Good blog Gary, good thinking with layout fluid it should last some time.general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
002: a rolling base for my planer
8
general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
1 - 20 of 68 Posts
This is a nice addition to your planer, Gary. It will help to improve its mobility. Unless you have a shop with tons of room keeping the big tools, like the planer, on wheels is almost a necessity to work in a smaller shop.general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
ho… saweet. looks to nice for a utility cart…general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
about your feelings regarding flush and all - practice makes perfect. and for a first face frame - this looks great! it's really hard to anticipate what might go wrong when you don't have the personal experience of things going wrong. suggestions for better fit - get things clamped down better before using pocket screws, this way the screws and the rotary action will not shift things around (too much). make face frame slightly oversize, and flush route it down. just a few ideas.
I liked the idea of marking those bolt holes locations. Another way to get those holes in the right place would be to turn the planer over, take a piece of paper the size of the planer base, hold it in place, and push the paper to the base all around - where there is a bolt hole it'll make an indentation - you can then take the paper and use it as a template.
Ten pounds of XXXX in a five pound bag! I think most of us know what thats like!general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
Nice job Gary.
Very nice!general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
BTW How did you end up with a bottle of Dykem?
It looks good so far. I'm looking forward to the completed project as my planer is still on the floor and I'm always open to good ideas for a stand. BTW, I did something similar to mark holes once, but I turned over my grinder, emptied the filings out, then sprinkled some of them in the holes. Just a light dusting all the way around the hole. They leave a much nicer circle as they drop straight down and don't spread. Yeah, now I tell ya.general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
Good job so far, now, the drawer!! Are you going to keep hacksaw blades in it?general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. To answer a few questions:general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
PurpLev - yeah, it was my fault not clamping. I've done about 6 250-count boxes now of pocket holes, but I still wimp out when I'm clamping, thinking I'll be fine. I considered possibly doing the paper thing on the bottom, but man, that planer is just so heavy. It must be 80lbs. Again, I was just wimping out
GaryK - I have a tiny machine shop in my office, complete with a Sears Craftsman workbench, and a Sherline mini lathe and mini mill. It's all set up to work with CNC through a small ShuttlePC computer. Of course, I had to get all high and mighty about it, and go with a full Linux setup with only free and open source software, which makes things harder, and means I haven't done much in the 3 years I've owned them. It's one of the many things I keep saying "I'll get that all set up great soon." Sigh…
DaleM - I just about smacked a hole in my forehead. It never even occurred to me to not use liquid. The dust idea is brilliant. Thanks for that one. I'm definitely doing that next time. It would have been way more controllable, precise, and cleaner. No giant blue mess on the wood.
Topamax - yep! I have a bunch of different hacksaws, and a "Gator" sawzall thingy with different blades. Then there's the planer, jointer, and even some hand plane type things. I might whip up a little divider just to keep me from having to dig through what will probably become a growing pile of blades. I also have a bunch of blue rectangle bin cups from a storage system I set up. I started using them in the garage. I can probably tile some of the drawer in those to help hold smaller blades more conveniently.
I knew there was some machinist in there, due to the use of steel blue.general assembly
My Craftsman 13" planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It's very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it's just always either in the way when I don't need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I'm often too tired to. I've even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don't want to move a few dozen things, then wrestle the giant box out into a clearing, move things now in the way of planing back into the void left by the planer, and then go through it all again at the end so I can say, have enough space to use my saw table again. That's no way to run a shop.
I'm very nearly out of room in my 1-car garage with all the other tools, tables, and junk collected in piles, so I'm going about the only route left to me. I'm making a tiny rolling base, as tall as possible while still enabling the whole thing to roll under my work table, out of the way, finally. It will have a drawer underneath it to hold replacement blades, and I've decided I should just put the replacement blades for everything that needs them in my entire shop in that same drawer. No more thinking "Where are the replacement blades for my jointer/box cutter/hacksaw/etc?" They'll all be in there, and that's great, because I have a lot of packs of spare blades pouring out of every nook and cranny. I recently bought a pack of 5 hacksaw blades, only to find I had the same exact, unopened pack from last year in the shop already. I just couldn't find them. Again, no way to run a shop.
Here's the planer on a piece of leftover baltic birch cut exactly to size. There's about 1/8" of clearance on each side, and the integrated handles on the sides of the cast aluminum base stick over a bit so I can still get my fingers in there easily if I need to. I used a combination of lengths of jointed boards, squares, and tape on the floor to figure out the dimensions around the curvy base.
The mounting holes are really well hidden under solid parts that can't be moved. You can't fit a bolt down most of them, meaning you have to come up through the bottom when mounting. You certainly can't fit any kind of marking pencil or awl down them to transfer the positions, so I just dripped a drop of engineer's blue down the holes. It was even hard to get the thin brush in to some of them. It's poorly designed in this aspect. It probably tells you the positions and dimensions of the mounting holes in the manual, but I didn't look
The drops spread out through the wood via capillary action, but it was pretty easy to figure out where they had hit, and take centerpoint measurements off of those lines. They were the same each side, so I could extrapolate for the drop that apparently never fell on the one clear corner. Later, I drilled the holes with a 3/8" brad point bit, and testing things out, everything lined up rather ideally.
The sides of the box are to be 3/4" poplar, scraps from some storage cabinet shelving leftovers. I'm using only scrap on this project, and with little to no scrap left over from said scrap. I seem to have pieces almost exactly the size necessary in most cases! Hooray for the dwindling scrap pile. It has grown large.
This is officially my first face frame, made of pieces ripped from more of the poplar leftovers. I'm such a novice. I never framed anything before to make it prettier, or to act as a proper stopper for drawer fronts. It's probably because I'm lazy. I joined it with pocket screws:
Of course, with barely larger than 3/4" stiles, I got some splits from the screws, so here I'm gluing one of the bad ones back together under the extreme pressure of a Bessey K-Body.
Pocket hole screws all around, w/ Titebond III glue. The Kreg K3 Master System makes it very easy.
General assembly complete. Unfortunately, nothing came out very flush, and all in the worst way, with the large faces sticking out past the thin edges. Lots of random-orbital sanding is in my future. I rushed it, and didn't set up clamps very well to hold things very securely as I drove the screws. I usually get much better, more flush joints than this.
It is pretty comically small under the planer, but it's really sturdy, and doesn't feel in any way top-heavy. It should all work out well, and as planned. More soon.
Next up, sanding it all flush, adding supports underneath, and casters on those, then it'll be time to make a utility drawer to fill that gaping hole.
I'm surprised you didn't use transfer punches for the holes though!
8
flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48".
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
.I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
Been there and done that as well. But I am sure that the next time you make a drawer it will have 1" of clearance! I have often said that we learn more from our mistakes than we do our successes. And, I can honestly say that I have learned a lot.flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
I really like this project Gary because I really hate having to lift my 'portable' planer too, urgh.flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
Agree 100 % with Scott I have the same issue in my tiny shop>flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
Just redo the drawer- pretty straight forward, and least likely to mess anything else up - after all, youve got the cabinet so nice and clean - why mess it up with relief cuts, or narrow it's thickness?flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
itll be less work for you to just rebuild the drawer - if you only glued those rabbet joints, you should be able to hammer it apart - even if the edges get tear out - you'll be shortening those anyways…
If anyone tells you that they have never made a mistake in woodworking….......they are a complete fool and a liar…............hang in there….........its looking good.flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
Wow! Nicely done. Makes me wish for a similar base for my planer….flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
Hey Garyflush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
Good stand.
All you have to do is cut one side of your drawer by cutting it on the table saw being careful not to cut the bottom and reattach the one side with biscuits or screws. If you have 3/4" drawers you can just run each side on the jointer until you have the clearance you need. I'm sure you have considered all this already.
I would just resaw 1/4 inch off each side on the bandsaw.flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn't sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler's digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5" (actually about 2.46"-2.48"
I factored the wheel heights into my on-the-fly designing, and when I put the planer on the top of the assembled cabinet (w/ wheels), it was all exactly 1/4" shorter than the table's clearance. It fits perfectly. Sweet!
The aggressive 60-grit random orbital sanding got everything flushed up pretty well, too, as seen here:
That baltic birch is always so amazing to me, after a lifetime of construction grade ply.
Note that the handles stick over, in case I need to lift it again one day. I hate picking this thing up. It's like dead lifting. I have to stretch everything out first, shake out my hands, crack my shoulders, elbow, neck, wrists, jump up and down and wobble my head left and right, like I'm preparing for a boxing match. Then I take a deep breath, and straining, hoist it into the air finally. This cart is supposed to do away with all of that forever.
That poplar can be pretty nice looking. Here's the drawer glue-up, all made of scrap ply and 1/4" hardboard from different projects. It's so nice to dig into scrap, and only scrap. All my projects require trip after trip to Home Depot, because no scrap is quite right. I guess I finally reached critical mass:
I used simple rabbet joints for the drawer, glue-only, clamped tightly. With minimal sanding it was all very flush. I over-sanded a bit on the front panel, but that will have a decorative poplar piece that matches the rest of the cabinet screwed over it, so it doesn't matter:
I cut the rabbets with 4 passes through the saw table, moving the ShopStop on the Incra Miter 3000. It has teeth that positively lock every 1/32", so I could pretty quickly run through the cuts. No need for a dado set, or for cleaning off the currently-buried router table. I'm rearranging for better flow, so the router should be easily accessible again soon.
I've made a handful of drawers before, but I think this was the most sharp and clean one yet:
And now for the bad news, the 'big mistake' in the title. I didn't forget, but rather completely failed to notice that the rabbet joints made the drawer a 1/2" wider, so my very exacting work gave me a glued-up drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide. I was doing so well, too! I screwed the bottom-mount drawer slides in, and did a test fit. Each drawer slide needs 1/2" clearance between the drawer wall and cabinet wall. With the drawer 1/2" too wide, one slide fits in, as does the drawer, and then the other slide is completely out of the hole, which is exactly right, for a drawer that is exactly 1/2" too wide:
I have a couple of ideas to remedy this. I ran through a lot of options, from remaking the drawer, to routing the slides into the drawer 1/8", to routing the slides into the cabinet walls, and relieving the front so the slides could slide in, etc, and didn't like any option. I don't want to buy new slides (e.g. for mounting under entirely, avoiding clearance issues altogether) as I want to keep this built entirely of my scrap, to deplete my pile, not add more hardware to the mix. My ideas are about fixing the drawer so it's the right length, with minimal redoing of anything. I'll post on that next, when and if it works.
Wish me luck!
13
at last, a drawer
I have to say, posting projects as I do them does two things. I puts the pressure on me to not screw up, after getting great comments from you folks about how to proceed through difficult parts. I sure don't want to come back and say "Thanks for all the suggestions, but oh well! I shattered the entire thing in a big kickback!" It also really drives me to keep working when I might otherwise say "Meh, I'll finish that part tomorrow, or this weekend." So thanks, and I'm going to keep forcing myself to post as I go, instead of just posting a project when [eventually] completed.
Anyway, I SCREWED UP AGAIN. My plan was to rout with my laminate trimmer 1/2" off one side of the long walls, both sizing them properly, and removing that one short wall, which was rabbet jointed and glued tightly in place. Here's how that looked, with a big pattern bit, and a slab of jointed red oak clamped on as the guide:
Note the dark brown of the hardboard floor peeking out of its groove after the first cut. There's a sliver of the horizontal board left here from in the rabbet of the vertical, so I reset the depth and cut again. The vertical here is unimportant - it's the short side I'm cutting through to remove it, and I'll make another of that one soon. The red oak is set to allow me to cut 1/2" off the end here, shortening the long board (horizontal) in the process to the correct length:
Here's the other side before the cut. I'm cutting deep enough to cut right through the rabbet joint entirely, and it's also cutting the horizontal ply back flush with the edge of the red oak guide board:
And here's the drawer, shortened 1/2", ready for another short side panel to be made and slotted back in. The cut off board, now too short after routing, and no longer having its rabbets is on the saw table behind it. I had to bang it free with the plastic hammer, as some glue got in the grooves at the corners from the side wall glue-up:
I had to bang the other side free with a hammer, too, and some of the hardboard tore out at the corners from the glue-up glue, which seeped into the grooves at the corners earlier. I chiseled those fragments out, and you could barely see the damage to the hardboard corners:
I pretty quickly made a new piece. The Rockler Digital Height Gauge made setting 1/4" depths from the table, and from my miter sled very easy, so I could pretty rapidly run the new rabbets, and the shelf bottom groove. Here's the shorter drawer frame, the old and new side panels, and the 1/2" shorter hardboard floor panel - I cut off the routed corners in that move:
New glue-up, of just the repaired side. That is an entirely new (and lighter in color) piece of hardboard, and after the pic, it will become clear why I had to track down another piece of stock and cut a new floor panel:
If you're sharper than me, you saw the error through all of that. By routing 1/2" off from the end of the drawer, I was cutting through the side panel. That side panel doesn't count in the shortening of the drawer's width. If that doesn't make sense, imagine it was a simple butt joint - long panel terminating right against the edge of the short panel. If the panels were 1/2" thick, and I routed 1/2" off the end to cut through the glue-up, I simply routed that board away, but didn't change the long panel at all. If I now glue on another 1/2" panel, it's the same drawer again.
The only thing making this not an entirely useless redo effort was that rabbet. It was 1/4" deep. The ply boards are about 1/2" thick. That means with my 1/2" cut, I removed the 1/4" left over - the lip of the rabbet - and then the 1/4" tucked into the rabbet of the long board. Long story short, I only removed 1/4" from the length of the long boards with this operation, instead of the 1/2" I needed. To remedy it when I realized later - after the new glue-up, of course - I simply routed in 1/8" grooves at the bottom for the shelf slides, and let them be sunk in overall by that extra 1/4". This still required some fussing around. I got a bit fancy, and didn't rout all the way to the ends, and chiseled sharp corners, and chiseled out the ramp at the end of the slide, which helps the drawer 'sink' to closed. I ended up putting a single #6 washer under the slides on the sides of the drawer, with the mounting screws going through them, as 1/8" was apparently just a hair too deep, and the slides weren't sliding well on the tracks in the cabinet.
Too, I mounted the slides too low, so the drawer was scraping the bottom of the face frame. I remounted them a bit higher. Then the high walls of the drawer made it very difficult to tip the drawer down and up to get the wheels over each other on the slide members. I had to force it each time I put the drawer back in. You name the error, I probably made it I'm a real novice at drawer work yet, and always cringe when I get to that part.
I kept fighting it for a couple of hours, and finally got something pretty reasonable, reminiscent of a proper drawer. It's very slightly rough-moving, but this is a very low-traffic drawer - a good 'practice' drawer - meant for very occasional use when I need replacement blades for something. I cared more about the aesthetics at this point, so I set to work on face, previously cut to fit perfectly in place, with little clearance. With all my screw-ups, I imagined this would be a very risky undertaking.
In my first attempt, I used various layerings of some very thick Gorilla Tape as shims (seen in photo above) to center the panel inside the face frame, smeared some glue on the back of the panel, pushed it in against the closed drawer through the face frame, and put a couple clamps on it. This failed miserably. The glue didn't make contact. I wiped it all up, and switched to double-sided foam tape, the only other sticky thing I had around that might work. It stuck like a champ, and I could pull the drawer open and push it closed with perfect clearance.
I carefully removed the contraption, marked and drilled some tapered holes through from the back, and hand-screwed in some #10×1" screws:
Somehow, this worked out perfectly. It slides in rather cleanly now:
I was going to have it like that, and mounted the slides back a bit just for this effect, which I thought would add visual interest, but the more I thought about this being used under a planer, in a shop where I'm always blowing sawdust off table tops, I realized the face frame was just going to collect piles of sawdust, and this will annoy me all the time. I'm going to add stops to make it a flush fit, like this:
Once the stops are in - and I'm going to make them such that the entire drawer is a hair proud of the face frame - I'll sand the frame and drawer panel perfectly flush with each other. This will also remove a small bow on the front panel. The sides curl out just a bit beyond the middle.
And here it is open. Though the tracks are just a little rough, the drawer front slips into its extremely narrow clearance (about 1/32" on all sides) pretty perfectly. I did not expect that, though I will tell visitors to the shop that of course I did:
Next up, all that other crap I mentioned, then I have to decide on a handle, and if/how I want to finish it. I'm kind of thinking of using 2 contrasting stains that work well on poplar, and just doing the outside, and the drawer front's front and sides. Maybe a light outer stain, and a dark drawer front? I'm scared. I have terrible luck with stain, even when I follow all directions to the letter (prestain, sanding, coats, sealer, etc). If I stain, I will having at more of the scraps first, to make sure I know what I'm getting.
I'm probably going to regret this nearly non-existent clearance if the board swells at all! It's a tad bit more than it appears in this shot, though. I can always sand the edges down a touch.
I have to say, posting projects as I do them does two things. I puts the pressure on me to not screw up, after getting great comments from you folks about how to proceed through difficult parts. I sure don't want to come back and say "Thanks for all the suggestions, but oh well! I shattered the entire thing in a big kickback!" It also really drives me to keep working when I might otherwise say "Meh, I'll finish that part tomorrow, or this weekend." So thanks, and I'm going to keep forcing myself to post as I go, instead of just posting a project when [eventually] completed.
Anyway, I SCREWED UP AGAIN. My plan was to rout with my laminate trimmer 1/2" off one side of the long walls, both sizing them properly, and removing that one short wall, which was rabbet jointed and glued tightly in place. Here's how that looked, with a big pattern bit, and a slab of jointed red oak clamped on as the guide:
Note the dark brown of the hardboard floor peeking out of its groove after the first cut. There's a sliver of the horizontal board left here from in the rabbet of the vertical, so I reset the depth and cut again. The vertical here is unimportant - it's the short side I'm cutting through to remove it, and I'll make another of that one soon. The red oak is set to allow me to cut 1/2" off the end here, shortening the long board (horizontal) in the process to the correct length:
Here's the other side before the cut. I'm cutting deep enough to cut right through the rabbet joint entirely, and it's also cutting the horizontal ply back flush with the edge of the red oak guide board:
And here's the drawer, shortened 1/2", ready for another short side panel to be made and slotted back in. The cut off board, now too short after routing, and no longer having its rabbets is on the saw table behind it. I had to bang it free with the plastic hammer, as some glue got in the grooves at the corners from the side wall glue-up:
I had to bang the other side free with a hammer, too, and some of the hardboard tore out at the corners from the glue-up glue, which seeped into the grooves at the corners earlier. I chiseled those fragments out, and you could barely see the damage to the hardboard corners:
I pretty quickly made a new piece. The Rockler Digital Height Gauge made setting 1/4" depths from the table, and from my miter sled very easy, so I could pretty rapidly run the new rabbets, and the shelf bottom groove. Here's the shorter drawer frame, the old and new side panels, and the 1/2" shorter hardboard floor panel - I cut off the routed corners in that move:
New glue-up, of just the repaired side. That is an entirely new (and lighter in color) piece of hardboard, and after the pic, it will become clear why I had to track down another piece of stock and cut a new floor panel:
If you're sharper than me, you saw the error through all of that. By routing 1/2" off from the end of the drawer, I was cutting through the side panel. That side panel doesn't count in the shortening of the drawer's width. If that doesn't make sense, imagine it was a simple butt joint - long panel terminating right against the edge of the short panel. If the panels were 1/2" thick, and I routed 1/2" off the end to cut through the glue-up, I simply routed that board away, but didn't change the long panel at all. If I now glue on another 1/2" panel, it's the same drawer again.
The only thing making this not an entirely useless redo effort was that rabbet. It was 1/4" deep. The ply boards are about 1/2" thick. That means with my 1/2" cut, I removed the 1/4" left over - the lip of the rabbet - and then the 1/4" tucked into the rabbet of the long board. Long story short, I only removed 1/4" from the length of the long boards with this operation, instead of the 1/2" I needed. To remedy it when I realized later - after the new glue-up, of course
- I simply routed in 1/8" grooves at the bottom for the shelf slides, and let them be sunk in overall by that extra 1/4". This still required some fussing around. I got a bit fancy, and didn't rout all the way to the ends, and chiseled sharp corners, and chiseled out the ramp at the end of the slide, which helps the drawer 'sink' to closed. I ended up putting a single #6 washer under the slides on the sides of the drawer, with the mounting screws going through them, as 1/8" was apparently just a hair too deep, and the slides weren't sliding well on the tracks in the cabinet.Too, I mounted the slides too low, so the drawer was scraping the bottom of the face frame. I remounted them a bit higher. Then the high walls of the drawer made it very difficult to tip the drawer down and up to get the wheels over each other on the slide members. I had to force it each time I put the drawer back in. You name the error, I probably made it
I'm a real novice at drawer work yet, and always cringe when I get to that part.I kept fighting it for a couple of hours, and finally got something pretty reasonable, reminiscent of a proper drawer. It's very slightly rough-moving, but this is a very low-traffic drawer - a good 'practice' drawer - meant for very occasional use when I need replacement blades for something. I cared more about the aesthetics at this point, so I set to work on face, previously cut to fit perfectly in place, with little clearance. With all my screw-ups, I imagined this would be a very risky undertaking.
In my first attempt, I used various layerings of some very thick Gorilla Tape as shims (seen in photo above) to center the panel inside the face frame, smeared some glue on the back of the panel, pushed it in against the closed drawer through the face frame, and put a couple clamps on it. This failed miserably. The glue didn't make contact. I wiped it all up, and switched to double-sided foam tape, the only other sticky thing I had around that might work. It stuck like a champ, and I could pull the drawer open and push it closed with perfect clearance.
I carefully removed the contraption, marked and drilled some tapered holes through from the back, and hand-screwed in some #10×1" screws:
Somehow, this worked out perfectly. It slides in rather cleanly now:
I was going to have it like that, and mounted the slides back a bit just for this effect, which I thought would add visual interest, but the more I thought about this being used under a planer, in a shop where I'm always blowing sawdust off table tops, I realized the face frame was just going to collect piles of sawdust, and this will annoy me all the time. I'm going to add stops to make it a flush fit, like this:
Once the stops are in - and I'm going to make them such that the entire drawer is a hair proud of the face frame - I'll sand the frame and drawer panel perfectly flush with each other. This will also remove a small bow on the front panel. The sides curl out just a bit beyond the middle.
And here it is open. Though the tracks are just a little rough, the drawer front slips into its extremely narrow clearance (about 1/32" on all sides) pretty perfectly. I did not expect that, though I will tell visitors to the shop that of course I did:
Next up, all that other crap I mentioned, then I have to decide on a handle, and if/how I want to finish it. I'm kind of thinking of using 2 contrasting stains that work well on poplar, and just doing the outside, and the drawer front's front and sides. Maybe a light outer stain, and a dark drawer front? I'm scared. I have terrible luck with stain, even when I follow all directions to the letter (prestain, sanding, coats, sealer, etc). If I stain, I will having at more of the scraps first, to make sure I know what I'm getting.
I'm probably going to regret this nearly non-existent clearance if the board swells at all! It's a tad bit more than it appears in this shot, though. I can always sand the edges down a touch.
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