So, this hope chest I am building is a frame and panel design. And, when it comes to building the frame, it’s important to make sure that everything is milled properly. After all, if you are using a cope and stick type of joinery system, everything has to be the same thickness so it all comes together nicely.

But, first, come on. Look at that lid!  It’s a thing of beauty! A little planing, a little sanding, and it will be something to look at.

Now, back to our milling operation. I had to identify the pieces I was going to need. The rails and stiles, where they were going to go, their dimensions… the works. So, I went to my wood pile, picked out a few nice looking pieces and cut them to rough length. I had to employ a sophisticated method of keeping track of which pieces ended up where.

Yeah, amazing what you can do with a marker and some painter’s tape…

Once I had those pieces cut to size, I ensured that I had one flat face on each board. By breaking them down to smaller pieces, it was easier to remove any wind or twist in the pieces. After that, it was off to the thickness planer.

There were two reasons for this. First, I could get rid of some of the gnarly skip-planed look, making the surfaces a whole lot closer to finished. Secondly, and more importantly, was to ensure each of these pieces would be the same thickness, which would make joinery a TON easier when I got to the router table.

After planing and some straight-line ripping, my stack of boards is ready for the next step. Now, I have to find some time in the shop to take that next step!

I miss my maternal grandmother. As we get closer to Easter, that was her holiday. She cooked the holiday meal for us, and I can remember her sending me back to college with a huge brown paper grocery bag full of leftover ham sandwiches, dyed Easter eggs and – of course – lots of chocolate. I was still her little grandson, even in my late teens.

The one thing I couldn’t get into? Her watching the Lawrence Welk Show. I know it was her kind of music, and I know it was her kind of entertainment, but I usually ended up watching baseball with my grandfather.

As with any good band leader, I’m sure Mr. Welk would remind his musicians during rehearsals that they were going to take it from the top when practicing a new piece of music. After all, that’s where the start of the music would be – at the top of the sheet!

With my latest project, I am taking it from the top as well, literally!  The latest piece is a hope chest for the third niece turning 16 in my family, and it’s time to get my toes tapping out in the shop. First, though, I had to go through a one or a two boards in the repertoire…

Ahh, these two boards seems to come together in a harmonious fashion. I guess it was time to help make these babies sing. But, first, it was going to take a little time to tune up the pieces to ensure the sound was going to be tight. So, I used my Bora straight edge clamps to set a fence to ride against the rip fence, and used my Grr-Ripper to push the stack through, to keep my hands safe.

After sweetening up the fit, It was a simple matter to glue up the two boards that were going to make the top. No pressure, right?

Wanting everything to stay true, I decided on putting an edge on the board just to make sure thing stayed flat. I turned to a tongue and groove router bit set and got the router table all set up for this kind of work. It took very little time, but it was ready to go in short order.

After grooving the breadboard ends and putting a tongue on the panel, I glued the middle four inches of the tongues on the panel and slid the ends into place, clamping them. Of course they were long, but that’s fine, I would trim them later.

Now, just a little sanding and this top will be just about ready for its debut. And, since I was taking it from the top, now I know the exact dimensions I need to build the rest of the chest to, and I am sure I used the nicest looking boards for the most visible part of the project.

That’s music to my ears!

New Yankee Workshop’s Barrister Bookcase

So, light week at Tom’s Workbench. Yeah, I confess that changing jobs has cut into my blogging time, but I promise that while on my commute to downtown Tampa, I’ll be more attentive!

In the meantime, a huge part of what I have been moving has been books. Lots and lots of books. Reference books. Training manuals. Hurricane studies. The works. What I will eventually need is a bookcase to keep them in. One that – maybe – I could bring with me.

That’s what this barrister’s bookcase can provide – a stackable, sealable, handsome place to keep all of my reference materials in case I have to move them again. What I like most about Norm’s plan is that it doesn’t use hardware for the flip up doors – just wooden solutions. Which is pretty darned cool!

OK, so it’s been a crazy few weeks for me.

First, there was Get Woodworking Week, which I am certain has been praised in song and story. Then, there was this little thing I did called leaving my job of 21 years to take a new position, and I am working on wrapping things up before taking this new promotion that will take me across Tampa Bay to the neighboring county.

I also got onto eBay and picked up a copy of an old favorite book written by an old TV friend. This was one of the first books I had ever checked out from the library when I was just s young beginning woodworker. There’s something about the work – especially the early works of Norm – that is just comforting. Before flashy ads and high-end post production, Norm was out there, helping dolts like me to get their foot in the door to build projects of our own.

One of the projects in this book will be my next one. and it will be very important to me. I can’t yet say what it is, but believe me, I have the lumber…

And, I have a special piece of wood that I was given which has been saved for years and handed to me recently for inclusion in this very project.

While this will be very similar to some projects I have built in the past, I am looking forward to using some of my new tools – my table saw, my router table, my MicroJig push blocks – to do a safer, more accurate and better job than I ever have before.

Time to make some new memories.

As you may have guessed from yesterday’s plan of the week, the bed I am building is basically a pair of frameless cabinets. This means that unlike North American cabinetry, there are no face frames, meaning that the drawer faces have to cover the openings and dividers between the drawer cabinets.

It’s not a better system. It’s not a worse system. It’s just different, and just as with face frame cabinetry, it poses a set of unique challenges that need to be overcome.

So, I started out making a story stick. Basically, you have to start with some quality measurements, and there’s no way to get more accurate ones than by taking direct measurements. I had attached a strip of plywood to the bottom of the cabinet faces before I placed them in the room, so I accounted for that in addition to the other strips and pieces I had to cut.

Using the story stick, I set up the table saw fence so I was absolutely positive that I was going to be on the money when it came time to cut. Again, instead of remembering fractional measurements, I used the exact measurements, making this brainless.

Another handy little trick I used to ensure that everything was going to work was I picked up a bag of 1/8″ tile spacers at my local home improvement center. Since the kerf on a full-sized blade is exactly 1/8″, using these spacers allowed me to throw away the tape measure and ensure that everything was spaced properly when I did the layout. Why didn’t I think about doing this years ago?

One I cut the top strip free from the piece of plywood I was using for drawer faces, I was able to use the spacers to properly align the top strip and attach it using pocket screws, and measure out the drawer faces. They were easy to mark out by simply tilting the entire piece out toward me and using the cubby dividers to mark where everything had to go.

After I cut the pieces for each drawer free, I simply went back and screwed them in place. As you can see, I didn’t go for pulls for the drawers. Instead, I used a pattern I had built a long time ago to cut out handles on another project, and went that route to allow for the drawers to be opened and closed. Why? Well, Rhonda asked me if I was absolutely, positively sure that no one would ever bang his or her leg against a handle in the middle of the night.

Good point.

Now, all that’s left to do is a little bit of sanding, some finishing and a whole butt load of gloating. I think this one is just about done!

So, did anyone happen to hear about a big football game that happened last night?

Rumor has it that there was some big play at the end of the game that determined the outcome. Maybe I should pay better attention to these things…

Part of the reason why I wasn’t into the big game was that I was busy pushing to the last parts of the bed project. Yes, my sinus/double ear/bronchitis issue slowed me down, so this weekend, I had to finish the last of the drawers. It took some time, but each of the drawers was relatively easy to finish, and they all roll like a dream on the 3/4 extension hardware that I picked up for the project.

Now that they are all in, the next step is to create the drawer fronts that will cover these drawer boxes and unify the sides of the bed. Since these cabinets are built without face frames, it’s going to be critical that I get everything lined up nicely so the fronts look balanced. The added bonus is that they will also serve as drawer stops, preventing me from pushing the drawers in too deep.

After that, I will need to put the finish on this project. Again, I am going with some water based finish, which should make this look pretty sweet and limit the amount of fumes in the house.

And, I had better get that done soon, because the wood for the next project has already arrived. What will it be? I can’t tell you, but I know that there is a young lady who will be expecting it sometime in the not too distant future!

No, this post has absolutely nothing to do with my underwear. Although, it could be a good place for me to store them… especially since I like to wear high quality skivvies from places like Duluth Trading.…

It is, instead, an article of about how I built the drawers on the bed. After my angst-ridden debate on how I was going to make things happen, I decided to build the drawers using pocket screw joinery. First, I had to measure the size of the opening. I was going to put the pocket screws through the front and backs of the drawers into the sides, and I also needed to account for one inch on the inside of the drawer width to account for the drawer runners. So, I did the best thing I could have possibly done.

That’s right, I left my tape measure on the bench and stacked the two drawer sides and my 1-2-3 measuring block into place, and marked how long I needed the fronts and backs to be. This way, I was positive I was getting exactly the measurement instead of trying to read the right tick mark on my tape measure – and getting it wrong.

With the pieces all cut, I hopped quickly over to my pocket hole jig and started blasting out holes. It’s always amazing to see just how quickly you can cut joints with that sucker.

Using some clamps, a little glue and some screws, I was able to snug the drawers together and screw everything together in very short order. Instead of plowing dadoes for the drawer bottoms, I decided to just glue and nail them on. I figure that the runners I use mount to the bottom of the drawers, and they will hide the side of the bottom boards.

Again, that made things very easy for assembly. I was also able to use the drawer bottoms to ensure that the entire assembly was perfectly square – an important next step in the process.

Using some inexpensive 3/4 extension bottom mount Euro drawer glides, it took very little time to get the drawers mounted and gliding perfectly, Since I am building the bed as a frameless cabinet, the next step will be to build some drawer faces to attach, and I will be just about done with this project.

Oh, by the way, I used a very similar – and hopefully clever – way to create night stands for the bed. Using a simple piece of piece of plywood and some 18 inch drawer glides, I was able to create flat surfaces for both sides of the bed. This way, Rhonda and I can put our books, electronics and other items down next to the bed.

And, if we don’t need them, we can push them out of the way, totally hidden.

Rhonda likes this feature, since it creates a less cluttered, more compact bed area. Not too shabby…