Golf Locker Project

[butzla]

My teenage son and I play a lot of golf.    The gear takes up a good chunk of real estate in the garage.  Not to mention it's everywhere and not just in one place.  I decided to design and fabricate a couple of lockers to keep things contained.  As of now they are not done, but nearing completion.  I'll post pictures as I have time.

Here's a rendering using Google Sketchup.  A rough drawing just to lay out proportions.  I'm using birch plywood painted to match the sliding door that is adjacent to them.  The finished pieces will have face frames with 2 paneled doors.

Edit:  This is an old thread, somewhere along the line many of the images here are lost.  I've added these 4 finished pictures so you can at least see them done:

 

[butzla]

The beauty of Festool is you can prefinish before you do any fabricating.  Makes life a little easier and a whole lot faster!
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Now I can make the initial cuts with my TS75 and guide rail:
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The perimeter walls are joined using 5 x 30 dominos and pocket screw joinery.  The center vertical partition are joined using dados cut with my OF1400 router chucked with a 1/2" Whiteside up/down  spiral mortising bit ...and MFT3 table.
Using John Lucas's ingenious tip for cutting dados to fit plywood, I cut the first pass on all pieces.
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Then I insert the playing card shims to reset the distance between the router and the edge stop to make the second pass.  Works perfectly!
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[butzla]

Here's a good tip for locating screw holes on the backside;  drill them from the other side using the dados for reference:
Note: After studying my Sketchup rendering,   I made stopped dados to recess the interior partitions so I could accommodate drawer pulls as I will be using cabinet doors. 
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Then flip the work piece over and drill countersinks (Note the pocket screw holes cut between each domino):
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[butzla]

Now for some assembly!  The beauty of using pocket screws with dominos is that there's no need for clamps.  Note how I use a scrap piece of plywood to keep dados aligned:
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First I slid in all the interior partitions from the back side, then I slid in plywood back panel.  Here's a preliminary  finished picture with golf bag inserted.  (Yes, it fits.  Phew!)
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[butzla]

I cut a bunch of "nailing strips" at the same time I cut the top and bottom exterior sides to length.  They keep everything equidistant and provide something beefy to screw through to attach to wall.  It's a good way to use up some scrap too.  They are attached to sides using pocket joinery.  I build all of my cabinets this way.  I don't like to simply nail a panel into a rabbet in the back,  I think it's better to let-in the back panel into the cabinet.
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[butzla]

I didn't bother squaring up rounded corners of stopped dados as I knew I could hide them with 1/4" poplar strips that hide the plys in plywood.
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I attached them with glue and pin nails:
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[butzla]

I did the same to all of the interior shelving, sanded them smooth using my ETS125  then I trimmed them to size using my table saw after they were painted.
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[butzla]

I used my el cheapo shelf pin template to drill the shelf pin indexes.  I pondered using the LR32 system, but the interior vertical wall is a different length than the outer vertical walls.  I used the LR32 for another cabinet I built to fit in between each locker, more on that later.
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[jaegerhund]

Good work Jim -- thanks for the show and tell.

Justin

 

[nickao]

I used my el cheapo shelf pin template to drill the shelf pin indexes.  I pondered using the LR32 system, but the interior vertical walls are different lengths than the outer vertical walls.  I used the LR32 for another cabinet I built to fit in between each locker, more on that later.
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This is a great way to do it!

I have used a home made jig made of peg board to make entire sets of kitchen cabinets without needing a super expensive LS 32 system. I think you did great!

I want that little Grex you have too! Hopefully Santa will bring me a  P635 for Christmas.

 

[butzla]

Thanks Justin!  I like to hear comments....good and bad.

Nick,  I think it's a good system too.  And I only needed about 15" of holes.  I bought the LR32 rail recently after I used the el cheapo jig.  It works a lot better than the drill-jig.  It is a pleasure to use.  But I think if I were to do it again, having the LR32 rail, I'd still use the same method as I did here.  With the offsets of the 2 different length sides,  there's little margin for error. 
PS Grex pin nailers are sublime!  I hope Santa's good to ya.

 

[woodshopdemos]

Real nice project and tutorial. Thanks for the mention.

 

[butzla]

Thanks John,  I enjoy perusing your website and have gotten a lot of great tips off of it.  I've always cut dadoes with my table saw and stacked dado blades.  I'd stack the cutters to a smaller dimension than I needed,  then I'd cut the dado in 2 passes with trial and error using a piece of scrap.  Your method is so much more fun and accurate!  German engineering coupled with American knowhow.  I love it.

Next up was the drawers.   I use a lock-miter bit in the router table.  I won't go into great detail,  I'm going to do a whole separate thread on this method later on this winter, I'll put a link to it here when I've posted it.

I used the MFT3 table and TS 75 to dimension all the pieces.  When using a lock miter bit, it is critical to have each opposing piece exactly the same dimension.  And it was no problem using "the system":
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Next I routed the dadoes for the dividers within the drawers:
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Now comes the milling on the router table for the lock mitered corners:
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I spread some glue and throw on some band clamps.  
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When perfect 45 degree miters are cut on drawer sides with opposing pieces that have exact matching lengths, it rarely takes any adjustments to achieve perfectly square drawers.  I've already put this one to good use.
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For more on building lock mitered drawers, I started a tutorial thread over on Sawmill Creek

 

[butzla]

I'm kicking myself for not taking any before pictures of the wall space where these lockers will reside.  I have a sliding door dividing my garage space from my shop space.  The wall space adjacent the door was always wasted because I had to keep it clear for the sliding door movement.  I decided to make a partition to make the door in effect, a pocket door.

Here's a picture of the new wall and where the lockers will reside:
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When I built the wall,  I thought I try using the system to cut the notches for the cross bracing.  Not sure if it saved anytime, I just did it cuz I could.  It was a lot more fun and dust free too. 
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Look how little dust accumulated on the floor:
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[butzla]

Next I made the face frames.  Nothing fancy here, I used pocket hole screws and glue to construct them. 
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The RO150 made short work of sanding the frames even and smooth:
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Pocket hole screws to attach to cabs.  I was going to use dominoes but the walls of the cheap Chinese plywood I used were often bowed.  With pocket screws, I can flex the plywood into relative straightness, clamp and screw in pockets.  Easy and quick.   I'll cover the pocket holes with another rail and stile panel later.
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[butzla]

I had a lot going on over the winter with other pressing projects and injuries but I put the finishing touches on today so I thought I'd followup with some more pictures. 

This project was like most others I've done, starting out small but changing and adding things as I go along.  This project got out of hand.  I ended up adding 2 bookcase cabinets to fill in the partition wall I framed. 
All told, I used 8 sheets of 3/4 plywood, 3 sheets of 1/4" bead board, over a sheet of 1/2" MDF bead board, 1 sheet of 1/2" baltic birch, over 50 bd ft. of 4/4 poplar and 1.5 gallons of paint.   

For the doors, I used 4/4 poplar with 1/2" MDF beadboard.  I used my rail and stile set in my router table for the frame.  Because the doors will be opened and closed a lot, I thought I'd beef them up with some dominoes.  I cut the profiles first then milled the mortises with the Domino 2nd:
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Because there are so many dominoes,  I thought it best to glue 1/2 of the domino in first, then glue the other half during assembly
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24 dominoes ea. dr. x 4 doors = 96 dominoes!  This turned out to be a very stressful glue up,  The wood surrounding the previously glued up dominoes was very thin, like a thin veneer and once the glue hit it,  the "veneer" swelled, rippled and made it difficult to assemble.  Next time I would only use 2 or 3 dominoes per joint.  But one thing's for sure, these doors are NEVER coming apart! 
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[butzla]

I used rubber spacer balls to keep the bead panel from rattling and it also proved quite nicely to center the panels and align the beading.  I'd definitely use them again.
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Here's some assembly pics:
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[butzla]

I used the LR 32 hole drilling system to drill the 32 mm holes for the cup hinges:

I don't own the long rail but it worked ok. 
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I just used extra clamps on my MFT table to help keep the rail still.

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I got a little addle pated with using the short rail and drilled an extra hole:

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A little auto bondo took care of that:
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A few passes with my RO150 and 120g Rubin and it was like it never happened:
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[butzla]

My day job I work at Harvard Medical School and in the bowels these lockers line the halls.  They look like they were built 100 years ago. 
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I really like the simple trim detail on the crown and decided to try to replicate it:
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After realizing I didn't have the requisite cutters,  I decided to use them as inspiration rather than exact copy.  Here's what I came up with:

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[butzla]

Here's the finished project:  I was worried the doors between the 2 lockers would interfere with each other so I added a small bookcase to organize the many balls I require to play this crazy game.  It's about a month's worth.   

The large cabinet adjacent the lockers will just be filled with  automotive and other garage swag. 

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