For  a while now, I’ve been trying to find a dining table that I like enough to buy or build, but haven’t had much luck. Around the time that Christmas plans were being made, I stumbled across this Festool promotional video with a basic design that I really liked (the completed table is just after 2 minutes in). With the basics of the design settled, I used a giant piece of cardboard to help figure out the size for the tabletop. Then it was off to SketchUp to draw up plans and figure out just how much lumber I would need. A quick call to my favorite hardwood dealer, and I had a nice pile of walnut boards a few days later.

The base for the table was actually built with leftover walnut from a previous project (hence the motivation to use walnut in the first place). While there was a fair bit of work finessing all of the various miters, there weren’t any real challenges. It was just a lot of time spent getting all of the joints lined up and flush. Before gluing the base together, I did a test assembly in place in the dining room, just to be sure it wasn’t going to be too big. It also gave us the chance to figure out if it could even fit out of the basement in one piece (answer: yes, after ripping out some drywall).

The walnut for the top was grade “No. 1 common”, which means that it has a fair amount of knots and other defects. I had originally intended to work around those, but as I started to take measurements of the boards, I realized I would have to incorporate many of them into the top. One in particular was a rather large… thing (I’m still not sure exactly what it is) that I nicknamed the gnarl. I stabilized all of the knots and other defects with epoxy, and then cut all of the pieces down to rough size. Assembly of the top was pretty standard; I built it in two halves to make handling easier, then glued them together at the end.

I had a gallon of General Finishes’ Enduro-Var left over from refinishing the dining room floor earlier this year, which I wanted to use for the finish. I like working with it, and while it is slightly amber, it doesn’t impart a great deal of color to walnut. Stain was one option to add more color, but that tends to obscure the grain a bit. In reading one of my books on finishing, I ran across a technique of using a chemical oxidizer (potassium dichromate) to react with the tannins in the wood and add more color. While potassium dichromate is quite toxic, the reaction with the tannins that produces the color is chelation; that means that any chromium used to color the wood becomes chemically inert. Any unreacted potassium dichromate can easily be washed off the surface once it has dried, and since it is electric orange in color, it is very easy to tell when it has all been removed. I did some test pieces with scrap from the table, and was very pleased with the result.

Once everything was glued up, sanded smooth, and colored, it was time for finish. Since the tabletop is quite large, I knew there was no way I would be able to brush it without problems. I’ve wanted a spray gun for a while, so this was the perfect excuse to pick one up and get some practice. That also meant I needed to set up some sort of area for spraying, to try to contain the mess. A roll of 4-mil polyethylene and some binder clips did the trick. The spray gun made finishing the table an absolute breeze. Not only did the finish go on much quicker, but it was dry and ready to recoat after about 45 minutes, versus 2+ hours when applied with a brush.

I let the finish dry and cure for a few days in the basement before bringing the table upstairs (with the help of a friend). It was just in time for my birthday party with seven total people, a great test run before the big Christmas dinner. Now I just need some new chairs.

That is all in the past, as I have put together a dedicated sharpening station. My inspiration for this came from William Ng’s setup, which I saw in this video from The Wood Whisperer: Scraper Sharpening w/ William Ng. I liked the idea of a having a basin to keep the stones wet, and using a stone holder directly over the basin to make flushing the stones easier. From what I understand, his is built over a standard restaurant bus bin, with an aquarium pump driving the faucet.

My plan was to expand on this idea, making a dedicated station, rather than a bench-top unit. This way, I have the option of using a sink and faucet, and plumbing them both in, which will make cleaning up loads easier. Finding the right sink, though, proved to be a bit more difficult than I’d imagined. Apparently, most small, square sinks are considered a specialty item (think wet bars), and carry a very high price tag. I finally found a 12″ square laboratory sink at Grainger, which offered the perfect excuse to use a laboratory faucet, too. A little bit of time in Sketchup gave me a pretty good idea of what the finished project would look like.

I actually got started on this project back in April, laminating some cheap lumber together for the top. I used some 2×12 pine boards from the home center, ripping them down into 2x3s. I did this mainly because 2×12 boards are normally used for floor joists, so they need to be relatively straight and stable. The pre-dimensioned 2×3 lumber available around here is also pre-twisted, making it really hard to make anything other than abstract art.

I then laminated the boards together with a slow-curing epoxy, using Dominos to help keep things lined up. I wasn’t very exact when I ripped the boards down to size, so the Dominos were a big help in keeping one surface relatively flat. Since my planer is 13″ wide, and I wanted the bench top to be 24″ x 48″, I had to make the top in two 12″ wide halves so that I could plane them down flat. The end result was a very big (and heavy) slab… 2 feet wide by 8 feet long in total (I only used half of the length for this project).

The carcass was built using Dominos to hold everything together. The only special accommodation I made was to set the front of the door and drawers back several inches, so that I would have plenty of knee room while standing in front of it. I also had to be sure to use a hinge that could handle an inset door such as this; in my case, I went for the Blum model 71B3750. I have yet to build the drawer boxes, but they will also be fairly simple, standard construction. In fact, I was so underwhelmed by the carcass construction that I didn’t take any pictures of it, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

With the carcass done and the top in place, I was able to install the plumbing. The sink was set in place in a cutout in the top, held in with adhesive caulk. I made a surround out of some scrap walnut to provide a nicer look to the sink, and also serve as a support base for the stone holder. Since there is a pretty good chance of water contacting the surround, I treated it with Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer before finishing. Both the surround and bench top were then finished with Epifanes marine varnish, again for water-resistance, though I didn’t go all the way to the recommended seven coats (I don’t plan on taking this thing to sea).

With the sink and top finished, I was finally ready for some sharpening! I’m still not sure where it will end up, so it’s not plumbed in yet, but a couple of buckets make it easy enough to add and drain water. One of the unexpected benefits of the lab sink is the availability of a standing waste assembly. This is nothing more than a pipe that fits snugly into the drain, raising the drain level up and letting you keep several inches of water in the sink, but still drain water when the level rises above the pipe. With water running constantly, it acts as a skimmer, helping to flush crud off the surface of the water. It also means that I don’t have to reach down into the water to open up the drain… double bonus!

The stone holder is just another piece of scrap wood I had laying around. I cut angled rebates in the front and back so that it can drop down into the sink surround with a very slightly loose fit. A small stop of some more scrap glue to the top keeps the stone from just sliding right off, though the water tension is really more than enough to keep it in place.

I’m quite happy with the finished product, so much so that I’m already looking forward to my next round of sharpening. The drawers, once complete, will give me some much-needed storage for towels and other accessories. I’m also considering adding a foot-operated valve, so that I can turn the water on and off hands-free, but that will have to wait until it has a permanent home.

Last fall, the tenants suddenly moved out, and the house sat vacant. Apparently, the city finally noticed what rotten shape it was in, because it was condemned earlier this year. And finally, it is no more…

I just followed the instructions on J. Phil Thien’s site (above) and forums, so I won’t go into too much detail. The two main components are cut from MDF using a homemade trammel to get nice round circles. I used some 1/2″ PVC pipe as spacers between the lid and the baffle and attached the 4″ PVC fittings with a healthy amount of epoxy (my new favorite toy!).

To test it out, I ran a bunch of pine through the planer to generate a lot of shavings. It needs a little bit of tweaking, but I’m still quite impressed with the results. Until I overfilled it, the cyclone did a reasonably good job of separating the shavings and dust out of the air. And even with the trash can filled, the shop vac only sucked up a comparatively small amount of debris.

I suspect it will perform much better once I have it hooked to a proper dust extractor (most likely one from Harbor Fright [sic]), instead of the smaller shop vac that I’m using with it now. Even still, it’s an exciting addition to the shop. I have a number of projects I’ve been delaying, because they involved quite a bit of planing. Before I built the separator, I had to send all that debris straight into the shop vac, clogging it up after a just a pass or two. Frustrating, to say the least.

And more exciting still, this opens the way for the next few projects. In fact, that pine I was running through the planer is for the very next one!

Pardon the mess, I’m “rearranging”

My tool collection is centered around Festool handheld power tools, which works for me (though not always for my wallet). There are some stationary tools I’d like to add, but nothing pressing (more on those in a bit). I don’t currently have many hand tools, but I would like to change that as I build my skills. I’m starting to become comfortable with chisels, and I really enjoy using the one hand plane I have. So while I will definitely need a good bench, I’m planning to center my workspace around the Festool MFT/3.

As I’m still in the early stages of putting together a plan, I don’t yet have an equipment layout in mind, or even a full list of equipment. A few of the items that I do know I want:

• router table or shaper
• combination jointer/planer
• oscillating spindle sander
• sliding table saw

Setting up shop in the basement of a century-old home also poses some challenges. For starters, the breaker box is full, so adding circuits is a bit of a difficulty. Add in low ceilings and extremely unlevel floors, and I have my work cut out for me.

My intent is to document at least some of the process, as well as the decision-making leading up to it. Even with all of the decisions yet to be made, I’m already working on a couple of shop projects, and I’ll be posting soon about each. I also have a number of non-shop projects in the pipeline, which is a big part of the motivation to improve my setup, so I’ll be posting what I can of those as well.

Before and After

Quite a dramatic difference, if I do say so myself. And off to the right in the “after” photo is the reveal of what I’ve been working on for quite a while… the last of the built-ins. We decided to use drawers in this space to maximize use of such a narrow but deep space. Instead of boring plain fronts, though, I built open niches in the front, with a side-accessible drawer in the back.

As an added bonus, each of the niches has an LED spotlight in it. Initially, the intent was to have some nice accent lighting in the bathroom, but the niche lights have also turned out to make a rather nice nightlight (being LEDs, each lamp only uses 1 watt). The biggest challenge here was getting power to the lamps while still allowing the drawers to function. Fortunately, the LEDs are low voltage, and use a nice thin conductor. My original plan had been to build a hinged cable arm, much like is sometimes used in sever rooms. After quite a bit of digging around, I found a manufacturer of cable chains that produces them in some fairly small sizes, which turned out to be the perfect solution. The cable for each lamp runs from the fixture, along the back side of the drawer (which is against the wall, so it’s hidden), to the rear of the drawer, where it enters the cable chain. The chain then makes a loop back and attaches to the cabinet near the front. This gives plenty of slack in the chain for the drawer to move freely from closed to fully extended, while cleanly guiding the cable. And without actually removing a drawer, all of the mechanism is completely hidden from view.

My thought was to use traditional carcase-style construction to build something that, in essence, was a very narrow bookcase. Shelves held in place by two sides and a back. But after returning home, my brother e-mailed me with his idea, and things got a lot more complicated:

I was initially resistant to the idea, since it wasn’t what I had in mind. But after looking at it for a few days, I warmed up to the suggestion. Part of the plan had been to build the unit in two parts that could be joined together on site, so that it would fit in either of our cars (we both owned Crown Victorias, which lack fold-down rear seats). For simplicity’s sake, I decided to ditch that option in favor of renting a vehicle that would hold the fully assembled shelves. And with that, I put together some more concrete ideas in Google SketchUp. I also took the opportunity to design the unit entirely in metric measurements.

We both liked the design, so with materials in hand, we set about construction. First up the agenda was breaking down the sheet of plywood we had purchased for the project. I let my brother loose to get things cut down to size. Even knowing the accuracy of the TS-55, I was a bit hesitant at first, since my brother has no woodworking experience, but that turned out to be unfounded, and he was soon raving about how nice the Festool saw was.

Once we had our main parts cut down to size, we started measuring and marking for joinery. Since my brother had a limited amount of time to help me out, we decided to focus on getting the back of the unit attached to the two “buttresses”. All of the joinery for this project was done with the Domino (over 200 4mm Dominos were used; 28 on each shelf alone), and I figured this was another opportunity to test out the simplicity of the Festool approach on my brother.

Unfortunately, my brother’s schedule didn’t allow him to stick around to help out further, so I continued on with the joinery. I took the work that he did on the back and buttresses, and attached them, to the base for the unit.

The next step was assembling the solid wood brackets for each of the shelves. They were made by joining two 150mm pieces at a 90º angle to form an L. Thanks to the TS-55 and MFT/3, getting the pieces cut down to size wasn’t too difficult, but getting the Domino mortise slots cut was a bit tricky. After some experimentation, I ended up using some scrap materials to put together a jig that allowed me to clamp each half of the shelf bracket in place, providing extra support for the Domino’s fence. With each half of the brackets mortised, I then set about getting them glued together.

With the brackets assembled, I set about attaching the individual shelves to the back assembly. I decided to start out by mortising the shelf pieces directly into the back. That way, I could install each shelf in its final position, and then mark the actual mortise positions for the brackets, rather than trying to correctly calculate and measure the mortises for each shelf. With all the shelf mortises cut, it was quick work cutting mortises for each of the brackets, followed by a dry assembly to make sure everything was going together properly.

Next up was attaching edge banding to all of the exposed plywood edges. Most of it was fairly straightforward, using the MFK-700 with the 1.5º base. For the top sides of the shelves, I ended up using a 12º dovetail bit, for a final angle around 10.5º. It took a bit of trial-and-error to get the MFK dialed in, but with the repeatability of the micro-adjust, it was a fairly quick process.

With everything cut down to size, it was time to start gluing things together. The trickiest part of this process was keeping everything upright against the weight of the clamps. Luckily, the system approach came through, using Systainers to prop everything up.

With all of the shelves and edge banding glued into place, I could finally get a sense for the look and scale of the project, and just how well it compared to the design.

With everything glued together, the next (and most important) part of the project was finishing. Fortunately, I had done the bulk of the sanding before all of the glue-up, so there was only a bit of touch-up and final sanding to do before finishing. I also used some scrap material to do some tests of various finishes, and my brother and I ultimately decided on using shellac for the final finish, with some stains providing the color. I wasn’t too excited about the idea of staining this piece, but we were trying to do our best to match existing cabinetry our parents’ kitchen, so that was all part of the challenge. The cabinets were finished with a “Cherry with chestnut stain” finish, so we used that as our cue. The finishing process started off with a coat of shellac, followed by cherry stain, another coat of chestnut stain, then several coats of shellac for durability. Since the shelves likely won’t be used frequently, durability wasn’t the ultimate concern, and the quick dry time of shellac made it ideal.

For a little extra protection (and renewability), I decided to give the finished shelves a coat of paste wax. After bringing them upstairs to get a good view of them in natural light, I started to have second thoughts about giving them away as a gift.

I did manage to part with them, so after packing them up for the trip, my brother and I drove them up to our parents’ house, and “hid” them in their basement until Christmas morning. Santa wasn’t able to fit them underneath the tree, so the shelves were just sitting on the living room floor waiting to be unwrapped. I didn’t notice it at the time, but both of our parents immediately started inspecting the finish and joinery.

Of course, being Christmas, the craftsmen were required to pose with their creation. And yes, that’s a Festool fleece keeping me warm.

With all of the hard work and celebrations over, it was time for the shelves to assume their ultimate role of keeping stuff off the floor. Unfortunately, a lot of the joinery and the shape of the piece are lost in its home, but that was to be expected.

I ended up liking the style and shape of the piece enough that I’m tempted to build one for myself. Though if I did, there’s a few things I’d do differently…

• We ordered 1/2″ plywood, based on the original plan of building a carcase and the idea of maximizing space. With this design, 3/4″ plywood would have been no problem, and would have provided more strength/rigidity.
• The design of the unit ended up being a bit top-heavy with a tendency to tip side-to-side, owing to the narrowness of the base. Since it’s living in such a restricted space, that wasn’t an issue. If I were building a free-standing unit, I’d definitely want to make it wider.
• The attachment of the back/buttresses to the base proved to be a bit weak, and had to be reinforced. If I were building it again, I would have extended the buttresses down so that they could attach to the sides of the base, providing a lot more strength.
• Most importantly: The build process taught me a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of the design. Assuming conditions allow for it, I’d like to build a prototype the next time I tackle a design with so many unknowns.

Since the shaft of the screw is firmly in the hole, and I’m not aware of any screw removal aids for screws this small, the fix for the problem involves making things worse. Using a small-ish drill bit, I drilled a series of holes around the screw, being careful not to drill too far. The goal is to get enough space around the screw so that I can reach in with some needle-nose pliers and back it out. And part of the trick is using the right size of drill bit… to big, and it’ll just make patching things up more difficult; too small, and the bit will likely break off, only adding to the problem (I learned that the hard way).

With the series of holes complete, it was a pretty trivial matter to reach in with the pliers and unscrew the problem. Then a quick sanding to clean up the rough surface of the hole, and it’s ready for repairs.

I’ve had great success using a slow-curing two-part epoxy for the previous repairs. By adding a sandable fairing filler to the mix, it’s thick enough to not make a mess, and also easy enough to work and sand down any excess once cured. I also had two other small projects that I needed to tackle with the epoxy, so this seemed like the perfect chance.

The first was to fix a problem with one of the doors. Somehow, the side stiles of the door are not in the same plane as the top and bottom rails, and so the door effectively has a concave shape. Since the cupboard latch mounts to the stile, that concavity ends up putting it at an odd angle where it won’t actually latch, so I need to either repair the door or just scrap it and build another. I’m not in the mood to spend the time building another door, so I figure the repair is worth a shot – even if it fails, I’m no worse off.

Getting started with this fix involved cutting some small relief cuts on the back of the door where the rails and stiles meet. I had thought about using the circular saw to do this, but decided to go for a less invasive technique instead. Using a Japanese Dozuki saw (my Christmas gift to myself), I cut four very narrow relief cuts.

With that little bit of material removed, it was now possible to apply some pressure and flatten out the door. Naturally, it still springs right back into the concave shape when the pressure is removed, but we’ll hopefully take care of that.

I then masked off the areas around the cuts to prevent the epoxy from flowing out the sides. I also put some clear packing tape on two pieces of scrap that I will use when clamping. The tape will hopefully prevent the scrap from becoming adhered to the door, since that wouldn’t be very useful.

The other bit of epoxy fun is to fill in the screw holes for the hinges on the door. We are replacing the old hinges with new ones, and unfortunately, the new screws are smaller and don’t grab at all in the existing holes. But it’s easy enough to fill them up with epoxy and then drill some new pilot holes.

The epoxy that I used is from West Systems. I’m using the 105 resin with the 206 slow hardener to give me a bit of extra time, and the 410 Microlight fairing filler to make any sanding I need to do that much easier. The filler does reduce the strength of the epoxy, but since none of these are high-load locations, I’m not too concerned.

Flowery cup is mandatory

Getting the epoxy ready just involves mixing one pump each of the resin and hardener for at least a minute. You can actually see swirls in the mix when you first get started, but they disappear as things come together.

The epoxy is quite usable at this point, but since I want some sandability, I added in a little bit of the filler. The filler is an amazingly light material; the entire canister weighs only two ounces! It also adds quite a bit of volume to the epoxy as you work more in, as well as making it thicker.

The first task was filling the screw holes in the door, which I propped upright so the holes are facing straight up. That let me use a syringe to inject the mixture straight into the holes, which meant I could use a fairly thin mix for this part. And that’s actually a big advantage, since it will just flow down into the holes on its own.

The first round of filling was a pretty trivial matter of going from hole to hole and filling them up with epoxy.

I then let the mixture settle in for a minute or so, and also tapped the door with a hammer a few times to knock out any air bubbles. What had previously been fully filled holes were all back down to about half full, so it was time for another round of epoxy to top things off.

The next task was to fill the relief cuts on the cabinet door to try to hold it into place. While I didn’t want to use the same runny epoxy I used on the big door, for fear of it running everywhere, I also didn’t want too thick of a mixture, since that wouldn’t be as strong. I added another bit of filler to the mix and came up with some epoxy that dripped slowly off of the scraper.

I dribbled a liberal amount of epoxy on each of the four cuts, and gave it a minute or so to flow down into place. I also tapped it against the table top to try to help things settle in a bit. Then I went back over each joint with the scraper, pushing in as much epoxy as I could, then scraping off the excess.

Then it was just a matter of putting my scrap pieces in place on each end, and clamping the whole thing flat.

The final task was to go back to the screw hole that started this all. Since the hole is in the face frame, which is mounted vertically, I need a much stiffer mixture to keep it from just running out everywhere and making a mess. I added in a bit more filler, and wound up with something between marshmallow fluff and peanut butter. And around the same color as a combination of the two, as well.

With the screw hole masked off, I worked the epoxy in a little bit at a time, trying to make sure there weren’t any big voids or bubbles behind the surface.

The slow curing hardener takes 1-4 days to reach full strength, so we have a bit of time to wait before we see the final results. I’m quite confident in the two screw hole filling tasks, since both are things I’ve done before. I’m not so sure about the repair attempt on the cabinet door, so I’ll be curious to see how things turned out when I get to remove the clamps. Stay tuned…

The first order of business was assembling the face frame for the built-in cabinets under the window. Since the spacing and sizing of the cabinets was determined by the spacing of the existing studs, all of this had to be built to fit.

The one challenge with trimming out the cabinets was fitting everything around the previously installed piece of baseboard, seen in the lower-right. That piece had to be installed in order for the perimeter of the tub to be caulked, so unfortunately, it’s firmly in place and can’t be trimmed. That meant notching the right side of the face frame, and it also meant that the small return on the baseboard would have to be coped instead of just mitered. And since the face frame is only 3/4″ thick, that meant mitering and coping a 3/4″ piece of baseboard…

Getting the face frame and baseboard done, though, meant that we could also get to work on trimming out the door. For both the door and the window, we re-used the original headers, but replaced the side casings. While the ones for the window were salvageable, the ones for the door were not, so we decided to replace both sets. We also had to replace the plinth blocks for the door casing, since the original ones were coped to fit around the tub.

The end result is that the bathroom is starting to look a bit more finished. As far as trim work, we still have one more piece of baseboard to make (I ran out… oops!), and I’m also going to have to find or make an apron for the window trim. The baseboards also need to get some shoe moulding to match the rest of the house, but I don’t have a solution for that yet. And of course, there’s plenty of nail holes to patch and paint to touch-up. And one more built-in to build, too!

Oh yeah… and I still need to finesse the fit on the cabinet doors and get them painted, too. Even without that, it’s starting to look very put together. I’m hoping to get the door hung this week, too, so expect more on that little saga.

Next up was applying the finish. Since I had so many different pieces to paint, I wanted to try spraying them to speed things up. I started with one coat of primer, and followed that with two coats of the same semi-gloss latex I’ve been using for the trim elsewhere in the bathroom. After that had a chance to dry, I applied two coats of water-based polycrylic finish for strength. While I’m happy with the results for this project, I also still have a lot to learn about spraying finishes.

With everything painted and finished, it was on to installation. The first three cabinets went in without much trouble. Although my screw driver bit did slip a few times and put some dents in the finish — I learned that I should have used an acrylic paint instead of the latex, since the acrylic sets up much harder and won’t dent easily. The fourth cabinet, however, posed a number of challenges.

First, the space between the studs was slightly narrower than the cabinet, by no more than 1/16 of an inch. No big problem; a few passes with 50 grit paper in the sander took care of that. With the cabinet able to slide in, I tried to push it into place, but it wouldn’t go all the way back. I started looking around for the problem, and made an unpleasant discovery…

It’s tough to see clearly, but the back of the cabinet was hitting one of the roof rafters. I thought I had measured all the stud bays to make sure I’d have enough depth, but apparently not. And not wanting to cut the rafter, the only two options I had were to alter or rebuild the cabinet. Since I only needed to take about an inch of depth off, I decided to try altering it.

I decided to try using the parallel guides for my circular saw to make the cuts all the way around. This way, each cut would be the same distance back from the front, and I’d hopefully end up with a nice square cabinet front, like nothing had ever happened. The first step was setting the guides up at 25mm on the top and making a cut. So far, so good.

I decided to cut the bottom next, since it is the same width at the top. The fewer changes I have to make to the setup, the happier I am.

Then it was on to making the same cuts on the two sides. A quick adjustment to the space between the two guides, and it fit right into place.

Then a quick pass with the saw, and the cabinet was trimmed back. It actually turned out perfectly on my first attempt, with no cleanup necessary. The cuts lined up at all four corners, and are just about as clean as the original edges. The parallel guides really saved me a lot of trouble here. In fact, the only evidence of any alteration is that the middle shelf now sits a little closer to the front.

With the cabinet trimmed down in size, I took it back upstairs to install it. It’s still a close fit, but at least it goes in all the way, and I can call it done!

Now that the cabinets are all in place, I’ll be able to take measurements to build the face frames and doors to cover things up and trim it out. While I had wanted to do that all before, there was no way to know for sure what the spacing between cabinets would end up being. Now that I know, I hope to get that taken care of within the next week or so.