Here is another plug for shop organization. I went from sub-assemblies clamped up on multiple surfaces, tools laying everywhere, and clamps in place to a shop reset in under a half an hour.



A place for (almost) everything and everything in that place. I'm now all set for the next phase which is the exposed side panel in the leg area.

I goofed up and routed a rabbet I didn't need. Of course this was in an exposed area so a repair (or a new leg) was required. The repair is on the left side of the leg and will be on the inside surface of the leg area. I think I will get away with it.

Here is a Tim Rousseau trick. He cuts a plastic straw at an angle with a scissors. Runs the point of the cut straw up the mating joint where the glue squeeze-out occurs. Snip off the tip of the straw again and repeat. Works great. He also uses wet rags, acid brushes with the bristles cut short and chisels; all of which I also do either learned from him or someone else.

I will let this guy set up. then I need to cut a few plywood components and percolate on the drawer fronts.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

Glenn, your mistakes look better than my good work. The vanity is coming along nicely! And your shop organization makes me sick. Thanks for all the tips and photos.

 

[allen levine]

ive used an old iron to glue down edge banding tape of shelving.......im happy it automatically turns off after a certain amount of time because Ive left it on more times then I care to admit. for some reason, only the iron I forget to unplug.
looking fantastic glenn.finished product will be brilliant

 

[glenn bradley]

Out of state visitors today so I didn't get a whole lot done this morning. I did however have a great breakfast at one of their (they used to live in SoCal) favorite diners they visit whenever they come this way. Of course we forgot some items at the grocery store so guess who gets to make a last minute run?

You can see the multiple tenon and floating back slat joinery here.



It is on its back with its feet in your face but you start to get the general idea here.



This is just a dry fit so I can confirm the drawer case and face frame dimensions. I hope to pick this up when I am back from the store. there is a lot of day left

 

[glenn bradley]

Just so you don't think I've wandered off . . . I've always been glad I made this sled a bit deeper than I originally planned. It comes in handy for things that are just a bit too big for my other sled.

This panel gets let in to the side assembly to provide a vertical surface for the drawer slides.

I simply glue it into place.

The inevitable irregularity of plywood left an area a bit proud. A quick fix with a beater chisel adjusts the area for the joinery.

The same operation for the plywood panel for the interior of the other side of the drawer case.

I sort of laminate the frame and panel show piece to the ply. I use glue in certain places to still allow for some wood movement although there shouldn't be much.

Can't emphasize enough how often a tube sock filled with glass beads from the dollar store comes in handy. This soft weight holds all sorts of odd things as a third hand.

I true up the panel/ply combo.

It will end up here with some additional frame and trim pieces.

Ever onward . . .

 

[David Johnson]

Great tutorial with excellent shop tips.
David

 

[glenn bradley]

Posting baby-steps today. It helps me keep moving forward . . . that's right . . . I'm using you.
I use this Lee Valley small box slotting bit to cut a stopped 1/8" x 5/16" slot in the panel edge and the associated trim piece.

I cut a couple of strips of dual-tempered hardboard to use as splines.

I have attached face frame material and trim with pins, pocket screws, and splines. This seemed like a good time for a spline since there is not a lot of rock-solid support structure around this drawer box.

At any rate it ends up here.

There will be a domino at the top of the trim piece. The bottom horizontal support that will be shown later will be pocket hole screwed into place. All in all with the amount of bearing surface I think it will do well with the under mount slides.

 

[glenn bradley]

Like other mortise and tenon or floating tenon joints the domino makes a nice tight fitting, twist free joint.

Back when 99-cents stores were 99-cents I bought $20 worth of wax paper . . . still using it.

A little wax paper now makes for much less clean up later.

There is an offset at this joint so I used a spare shop made clamping square as a spacer.

I used a dead blow to knock these joints together. Not usually a problem but I got careless and hit with the edge of the head as opposed to the flat. Dent! Even though I go over things prior to applying finish, I go ahead and tag this one to be handled before I get that close to the finish line (pun intended).

I have a selection of bar gauges. Still I will find myself, like now, with a dimension that I do not have pre-made bars for. The dimension is just large enough to not let me use a couple of 6" rulers and a spring clamp and just small enough to not let me use a 12" rule. I go to the scrap barrel.

I dig out a thin off cut and round the tips at the disc sander.

This and a couple of stair gauges let me make a quick ad-hoc bar gauge that will work for me.

Now I can confirm parallel and square for the drawer box prior to driving the pocket hole screws.

You can come up with the quickest and easiest solutions just using scrap from around the shop.

 

[glenn bradley]

More structural parts going on. The bowed caul works well for applying pressure along the splined front trim joint.

Cutting up some maple for drawer box parts.

I need a little more maple (of course). Getting things like this 10' x 8/4 piece of maple out of the overhead rack is getting hard for me. I have a scale in the shop and the board is only 55 pounds but feels much heavier today . The bow in this piece has kept it in the rack waiting for a short parts requirement. The short sections will reduce the impact of the bow in this board.

Lotsa drawer box parts.

I use clamping squares, shop made and commercial, to assure things remain true and perpendicular during glue up.

Next phase will be drawer boxes, drawer fronts and the glue up of the top.



And we are starting to get the idea.