Final finish

Everything thus far unpainted gets a coat, and the visible bits of the shelves get a second coat, and are left to dry.

A quick sand down the top and front (drawers and fascia), and then a second coat of paint for a smoother finish (apparently).

It might turn out that the insides of the drawers will need a second coat, or the commonly visible parts need a third - but I can always go back to it if that's the case. Probably not though.

So that's the cupboard done - de-shelved, re-shelved, and drawer-ed:

Of course, the cupboard is now mostly full with all the tools I bought in order to fit it out!

Job's a good'un :-)

Completing the chest

With the drawers in the framework, there are a few holes to fill - namely the top, and the gaps on either side of the drawers at the front. That involves getting more wood though, as I'm lacking single pieces big enough to cover the wider gap on the front right side. I figure I'll try and get a suitable off-cut from the DIY store,

The top might be filled with a piece of plywood from one of the old shelves, unfortunately it's not long enough to reach the front of the drawers - and (because the cupboard is not square) will need to be at an angle. The pic below shows the sheet of plywood square with the back and sides, but the front has a gap larger on the right than the left:

I have a couple of options here: either get a new piece of wood for the top, or fill some space at the back so the existing sheet can come forwards.

Whilst considering that, I drill, saw, file, and sand handles into the front of each drawer - just a beveled hole about the width of my hand. That's the last major cutting for the drawers, and by this point I'm a little bored, so they're probably a bit rougher than they should be. Never mind, the project is getting pretty close to completion - I can now do some finishing work: filling nail holes and gaps with wood filler, then painting using the same paint used on the cupboard (which was left over from the previous owner's DIY). It's beginning to look presentable.

A trip to my brother's to lend him a tent revealed that he had a load of offcuts from his shelving project (definitely a family trait). I found a suitable piece and nabbed it, and it took very little to cut them to site and nail them in place. With the completely flat front it looks ok - not neat enough for the modernist masterpiece I originally envisioned, but pretty fair.

I decide to go with re-using the materials I already have for the top, and with a bit of sawing and fiddling, it sits quite well:

Next up, final painting...

Drawers - part 3: Assembly

The box joints weren't especially close, so would never hold the drawers together by themselves. To make sure they didn't fall apart, I glued the joints, and then nailed them as well, recessing the nails with a nail punch so they wouldn't show in the final result.

The last drawer came together like this (shown at x15 speed):

It even fit the framework:

Alternating between routing and assembly, I put all four drawers together and - with some judicious filing of edges got them to all fit in the framework quite neatly, which was nice.

Coming up in the next post, fascia and top...

Drawers - part 2: Routing

Ok, so the Dremel router attachment was delivered and I got back to work. This turned out to be quite tedious, in a classic (not the) right tool for the job way.

The router was needed to make dado joints (simply, straight grooves) on the back, front, and sides of the drawers, and two rabbet joints on the front piece to help fix it to the sides. That's six cuts with the router per drawer, time four drawers is 24 router cuts.

Technically routing with the Dremel worked, but it took a long time to make each cut, as it wasn't powerful enough to go the full depth in one pass - typically needing 5 passes. By the last cut, it took me about 15 mins, earlier ones had taken longer whilst I was getting used to the process and tool.

Here's some video of the last dado, at 15x speed.

Admittedly it would have been quicker if my workbench wasn't so ramshackle, but then again - if I had a router table it would have taken about 5 seconds per cut...

I assembled the first drawer before routing all the parts, so what I learned while assembling it could feed into the next set of cuts. The main point was making sure that all the dado joints lined up well, by combination of measurement with a ruler, and direct comparison of one bit of wood to another.

Assembly coming up in the next post...

Assembling the framework

Here's the framework assembly video I mentioned in Framework.

Tesla be damned

So last week I went to the Lake District for a few days holiday with my chum Nick, and we had a jolly time. It's a beautiful area, and the weather was mostly nice - with one notable exception...

On Wednesday we went for a walk up Barrow Fell, near Keswick - described in the local blurb as "of modest height at 455 meters, there are excellent 360 views from the summit, a great reward for not too much effort". Just the job.

It had rained earlier in the day but as we made our way up there was a nice bit of sun peeking out from between the clouds. There was even proper bright sunshine just as we got to the top :-)

After about 5 mins at the summit, sharing pleasantries with another walker, taking pics and having a bite to eat, some grey clouds came in from the southwest and it started to rain.

Grey clouds approaching...

Suddenly there was a BANG and flash of thunder and lightning, and what felt like something hitting my head. Nick had the same sensation hitting her leg (she was sat down). We both saw this as our cue to pack up and begin our descent. Fast.

At first I thought "That can't have been lightning", but Nick was pretty convinced, likening it to being hit by a big hailstone. She had been sat on a backpack/seat made with a metal tube frame, so might've had more of a hit.

We're heading down the fell as quick as we can, saying things like: what was that? were we really just hit by lightning? should we ditch the backpack? and thinking that a full on lightning strike could some serious damage to either/both of us.

The rain is quite heavy by now, and then there's thunder and ZAP! we get hit again. It wasn't painful as such, more alarming - simply a shock, and a strong static shock on my head. An electroshock therapy taster session.

A quick mental check and I figure that I don't have much metal on me, although I'm a little concerned that my new phone might have been fried. Is my head feeling funny, or is it psychosomatic?

ZAP! we're hit again. This is ridiculous - surely we're going to get hit by a real bolt at this rate! Can we move any faster!? The other walker showed us the stability advantage of walking poles, gracefully overtaking us as we scrambled down.

ZAP! we're hit again, and I'm sure I saw a hair-thin arc of lighting just in front of my head. The walker got hit as well, doing that hand shaking thing when you get a static shock.

I double checked my baseball cap and found that actually does have a metal stud at the centre - ideal for a lightning conductor to my brain. I took it off and strapped it to my bag.

By this point we were highly motivated individuals, moving quickly down toward the tree line near the bottom of the fell. The atmosphere feels less close now, and we reach the bottom without further shocks. I feel a bit nervous about going under a tree to cross a stile, but it didn't get struck.

The rain stopped and, once we got over the stile, we began to catch our breath, although it wasn't until we were sat in my van down that we could really relax and think about how it could've become life-threatening - hell, it was life-threatening, just with more emphasis on the threat part.

The scary thing, aside from thinking that we might get fried at any moment, was the speed it changed from a lovely day to a dangerous storm, and there's nothing we could've done to prevent or predict it. A small reminder that in spite of our apparent mastery of our environment, we don't really control anything.

A quick check reveals no burns on our heads, and Nick hasn't suddenly got a streak of white hair. Maybe my head feels a little funny but it's faint enough that I'm not sure if I'm just imagining it, so it's probably not serious...


Next on the day's agenda - kayaking on Derwent Water, where we find ourselves irresistible to polystyrene cups in the reception. I suppose for a minor lightning strike, you only get a minor superpower. The storm cleared away and we went on the water without any more shocks. Which was nice.


Later on via my chum Claire, I find that four people were injured by lightning strikes (none seriously) in the same storm, on three other hills approx 2-4 miles from us. A lucky escape!

Drawers - part 1

I actually did more planning for the drawers before building the framework, but didn't want to disturb the narrative ;-)

I measured the cupboard and considered how much clearance the drawers would need from either side to ensure there wouldn't be any problem opening them, then rounded the remaining space down to a convenient width of 520mm:

The sides will be shorter than the gaps; the back panel will be slightly tall (a lip at the top), to prevent the drawer being pulled out accidentally; and the front panel will cover half of the framework horizontals above and below it, except the top drawer which will cover all of the top horizontal.

The rear and sides will be connected with box joints, and the front and sides with rabbet joints. The drawer bottom will use dado joints, which will be get nailed and/or glued as well.

Now I know what sizes I need, I can work out a bill of materials, specifying all the parts I need.

Drawing up plans at home is fine, but has a problem in that you can't be sure what materials will be available in the shop. The online guides to making drawers I read suggested ply for the sides and bottoms - but the shop didn't have thick enough ply for the sides, so I picked MDF instead. Hopefully it'll be strong enough!

Once I got my newly purchased two sheets of ply and three sheets of MDF home, I was able to plan how to get the most out of them. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be a way to waste less, but I did get a bit to use as fascia beside the drawers. Different drawer sizes might have been more efficient, but it would have turned into differential equations, and that would be taking it too far...

Ideally I'd be cutting all of these bits of wood with a table saw, which would be quick, and should help keep edges straight, distances consistent, and angles correct. I don't think I've got the space for a table saw, even if I did think I'd be able to justify it.

Maybe a circular saw, which would be better than cutting everything by hand saw? Nah, still don't think I can justify it.

I had heard about the Dremel multi-tool, which is meant to do cutting, routing, sanding - you name it - and thought that it would do a lot without needing a lot of storage space. It sounds like it would be adaptable to a range of things I'll want to do for this and other projects (my LED guitar for one).

It should cutting box joints, and routing for rabbet and dado joints - I'll have one. In fact I'll also have the pillar drill accessory which I'm bound to use - maybe even instead of the router accessory.

Well, when I tried some cutting, the shape of it meant I couldn't get the right angle, and the cutting disc snapped (I think that's an intentional safety feature). So I'm back to the hand saws. Sawing the boards by hand didn't take too long, but did require a lot of edge shaving, to square everything up.

The next task is box joints, with tenon saw, hack saw, and file. If it was real wood I'd chisel it, but I expect MDF would split in all sorts of horrible ways.

After one box joint the build stalls for a while, because it feels like I'll be sawing for ever. There may have been a rather entertaining a party and a few nights out that took away some momentum as well. Anyway, a few evenings later the mood strikes me again and in just two evenings I get all the other box joints done, with the ply cut to size for the drawer bottoms as well. Progress :-)

Drawer parts with cuts for box joints:

Those MDF pieces are missing some important cuts: The rabbet joints where the front attaches to the sides, and the dado joints where the bottom fits into the front back and sides. I haven't the skill/patience do those accurately with just hand tools, so I do need a router.

The Dremel can do routing, but it's too wild to use freehand making a dado joint. Using pillar drill accessory as a router looked risky as well, so I went and ordered the router attachment. On the plus side, waiting for delivery of the router gizmo meant I started writing this stuff up...