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Cabinet Shelf Supports
One of the things that I find most fascinating about being a woodworker is the many differing techniques for accomplishing a task. As usual this Cabinet has a method for installing adjustable table shelves that I have not come across.
It consists of four saw toothed supports. You could make the supports from a couple of boards and then rip them to the correct width. I had parts from an old cabinet so I cut each support to the correct height and width than bolted pairs together. This allowed me to lay out saw and chop the saw tooth and end up with an exact pair. Once laid out it was a surprisingly quick process. I then drilled holes for the screws and attached them to the cabinet sides. I did have to remove the handle from my drill to get the hole placed correctly. The next job is to make the crosspieces which hold the shelves. You can see the one in the picture needed a little more care in measurement but it was a quick job and the adjustment works great.
Until I came across Paul Seller’s hanging Tool Cabinet I had not seen his method for installing adjustable shelves. If you have different methods that are unique for shelf installation let me know.
Tool Cabinet Hinges
Purchasing Hinges is something I put off until the last minute. I want to purchase them locally so I can feel their heft and think about how they will fit into my project. Typically I end up on line after being very dissatisfied with what available. The tool Cabinet deserved some quality Brusso Hinges. They are more expensive than the local stores but I appreciate the quality. I’ve chosen stainless steel Hinges for the cabinet, the contrast to the cherry catches my eye.
Installing hinges is one of the tasks that gives you instant feedback if you do it poorly. Carefully chiseling, than routing out the waste I make mortises for each hinge.
Focusing on one door I carefully install the hinges and make adjustments to center the door. Once both doors are in I carefully plane the center rail until the doors close without binding. The door on the right is carefully chamfered so the two will pass each other. Anyone else have some good hinge sources?
Tool Cabinet Door Install
Now that the cabinet doors are assembled and glued, the center stiles are a great addition. I would not hesitate to add them in another project. Next up door fitting…this is one of those parts of woodworking that you enjoy or become frustrating. Fortunately my cabinet is fairly square with only a slight bow along the side. After cutting the rails to length I sharpen up my plane and begin shaving the sides down to fit. After the first door is snug I move onto the second. It’s a slow patient process, but within an hour it’s close to completion.
At this point I want a very snug fit and will plane the doors again when I fit the hinges. The tight fit allows me to mark both the doors and cabinet sides without fear of movement. I also realize that when the hinges are attached that the doors will no longer meet in the center and I’ll be able to plane them to meet.
Tool Cabinet Door Panels
Since deciding to have double paneled doors it seems that I have been fighting the two stiles that I made. The cherry decided to split after completing the grooves. In an act of defiance I used them anyway and moved on. Nothing fancy about the panels just planed down the sides to fit the grooves and put them all together. The center stile was no problem and I’ll use it in other projects since it seems to really add to the appearance.
Tool Cabinet Door Joinery
With all of my stock dimensioned, the first step is plowing the grooves for the panels. As I have shown in the past I used a clamp to steady each board and used a Veritas plow plane to make the grooves. It only took a couple of hours to get them all done and I had very little trouble. I do like the upgraded plow plane and if you haven’t let Veritas make the change I’d go ahead. Although I had little trouble with loosening set, it’s nice to have some extremely reassurance.
Cabinet Door Joinery 2
After a couple of days with intermittent rain I noticed a little twist in a couple of the rails so I did my best to plane them straight. That’s one of the problems of spreading your project out over many weeks. The doors are held together with mortise and tenon joints and thanks to previous practice on the back my process has improved.
For little extra to the doors I added a stile in the center so tehe doors have divided panels.
Hanging Tool Cabinet Doors
Long weekends are made for woodworking projects, there’s time for the family, kayaking and woodwork. Beginning work on the cabinet doors brought to mind the need to carefully dimension all of the parts, removing any twist. Hand planing one side and both edges I turned to the planer to make sure everything is parallel and consistent. Then a final hand planing to remove any machine marks and eliminate as much sanding as possible.
Mortises-Tools Cabinet Back
With my mortise jig complete, the process of measuring and marking begins. I’ve repeated enough steps on this project and take extra care to make sure everything goes right the first time. The first time of course did not include the two additional mortises and tenons I chopped because I put two in the wrong spot. The extra cross member didn’t hurt though and everything went well.
The care certainly paid off and everything fits snugly.
I still have to plane the carcass sides and tidy up before attaching the back. Hope everyone had a good Father’s Day.
Hanging Tool Cabinet – The Back
Beginning on the back of the tool cabinet this morning, I had several clear goals. The first was to ensure that my tennon accuracy immproved and I tried out many of the ideas that you gave me for improving my router us on the tenons. The second was to improve the quality of the groves that were made in some difficult grain cherry that I have been using.
Accuracy first comes from preparation of stock and I spent quite a bit of time ensure that everything was square and of consisten size. This included sqaring all of the ends on the shooting board and a lot of careful checks. There is no sense trying to be accuracte if your board tapers fropm one end to the other.
Next came measuring and marking. the back consists of four boards tenoned together and a groove inside to accept the back. I took great care to measure from the same faces and edges to eliminate probelms cause by minor discrepencies.
Once completed the grooves neede to be ploughed into the boards. I had looked up in Essentials of hand tool Woodworking some details about using plough planes and Paul Selelrs suggested that in difficult grane to use a mortise gauge to pre cut the groove. I’ve struggled with a few pieces of this cherry and was glad for the advice. However I had to risk it all when I didn’t have a 3/16 blade for my plane and ended up have to use a 1/8 carefully from each side to make the correct width. It all worked.
Seems that I didn’t get much done but I learned alot and hopefully over the week will get a chance to shop the mortises for the Tenons.
Hanging Tool Cabinet – Shelf Panel
With all of the shelf parts prepared, some twice, mortise and tenons completed and fitting nicely thanks to more care and a router plane. My attention turns towards the panel I glued up last week. After trimming it to size I need to cut rebates on all of the edges. If you saw my post on the Stanley 78 Rebate plane last week you may now realize that this is what I used to cut the rebates around the edge of the shelf.
Once the rebate is complete it is glued into the frame. Which now thanks to reworking a few parts looks pretty good.
Planing the shelf and fitting the ends into the cabinet side took a little time but it is the last piece before glueing it together.
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