Category: Furniture Page 4 of 5

Sewing Center Part 12: The Tops

Table tops….. (cats like them too)

So we’re approaching the end-game: table tops, door hardware, and sewing machine lift. I might get this done before Christmas 🙂 . In the early days of my woodworking, I was always a bit intimidated by gluing-up large panels but I learned that if you follow a straightforward process and prepare the stock properly, good results can often be obtained.

Sewing Center Part 11: Mounting Doors

Mounting doors, a little easier than horses……

 

Mounting the doors is going to take a little bit of careful preparation. Not only is this a critical step (for me) but I’ll be cutting a shallow rabbet in each of the doors and I want to be absolutely sure everything is going to come out right before I do that.

Sewing Center: Part 10, De Feet

Feats Don’t Fail Me Now!

Hobbits aren’t the only ones who need supportive feet…..

The thought of carefully carving intricate ball and claw feet in the style of Chippendale makes me want to drink hard liquor, so I’ll stick to the simple, yet very strong foot design in the original plan.

Sewing Center Part 9: Drawers continued, a Square Peg in a Square Hole

Who thought that the drawers would be the most complicated part of this cabinet? Complicated yes, but difficult, not so (except for the dovetails). Drawers go together with a straightforward, step by step process that is at times painstaking, but without the hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing that one might expect (except for the dovetails).

Sewing Center Part 8: Drawers (Don’t Drop ‘Em!!)

“Oh Boy, drawers, my favorite part!” (said nobody, ever….)

Okay, drawers are not so bad, it’s the dovetails that continue to trip me up and typically, a drawer is one of the components of furniture that almost always benefits from dovetails.

Sewing Center Part 7: Putting Together the Case

“When is it going to start looking like furniture?”

Kind of like framing a house, this is an exciting part of the build process for me, when “whatever it is” begins to look like “what it’s supposed to be”. Too bad we don’t have our faithful companion Luna to help, she always offered a comforting “bark” when I hit my thumb with a hammer…. (I realize now that they have been seriously over-bred, but honestly, I never met a Labrador I didn’t like!).

And now: back to our regularly scheduled furniture.

Sewing Center Part 6: Frame and Panel Glue-Up; Sweat and Tears, but No Blood…

Phew! I think we’re ready to take the plunge…..

So with the major cutting complete on all the parts of the frame and panels, it is worthwhile to take a moment and consider some final actions that make sense to complete before we go past the point of no return (glue).

Sewing Center Part 5: Groovin’

Gotta get my Groovethang on….

(Groovethang is actually a reference to a cover band out of St. Louis that does a great Steely Dan set. Quite good if you like SD).

Now that all the mortise and tenon joints are finished (Phew!), it’s time to cut the grooves that will hold the panels.

Sewing Center Part 4: Frame Joinery

Now that the panels are finished (but not yet cut to width and length), I start on the frames. As mentioned previously, the stile is the vertical member of the frame and the rail is the horizontal member……..

Sewing Center Part 3: Resawing and Panel Glue-Up

Now that the e-bike conversion is finished, and I’ve replaced the brake discs and pads on our car, it’s time to get back to Monika’s sewing center. The pieces I cut weeks ago for the rails and stiles are ready to be milled to final dimensions but before I start that, I want to have all the center panels re-sawn so they can “acclimate”.

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