ACTIVITIES
Cut down sheet goods to manegeable pieces
Cut Vertical Partitions to size
Place Dadoes in Vertical Partitions
Cut Toe-Kick notches
Assemble Cabinets
Attach Castors
Attach Stretchers & Toe Kicks
Made solid oak drawer/cabinet pulls
Attach Cabinet Doors
The below diagram shows you the section of the project I am working on at the moment the base frame consists of the following:
4 Vertical Partitions
2 Cabinet Base’s
3 Top Stretchers
2 Toe-Kicks
So with the cabinet bases cut to size it was time to switch my attentions to the vertical partitions.
VERTICAL PARTITIONS
There are 4 partitions in total that make the sides of the cabinets, each vertical partition gets the following:
A dado groove measure 3/4” wide x 1/4” deep positioned 3” from the bottom of the pvertical partition which goes from the front to the back of the vertical partition so as that the base can fit inside and then I will glue and screw into position.
3” x 3” notch cut out so as that I can place the toe-kick which spans the entire table base but more on that later , I used my jigsaw to cut out the notches.
NOTE: I needed to measure the plywood thickness as nowadays plywood is not the advertised 3/4” it was actually 23/32” of an inch I used my dado stack inside my tablesaw to cut out the dadoes.
Make sure that you orient each vertical partition the right way as only the inside faces of the them will receive a dado, if you don’t you will put a dado on the wrong side and the base will not fit into the cabinet
ASSEMBLE CABINET’S
With all the components cut to size for the cabinet bases it was time for some assembly. Here is the order I did the assembly:
Started working on the left side cabinet by placing glue on one of the vertical partitions dadoes
I also cut some temporary stretchers to balance the base of the cabinet while I secured it with screws that I Pre-drilled holes for.
GETTING MOBILE : ADDING CASTERS
Almost every piece of furniture in my shop is mobile as I think that is extremely important, because you never knw when you need to move things around. Especially with projects this big it takes a lot of staging space so as that your comfortable when in the assembly stages of big projects like this.
I will be adding a total of eight 3” casters, 4 on each cabinet.
Here are the steps I took in attaching them:
Attached 3” high glue blocks which are basically 2 pieces of 2x4 glued together then Predrilled and attach to the underside of the base cabinet.
Using hex head bolts I will be securing the 3” casters to the the glue blocks.
ATTACHED STRETCHERS & TOE KICKS
As you can see from the above diagram the cabinet carcasses are held together by 3 stretchers that go over the top of the cabinets, and using the toe-kick pies to securing the unit from the bottom.
THE STRETCHERS:
The stretchers are positioned on the front and back of the cabinets and one in the middle, before I cut the 3” wide stretcher pieces I cut a series of rabbets at both ends of the workpiece and then 2 in the center. Make sure to measure accurately the distance from left to right side of each cabinet and then measurement will be transferred to the 3/4” workpiece.
Next using cut the rabbets and dadoes, I used my dado stack inserted into my table saw. Once all these grooves are cut , I cut them to final size of 3”. Finally I predrilled the top side of the stretchers and secured them to the cabinet frames.
These piece are vitally important for 2 reasons.
The attach the 2 cabinets together into one unit
They also keep the cabinets plum and square.
THE TOE-KICKS
Usually most cabinets receive toe-kicks for decorative reasons, but I decided to use as part of the structure of the cabinet, the other reason people design toe-kicks is so they don’t stub their toes when at the cabinet, but I really didn’t need the toe kicks as I have the cabinets up on 3” casters, but as I said I needed the structural convenience of this piece.
MADE DOOR/CABINET PULLS
Shop projects are a great way of experimenting with lots of things, I decided to make my own cabinet pulls because to be honest I didn’t like the once at the big box stores and I had some solid oak on hand and figured that wood would give a nice contrast to the birch once all completed.
I went online and found a great article on how to make them and you can find the article here
ATTACHED CABINET DOORS
I know that I stated that doors and drawers would be dealt with in Phase 3 but I just got the Kreg concealed hinge jig and was itching to try it out, the jig was that awesome I attached all the doors in like 60 minutes. If you use a lot of Euro 35mm concealed hinges and don’t always have access to a drill press this jig is great.
THE JIG
OUT WITH THE OLD & IN WITH THE NEW
THE OLD
My old assembly table served me well for more than 5 years but it is all beat up and it didn’t satisfy my storage needs anymore.
NEW
PHASE ONE: FINISHED
Next I will be moving onto Phase 2 : The Torsion Box I am really excited in starting this as I have never made one before. But I probably will not start it until the weekend.
PS: I posted this blog post on Saturday but when I actually saw on my site I realized that the post didn’t save right and I had to redo the post over… but this is Phase 1 in its entirety.
Catch you soon.