QSWO Bathroom cabinet -- finished

[ear3]

Made and fitted the back yesterday.

Funny story.  The guy at the lumber yard tried to sell me a sheet of 1/4" red oak veneered ply (it's not a place I go to all that regularly) in place of the white oak I asked for.  He kept on insisting that it was just the light that made it appear reddish after I raised concerns.  I actually almost drove off with it, distrusting momentarily my own eyes, but then thought better of it and went back inside the office, and asked if I could rifle through the sheets myself -- sure enough someone had thrown a bunch of red oak sheets on top of the pile, and a few down in the stack I was able to get what I was hoping to find, which was a rift sawn sheet that even had a little QS effect (they don't stock QS sheets specifically).  Even then he didn't believe me, and as I was walking the sheet back to my car I noticed he put the one I rejected back on top of the pile of white oak sheets!

Back at home base I rabbeted out the back about 3/8".  Did the top and sides with the 1010 loaded with a straight bit and the edge guide.  Obviously couldn't do the same on the bottom due to the feet, so I used the 1400 with a rabbeting bit to finish it off.

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Fortunately I caught this before I ran the router on the bottom, but one of the pocket screws had become slightly exposed after I sanded the bottom shelf:

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You won't be able to see it once things are assembled because it's all the way in the back, but I'm actually thankful that it was exposed, because it turns out all the others had a small amount of the tip of the screw in the pathway of the rabbet, and I might not have thought of that before running the router and gotten a nasty spark shower surprise (and maybe a broken bit).  So I backed out the screws a couple of turns before routing.

Squared the corners with a chisel

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After cutting up the plywood sheet, I set about fitting the back.  The tracksaw was made for this sort of operation.  I got the rough dimensions simply by tracing the opening onto the piece

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And then nibbled away at the edges until it fit snugly in the rabbet

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I had a little time left in the day so I decided to work on the joints for the drawers.  I'm going to be using sliding dovetails to connect the sides to the front, and then domino the back board to the sides.  It's been several years since I made a sliding dovetail joint (before I even got a Festool router), and I've only done it on the router table prior to this, so I decided to follow the lead of another FOG member who has done them using the 1010 and edging plate attachment.

This is actually a brilliant setup, because you can use the microadjust on both the router and the angle arm to precisely calculate the needed offset for the male joint after doing the female on the MFT table

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I got a satisfactory joint on some test pieces, so in a couple of days (got a busy weekend full of other things) I'll get back to the drawers

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[Vondawg]

Looking very nice Edward and solid! Always a fan of qswo
Side note; question really....I purchased that edging plate (2 pieces actually) and the one router I DONT have is the 1010...when I fit it to the 1400 the plate won't allow for flush trimming like I was under the impression it did...I know this not what you used it for but do you have any tips ? Are the bases that different ?

 

[ear3]

Thanks [member=41086]Vondawg[/member] When you say it won't allow for flush trimming on the 1400, what is the precise problem?  I know the 1400 is a bit heavy to use horizontally, but the angle arm/edging plate setup is supposed to work the exact same way as on the 1010, and I know there are plenty of people who have had success doing it that way.  I have to confess, since I have the 1010, I've never actually tried to work with the edging plate on the 1400.  Maybe you could post a pic of what your setup is so that we can see the exact issue?

Looking very nice Edward and solid! Always a fan of qswo
Side note; question really....I purchased that edging plate (2 pieces actually) and the one router I DONT have is the 1010...when I fit it to the 1400 the plate won't allow for flush trimming like I was under the impression it did...I know this not what you used it for but do you have any tips ? Are the bases that different ?

 

[tjbnwi]

Looking very nice Edward and solid! Always a fan of qswo
Side note; question really....I purchased that edging plate (2 pieces actually) and the one router I DONT have is the 1010...when I fit it to the 1400 the plate won't allow for flush trimming like I was under the impression it did...I know this not what you used it for but do you have any tips ? Are the bases that different ?

The 1400 will flush trim with the plate on it. Post a picture of how you have it set up.

Tom

 

[Vondawg]

Feel a fool...thank you guys you made me install again all is fine.
Ed- will you have straight drawers on your unit and make up angled side attachments for the glides ? I really like the shape the more I look at itView attachment 1

 

[ear3]

Glad you got it sorted out [member=41086]Vondawg[/member] The drawer sides are going to be straight -- no metal slides, just a plain wooden drawer.  So the drawer face will extend out slightly to the left and right of the drawer.  I am going to put a wooden runner in the middle, though (along with a corresponding track on the drawer) to make sure the drawers pull out straight, thus the center rail in the drawer support frames.

Feel a fool...thank you guys you made me install again all is fine.
Ed- will you have straight drawers on your unit and make up angled side attachments for the glides ? I really like the shape the more I look at itView attachment 1

 

[ear3]

One more follow up [member=41086]Vondawg[/member] Are you able to use the chip catcher on the 1400 when running it horizontal?:http://festoolusa.com/power-tool-accessories/routers/other-accessories/chip-catcher-492732

On the 1010, they make a special deflector that attaches to the side of the base, and it works quite well to keep the chips at bay:
http://festoolusa.com/power-tool-accessories/routers/other-accessories/chip-deflector-486242

Without protection the sawdust tends to fly towards your face when running the router in this manner, and more critically, can screw up the cut since the chips might impede the travel of the edging plate as you run it across the board.

Feel a fool...thank you guys you made me install again all is fine.
Ed- will you have straight drawers on your unit and make up angled side attachments for the glides ? I really like the shape the more I look at itView attachment 1

 

[Brice Burrell]

One more follow up [member=41086]Vondawg[/member] Are you able to use the chip catcher on the 1400 when running it horizontal?:http://festoolusa.com/power-tool-accessories/routers/other-accessories/chip-catcher-492732

The chip catcher doesn't fit the 1400.  I don't remember there being any problems the once or twice I've used the edging plate on the 1400. It was messy, but it worked okay.

 

[Brice Burrell]

BTW, I'm really digging this project Edward. [thumbs up]

 

[Vondawg]

Always cringe at correcting the ones I've pick up so much from...But yes Ed and Brice my chip catcher works and just fits in there, ran a few edge banded shelves, it is black and blocks the view of what's being taken off but once adjusted (there's so little being cut ) that it feels ok doing it a little bit blind so to speak- and yes of course worth it, with all the crap flyin around...I'd taken the picture with it off for clarity.

 

[Vondawg]

To be cear mine is the first one (black) Ed referred to not the second one ending in 242

 

[ear3]

Aaaagggghhhh. Just had a total disaster trying to do the sliding dovetail joints in the drawers. No pics, just needed to vent. Gonna regroup tomorrow with the domino. Have to remake two of the drawer faces, but fortunately can salvage all the wood for the sides, since I didn't cut them down to final size yet.

The short version is that when you need to do precision adjustments with the angle arm and edging plate (as opposed to just eyeballing the height) you need to not have the weight of the router bearing down on it, but rather take it off the workpiece  and remove the gravity induced slack that can enter into the equation. Even so, I realize now it was a stupid idea to put the dovetail slots so close to the edge of the board. Not enough meat on the other side to prevent a tight joint from cracking.

Glad I bought extra QSWO in any case.

 

[tjbnwi]

Always cringe at correcting the ones I've pick up so much from...But yes Ed and Brice my chip catcher works and just fits in there, ran a few edge banded shelves, it is black and blocks the view of what's being taken off but once adjusted (there's so little being cut ) that it feels ok doing it a little bit blind so to speak- and yes of course worth it, with all the crap flyin around...I'd taken the picture with it off for clarity.

The chip catcher fits/works on the 1400, the chip deflector does not.

Tom

 

[ear3]

Was able to recover yesterday from the dovetail debacle.  Remade two of the drawer faces and just went with a simple 5mm domino construction on the joints.  I briefly thought about trying to do some half blind dovetails using the Leigh jig (where there would be a hal;f-trapezoidal rabbet on the sides of the drawers to allow clearance for the joint), but ultimately decided against it for time and materials considerations.

The only tricky part was positioning a straight edge to set up the plunge on the rear of the drawer faces.  So I took advantage of the CNC hole pattern of the MFT, and used a combination of dogs and an MFS extension to position the domino.  Because much of the machine was hanging off the end of the board, I used one of the other drawer faces to brace the domino during the plunge:

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After cutting the other drawer parts (the drawer backs were cut slightly oversized -- since I worked off a scribe line when positioning the MFS extension when plunging the mortises on the drawer faces, there would be slight differences in the required length of the drawer backs that I could cut to fit individually), I routed a 5mm dado for the bottoms, lowering and raising the board onto and off of the bit where appropriate to make stopped dadoes:

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Dominoed the remaining pieces and got ready for the glue up:

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Clamping was a bit complicated because the sides, which are butted into the face, run the full length of the drawer, and the back butted into the sides, so that meant I had to have clamping pressure running in two directions as opposed to just one.  I tried to start off with a square box by using the Woodpeckers M2 box clamps, which I then removed piece by piece as I put the other clamps on

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No problems getting all the drawers to fit

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I still have to treat the edges of the drawer faces and install the center runners on the supports, but so far so good.

Now moving on to the bottom doors.  I'm going to test out a frame and panel construction -- I'm not sure if it will look weird having a solid piece for the drawer faces and a frame/panel for the doors.  I'm not very good at imagining in my head what a design will look like in reality. I need to see things in the flesh, so we will just have to see how it looks when I make it.

I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel on wood I initially purchased for the project at this point.  I had one suitable offcut for the panels (in terms of size), but the board was somewhat bowed (which is why I had put it to the side).  So I decided to put some hand tooling methods to the test and flatten up one of the faces with a hand plane in advance of running it through the planer.  I don't do a lot of hand tooling, so I only have a block plane at this point, but since I recently got the Veritas MKii honing guide and DMT sharpening stones, I'm a lot more confident about being able to maintain a sharp edge on my hand tools.  So it took a little while, but I was actually able to get one side reasonably flat -- flat enough at least to get most of the bow out and so run it through the planer:

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Following a post  by FOG member [member=61231]HarveyWildes[/member] I'm going to do a frame where one of the sides is half-trapezoidal (the hinged side of each door), and so the central panel will be rectangular rather than itself also trapezoidal.  So I finished off yesterday by tracing and cutting those pieces with the track saw, and will work today on assembly the doors: 

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Brian Franklin, the cat who has taken up residence in the shop and keeps me company while I work, seems impressed by the work so far

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[Tinker]

Edward, a teriffic job. you are doing a great job with explaining problems and your solutions. 
Tinker

 

[ear3]

Trying to figure out best position on the door panel, whether the grain should run horizontal or vertical.  I initially thought horizontal to match the drawers, but when I line it up maybe the vertical looks better?  What do you think?

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[bertv]

I prefer the vertical. Can’t explain why.

Nice job! It does remind me of a good practice of cabinetmakers: build a prototype from cheaper materials before using the expensive stuff (just saying, no crit!).

 

[ear3]

I kind of feel the same way about the vertical.  Thanks.

Would that I had the time for mock ups!  I've spent longer total amount of hours on projects like art installations, but by the end of this I think this will be the most amount of time I've ever devoted to a single piece.  I don't know how furniture makers do it, and are able to command a price that reflects the true amount of labor put into a piece (never mind what the price would be for traditional M&T joinery and hand cut dovetails!).  I guess it's about volume and maximizing workflow efficiency.

I prefer the vertical. Can’t explain why.

Nice job! It does remind me of a good practice of cabinetmakers: build a prototype from cheaper materials before using the expensive stuff (just saying, no crit!).

 

[VW mick]

[member=37411]Edward A Reno III[/member]

I would go horizontal. Definatly

I really like the way you have documented your build. I have tried a few times on some of mine and they never seem to come across so coherently

 

[Tinker]

Either way, the grain will match up with ether the vertical or the horizontal.  I would try diagonal with the diagonal grain high at center of each pannel.
Tinker