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91K views 53 replies 16 participants last post by  sIKE 
#1 ·
Design and getting started

Well, I got my first commission to design and build a simple display shelf out of Cherry several months back. I told the customer it was going to take a bit as I have a real job that frequently takes me out of town. Of course right after we shook on the deal, Hurricane Ike hit and the company I work for experienced a spike in business, I hi the road for next couple of months leading up to December. I didn't have the time to finish before Christmas and IO am now finally able to free up the time to start working on this in earnest.

The design is for the shelf to go into the corner of the living room and is just gonna hold pictures, oh yeah and is six foot tall. With allot of help from DaveR here is a pic of the design.


I had bought the cherry several months back on sale, and it has been "seasoning" ever since. I made GaryK's jointing jig for the long wide boards and jointed and planed the rest. The cherry was a thin 5/4 common (got it dirt cheap though) and there were a couple of boards that ended up thinner than the 3/4 required. \

Here is the milled stack whew what a lot of work. I am gonna have to go get a couple of more boards to have enough to finish up this project though :(



Next up is the rounding jig and glue up of the pannels. Hope this won't telescope out much longer though….
 
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#2 ·
Looks like you're going to have to be careful with the finish to get the cherry to come out even, cherry being famous for it's ability to not match itself, as well as blotch.
 
#4 ·
looks liek a great chance to use all those shopupgrades you've blogged. looks like you are off to a good start. i wish I had advice for your first commision, but you are pretty good at this stuff and don't think I can do more than to follow along and cheer you on.
 
#5 ·
Well I need to get out there and make the rounding sled for the router, and I also need to figure out how to put the sliding dovetails into case and then make the matching tails. This should be a fun but challenging project for me. I am looking at it as a moderate difficutly for my skill set.
 
#7 ·
Making the Quarter Round Shelves

I have been working on the overall project for the last several weeks. The panels and shelves glue ups are done and the initial sanding is done. Next up on the list was to turn the shelves from squares to quarter rounds. So it was time to stop and start making the jigs needed for the project. The Rounding Jig and The Quarter Rounding Sled, the Sliding Dovetail Socket jig, and the router fence for the Pins.

The Rounding Jig is based upon Norms, however my little 9" BS was not up to the task so I modified the design to work with the router table.




The Quarter Round Jig is also Norms, after testing I added the hold down clamps and the handle. The blanks are cut to rough size using the Jig Saw and then put on the sled and the rounding is completed at the router table.



Here are the shelves, almost to final size (Left some room to play with)



The nice thing afterwards was I able to add to the wall-o-jigs! The handle and the hold downs came off of course.


Next up the Sockets and Pins!
 
#11 ·
Sockets and Pins Oh My!

Well, finally got some shop time in. I cut the sockets with my father's help a couple of weeks ago, and that went well other than one mishap due to a knot. I got out this afternoon and cleaned up the shop and then got to work on the setup for cutting the pins. That took a while but after dozen or so ;) test runs I had my wife come out and take a look to see if I was being a bit too AR. Of course I was and she said that everything looked fine. So, isn't this the way it always goes, 10 minutes later all of the pins were cut.



As you can see everything is still over size but it went together just as I planned (well mostly, the humidity has caused one of the boards to develop a slight cup).


The shelf is quite large, I am right at 5'10"


Tomorrow I will cut the sides to size, put a rabbet onto one side, finish rounding the shelves, start the sanding process and then it's onto finishing. Still working on a solution for the sap wood. Recommendations are welcome.
 
#23 ·
Finishing Question

This is my first go around with finishing cherry. I have decided, based off of my previous blog in this series, to leave the sap wood alone. Currently I have been thinking about a base coat of shellac, followed by a couple of coats of BLO, then buffing it out with a couple of coats of wax.

Opinions and/or recommendations are appreciated.

I know this might be best posted over on the forum, but really wanted to keep the conversation centered around this blog…
 
#24 ·
My first project with cherry was stained with "cherry" minwax stain, then coated with homemade wipe on poly. I would definitely not use stain again. I think an light cut of amber shellac would have looked MUCH better.

I think I'd like to try something similar to what you are thinking of, but I'd note that most people recommend that you use a 1/2 # cut of shellac and that it be completely dewaxed. I think I've heard that subsequeny finishes may not take if there is still wax. I'm not sure about a subsequent oil finish though since in theory it should be penetrating before curing?

I'm guessing you aren't putting anythign that could scretch on the shelf. I'm toying with shellac now and it does seem to scratch quite easily. For my current application, I wish I had just skipped it and went with poly but the nice this is I'm seeing just how good shellac could be in the right application. It does really warm up the wood.

I'll be interested to hear people's comments as well.
 
#30 ·
My ROS gave up the ghost!

I have everything together now (pictures to follow) and was working on the finish sanding phase and my trusty ole PC 333 Type 4 ROS quit on me. This project has presented mutiple challenges but this is the first tool that it has claimed. Argh, off to the orange box to get me a replacement.

First stop though is a look though the reviews here on LJ's of course!
 
#36 ·
Many Firsts

I have been working on this project time permitting. Had end of school year stuff with the kids, a surprise visit from some relatives, and of course been busy traveling for work, so it has been interment to say the best :( So, I got this puppy glued up a couple of weekends ago. After fighting with a shelf that I messed up on and had to remake a new one. Talk about frustation, nothing went right with it and it took me a couple of weeks just to build one new shelf.


Now this project has had many firsts for me, including using solid Cherry for almost the entire project, the sliding dovetails, massive pannel glue ups, making quarter circles, bent wood lamination for the toe kick, I even successfully steamed out a couple of dents from the clamp up of the lamination…


And here are the blocks for the Toe Kick to attach to. I did have a bit of spring back so I am going to have to clamp and glue to blocks to get it right.

So I have been sanding like a maniac since the glue up dried two weekends ago. The corners of this thing are t-total pains in the arse!

So here she is, she has been worked up to 180 Grit since this was taken. The wet streaks are Mineral Spirts rubbed on to locate any reaining scratches…

And here is my new pride and joy, she worked her butt off on her first day in my shop….

And of course this is my first day to use her…just one of many firsts on this project!
 
#44 ·
and Finally!

Well after one long month of frustration with a height issue. I finally got this project to the finishing stage today. The bentwood lamination I bragged about the last time was a bit short in height once I finished cleaning up the glue up. After multiple goes at getting all three edges even and losing 1 1/2" in height. I had my dad come over and give me a hand this week and we finally got her done. Hot glue, a straight edged board, a 1/2" upcut spiral bit, and a bushing on the old D-Handled router got the straight edged sides and the the jig saw on toe kick. Whew! I got a dozen more gray hairs from that experience.

So some more sanding and it was time to shoot the 1lbs cut of shellac. Sorry no pics and onto the first coat of Waterlox.






Tomorrow I will sand it one more time with some double aught synthetic steel wool and apply one more coat and she will be done! Woohoo! I will post the project when it is done.
 
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