MBR Vanity

[glenn bradley]

I think I just put this one in here to show how you can use hand screws to lock larger items down to barely fitting work platforms(???).

I am using some tape as a story stick for the drawer heights and spacing.

I couldn't bring myself to spend the measly $20 for the Kreg 720 bench clamp when I had these Bessey Corner Clamp clamps available. Our shops tend to get crowded with one-trick-ponies. Sometimes they are necessary but I try to avoid them. At any rate, I bought the small pocket hole jig insert for 1/2" material and lo and behold the cam-clamp won't fully lock down . . . it hits my non-official clamp. Field Modification!!! Ground a bit off the top of the Bessey clamp.

Chiseled out a bit of the plastic grip pad . . . So, now we all know I would have been better off just paying the $20.

Presto, works great. I put in the bottom shelf undermount slides. For people who use these often I am sure they are a no-brainer. I only use them a few times a year so I find I have to re-learn a lot of things; face frame versus frameless, inset versus overlay, there are different calculations for all of these.



I make a bottomless drawer box and amazingly it worked out the first time. Now I have my actual dimensions and can carry on.

I go on the search for drawer front material that looks nice. Board number 5 wins the bake off. You can see that this board has been hiding at the top of one of the wall racks for a half a dozen years. It's finally his turn!

I use poster board "L's" to frame views of wood grain. This helps me isolate what I am looking at and make the decision process easier . . . for me . . . Of course I am out of poster board so I just grab a couple of framing squares and some tape.

The "window" let's me look at the figure in a more focused way. The material is thick enough that each blank will yield two drawer fronts. This view is OK . . .

But I like the aesthetic of this figure better.

Just a bit to the right is a nice bit of figure that will fit in the smaller upper two drawer front dimensions.

They may or may not end up being used as bookmatched.

Resawing material from the same board does give you color consistency and I am never sorry about that.

 

[Stuart Ablett]

Holy cow, Glenn, this is an amazing thread!
So many tips and tricks along the way, better than any article I've ever seen in a magazine.
The space you have and your setup is to die for. I can imagine the hours that you have spent over the years to get your shop set up how it works, and you like it.
Well done!

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

Your "two framing square" trick is brilliant! It's like Cecil B. DeMille framing a camera shot with thumbs and forefingers.

@Stuart Ablett this is Glenn's new shop. It's only a few years old, but he got to plan it out from the ground up and it shows.

 

[glenn bradley]

@Stuart Ablett - Yeah, COVID gave me an involuntary 1 year window to work and re-work all sorts of things before I could break ground. The trail on that journey is here somewhere but I seem to be unable to find it right now.

We now return you to your regular programming . . . The framing square bit dials in the actual dimensions.



The Match-Fit sled deals with non perpendicular or parallel cuts very well.



I sand and shellac internal surfaces of the drawers prior to assembly.

Bottom drawer with a roughed-out false front.



I like to chamfer the inside edge of the drawer boxes. This make them more friendly to dragged wrists, bracelets, or whatever.

I put the assembled drawer box over the chamfer bit and take it for a carousel ride.

It comes out like so.

Getting there. Two more to go.

 

[Rennie Heuer]

I like the chamfer idea and might use that on the cabinet I'm building. Normally I would use a 1/8 or 3/32 round over (for 1/2 or 5/8 sides respectively) on both the inside and outside edge of the drawer.

 

[glenn bradley]

I've done the round over as well. Both work. I add some more slides.

I should mention that I use something we have probably all seen . . . a blank to set the slide position.

You set the lowest slide as close to perfect as you can get it. Then you use a piece of scrap to set the next slide's height, rip the scrap for the next dimension, rinse and repeat.

I wanted a certain appearance from the front on this guy. that left my internals a bit offset from my "show" trim. I just add some spacers to set the slides where I need them. A spray of fixative, a drop of CA on a piece of hardboard and there you go. The tape acts as a fine-tuning shim to set the position. This is not structural. The slide screw goes right though it and into the plywood.

The scrap spacer serves to position these little blocks as well as other things.

This is just showing the shim in place.

I have a block plane with an add-on handle. I often use this to true up the tops of drawer boxes.

I love having these KliKlamps for tasks like this.

Anyway, one drawer to go.

Then I will take the fronts off, profile them and surface prep the drawer boxes for finish. Then I can mill and glue up the top!

 

[glenn bradley]

Moving along . . . Walnut can sometimes have blemishes in the areas of the most interesting figure. I prefer Timbermate for a filler when required. It is so forgiving, easy to work with and accepts finish well. I keep walnut, cherry and neutral on hand. It may seem pricey but a small container will last you for years.

Once the final surface prep is done and the base color coat goes on this will disappear.

Always, always, square your boxes, casework and carcasses.

I have developed the habit of weighting drawer boxes to a true surface during glue up. Probably not necessary most of the time but . . . that one time . . .

Lee Valley offered these KliKlamp clones with an additional extended foot at some point in time. They were one of those "special buy" things that you get in their emails. At any rate they have come in handy more than once since I got them

They can do this.

I use my "don't drill that hole too deep" doo-jobber when drilling the false front attachment screw holes.

I will use part of this bit's profile for the false front edge treatment.

I fool around a bit and end up liking this result.

There is a lot of reversing grain pattern on these false fronts so you have to keep that in mind when machining. I run the router about half speed and use a feed rate that is just shy of too slow (burning). This seems to give me a good result. Here are the drawer fronts right off the machine.

There will be some hand work (as always) but this gives you the general idea.

 

[glenn bradley]

Boy I am really baby-stepping this thing along. I had selected the top material before I selected any other material. I marked it and set it off to the side. Now it's time.

I dig out the planer sled I made in a few hours back in 2007. Boy has this thing earned its keep. I give it a wax job since it has been a while.

And there she is in all her hideous beauty.

You "zero" the cleats; that is, you make sure the wedges are not in play to start. You place the material on the cleats and lift up on each one, teeter-totter the board and all that stuff we do when jointing a face.

I do each end first so that there is no teeter-totter. Then I lift the remaining cleats, slide the wedges to remove the slop and lock them in place with the wood screws built into the ends of the cleats for that purpose.

I measure from the top of the material to a reference surface so that I know about what thickness to start with.

Witness marks . . . . always . . .

The DRO really helps with this. I have come to trust it implicitly.

Almost got it on the first pass.

One more 32nd and I'm there for side one of board one.

I do the other two, edge joint them and I am all set for the next step.

I will rip three boards from these "about" 10 inch wide boards to yield an "about" 23 inch deep top. It will be 48 inches long but will have arcs on the ends and front.

 

[glenn bradley]

I am a stickler for exposed end grain; it has to look good. Several of the styles I work in have exposed end grain as a design detail so over the years I have gotten used to dealing with it.

Here is a front (on the left) right off the machines. The one on the right has had the edges prepared. The face is not quite done in this picture.

The glue up of the top is done and cured. I use shop made and commercial drawing bows to layout the curves. Oddly the fiberglass commercial box has warped and may get tossed. The tempered hardboard one I made decades ago is still fine (???).

At any rate, you layout your curves and head to the tablesaw.

Ripped to final depth; this is the bottom.

Those silly Huskey adjustable tables never cease to be useful. I hope some of you picked them up cheap during the Christmas deals. They work for arcing the crosscut.

And for arcing the rip.

I fell asleep at the switch and didn't take pictures of fairing the curves at the edge sander. An edge sander makes fairing these longer curves really easy. You test your curve by rocking the part on edge on a known flat surface. If it rocks smoothly, the curve is fair. If it stops or stutters, go back to work.

I have not done the edge profile treatment yet but wanted to get a look at this before I broke for lunch. I am going to run to the local deli, then pick up one of the grand kids who wants to spend the night, then hopefully get back to work. Sometimes after I stuff my face with a nice Italian grinder sandwich I will take a nap. It's a known hazard and I just have to deal with it.

 

[glenn bradley]

I use a portion of a large round over bit to make the top edge profile.



The additional support surface of the tablesaw comes in handy.

I spoke shave the long edge of the top but choose sandpaper for the cross-grain edges. I have shown this shop made flexible sanding block before. It rides the curves well and is pretty easy to use.

I ran a bit of mineral spirits on the long edge to check my progress.

A raking light makes getting the surface of the top error free. Trust me, there were some that surprised me and I had to go back and dress them out.

I will use Peruvian walnut for the pulls to match the other pulls in the room.

I drill the hole for the insert the diameter of the barrel. I only want the teeth cutting into the wood. I do not want to force the fastener into the wood like a wedge.

I use the insert to set the depth and the fence to help position the blank.

I kind of cheat and use one of the previous pulls as a setup guide.

The layout helps me double-check what I am about to do.

So here's the holes for the inserts and the holes that will set the width of the hand-grips.

Years ago I bought a toilet ring as someone had recommended it to me as a screw lube. Good call. Still using it.

I have an insert driver. I put it in the drill press check and disengage the motor.

This lets me use the quill while turning the chuck by hand to drive the insert home while well aligned.

I will load the remaining inserts and then proceed to shape the pulls.

 

[Toni Ciuraneta]

 

[glenn bradley]

After the inserts are put in to the squared up blanks I cut out the grip openings at the bandsaw.

I then use the spindle-sander-fence trick to make the openings smooth and consistent.



I made this silly trammel jig out of scrap several projects ago. Despite setting in the scrap pile it keeps getting dug out again for "just one more" use.

The upper/lower round over bit makes profiling these odd shapes much easier. I do a lot of Greene and Greene and those curvy / wavy challenges brought this bit to my attention.

Once a little hand work is done they are ready for finish.

Fortunately the client happened to drop in and decided on a "more brown" color for these pulls than the blue/black that are on the other bedroom fixtures.

 

[glenn bradley]

Laid the base color coat on these guys

I'll get to the top today.

I cobbled this ROS Table together back in 2014 out of an old TV cabinet I scrounged off the side of the road. I can't believe it is still holding together but I am glad it is.



I ran a 60 grit belt when I shaped the pulls. I should have used an 80. There are some score marks that I am having trouble getting out so I will use the little ROS Table.

I got tired of squatting and kneeling on the floor to apply finish to the case work.

I moved it up here.

It will all be just finish application for a while so I will check back in when something noticeable happens.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

Loving the color, Glenn!

 

[glenn bradley]

Loving the color, Glenn!

Thanks Vaughn. Had a little trouble on the Peruvian walnut pulls. There were some weird white spots in the material. I think I got it figured out by touching them up with some "repair markers" between coats of tinted finish. Walnut can sometimes have some odd black mineral streaks or white areas of softer material based on material density. I have wasted time chasing them as if I could "sand them out" only to learn to deal with them in other ways (thank you Jeff Jewitt) . . .

 

[glenn bradley]

Couldn't resist. I am really enjoying how the color is coming out in this decade old walnut stock. This is the second coat for the top.

Third coat on the case.



Third coat on the top; two more to go.

 

[glenn bradley]

I know a lot of this stuff looks the same but, trust me . . . things are moving forward. My tools of choice when dressing in the finer points are a cork block, a worn out non-woven pad and some 1000, 1200, and 1500 grit wet/dry paper.

These cork blocks used to be pricey but you can now find them (like I found my last ones) for a decent price. They support wet or dry sanding with a decently hard surface for "plane" control.

I have to wait a couple of hours and will then sand at 1500 and apply the last top coat of lacquer. This last coat will also get buffed out in a few days. Then we are off to the races.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

....View attachment 136800...

I know that top is as flat as a reference surface in a machine shop, but between the curved edge on the lower right and a bit of wide-angle camera lens distortion, it looks like it's made out of badly cupped 1x12 material from Home Depot.

 

[glenn bradley]

I know that top is as flat as a reference surface in a machine shop, but between the curved edge on the lower right and a bit of wide-angle camera lens distortion, it looks like it's made out of badly cupped 1x12 material from Home Depot.

Oh, OK, fine. I see how you are

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

Oh, OK, fine. I see how you are

Like I said, I know it's very flat (considering who built it). But the photo makes it look like something I'd make.