Hey guys! After finishing my two shaker apothecaries I am more than ready to move on. I'm not sure if you guys remember, but a few months back I posted some sketchup stuff in the design section of me working through the design on this.

Well I am ready to move forward. I am personally happy with the direction it will be going and I have most of the lumber chosen for it.

Below I will include the sketchup model. I am mostly using this for proportions and planning. At the same time, I will be kinda winging it. I feel I have had a few months to let it stew and I'm pretty confident that I'm ready.

Anyways. Tonight I started planning the upper case. I'm color coordinated! Orange chalk was to show grain direction for planing, green will be for cross cutting, and blue is the label.

I'm going to build the main upper case first and fit the stand to it later. At this point I will be able to get both sides, top, bottom, and shelf out of the two quilted maple boards. I matched these as best as I could. Unfortunately its what was available. I hope it all works out!

Tomorrow I plan to cut these up and start the milling process. I just replaced my planer blades and I'm ready for this knarly maple!

P.S. I should also note, These were two 12' long boards that I had the dealer cut for me so I could fit it in my car

Paul,
The design you posted above for your case or 'cabinet on stand' looks great.. and the quilted maple doesn't look to bad either.. This looks like it will be another great play by play to follow along with.

Also, when you have a chance I would be curious to see a few additional views from the sketchup file, especially one from below to show the apron design.

thanks for sharing.

Paul......apothecaries came out nice!!! Now on to Krenov!!! Sometimes the simplest things pop out, the different colored chalk could prove helpful, why only go for white. Next time I'm in Staples.

You said:

That must have been scary.....purchase a figured lumber, you know the project, but am I cutting that board at the right spot to get it home. How did you decide where you wanted the dealer to cut your boards???? Did you have him cut to the end panel length??, Leg length??

Thanks for your avitar help.......Neil

Man I hate cutting a piece of lumber just to bring it home. First time I did it, wasn't paying attention, you can guess the rest, another trip to the lumber yard. . One more reason to own a truck....

This will be a fun one to watch... I would build the base first and fit the top.... I am interested in seeing how you fit them your way... And the legs have me thinking too

Tommy why build the base first?

All you guys on the east coat and your 3 hours ahead! Thanks for all the responses guys!



Yeah Neil. I bought these two boards knowing my main case dimension. I could probably have gotten away with a 10' x 13" yield but this is what they had. I knew my sides were going to be roughly 26" tall. So I had them cut the higher figured side of the boards to roughly 62". That would give me some room. It probably took me over an hour to dig through the boards and come up with these two.



I'm still unsure of my wood choice and method for making the curves on the legs and stretchers. All new to me. So, my idea is to at least start the rough milling of the case while I figure out what I will do for that. I'm thinking of sticking with cherry for the base.

I'm excited, there will be a lot of new challenges for me on this project.

Little FYI" I still need to pick the wood for the drawer fronts. I really want to go with a nice figured contrasting wood. For the back panel, I'm thinking of going with lace wood. What do you think?

Anyways, Here are a few more images of the SketchUp model.

Hey guys, Whats up. Well after work today I rushed home to get this maple rough milled.

First let me say I recently sold my crappy old 12" Jet planer that sounded like it was about to blow when I used it. Probably the loudest thing ever! I picked up a 13" Delta planer off craigslist for a real bargain. and WOW! what a difference! Virtually NO tear out.

I did spritz the show side with isopropyl alcohol before each pass. I was taking somewhere in the neighbor hood of 1/128" cut. This Left me with a glass smooth surface. I ran some of the "non" show side with out this spritz and it was a noticable difference in the tear-out factor, just fyi.

Here are a few photos.

Paul,

Man, you got some awesome wood dude. I love the figure in that maple. Looks like your new planer is doing a nice job for you.

I will have to try the Isopropyl Alcohol trick the next time some nice stock gets run through my planer. I bet it doesn't take long for it to evaporate out there.

Have a safe day in your Mesa, AZ shop.

Well guys, I Just finished the final milling and panel glue ups for case parts. (sides, top, bottom, shelf.) Moving right along. Got to try my hand at spring jointing all these. Cool stuff! Def a keeper!

Next step is to cut everything to length and make the "krenov dowel jig" to start the dry assembly. Here is a photo of one of the sides glued up.

It was a successful day! The Patriots won in OT and I made my goal of the case dry fit! Everything went really smooth. Which was a nice change. This will probably me my last update for a week. Its going to be a hectic week at work and a little weekend get away too. Here are some photo updates!

Enjoying this build. I'm a beginner soaking up EVERYTHING at this stage.

You and me both! Glad your enjoying it.

On another note. I need design / construction help / tips. I'm not sure how I should tackle the 4 drawers and dividers. I have that cool piece of hickory which I will be using for the drawer fronts. I'm just not sure if I should cut the hickory to create the faces of the dividers as well, or if I should just use quilted maple for the contrast.

What do you guys think? The SketchUp file doesn't show much detail. But I plan on doing dovetails like Tommy's tool box series.

Any advice would be really appreciated!

Paul,

That maple is so beautiful I fear that the contrasting wood might distract from it. Now, I can envision using the figured maple as an accent to the hickory, but not the other way around. As such, I'd stay with just the maple.

Thanks FLWoodRat, I appreciate your opinion and that is generally how I felt but wanted to get a couple opinions.

Next question. For the shelf directly above the drawers. How would you go about making the dados / dovetailed front. I really want to dovetail this shelf and not just dowel it like Krenov does. I have the over sized quilted maple ready for final sizing. I'm just unsure of the approach.

Paul,
Is this what you are looking for on the dado with dovetail front

Thats exactly what I'm looking to do. I'm curious how I will cut my panel to do so.

Hi Paul.

Pardon me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard from looking at that wood grain. That is beauty incarnate!

Thanks for sharing. This is a particularly interesting build as you shared the design process with us beforehand.

The other Paul
the little guy

I'm inclined to agree with Tommy about building the base first and fitting the cab bottom to it, particularly on this piece. However, as you may already know, JK almost always made his doors first, and made everything else to fit them. I think that approach is more appropriate for slab doors where getting the best grain graphics is the prime directive and may alter the size, or with coopered doors where the curve may vary a little from what was planned. JK was really into that stuff.

Anyways, looks like a nice design, and I look forward to following along.

Regards, Jarrod

Hey other Paul Good name BTW

No updates yet guys. Thinking the next stop through, but it will be a good weekend coming up for sure!



I'm actually enjoying the loose approach I'm using with no exact measuring. Just going at it and working through the design as I go. I'm learning that subtle changes such as how I decide to do these drawers really will have a lot of impact.

I did get a chance to put some BLO on a piece of scrap! Really excited to do the case!

Hi Paul.

I see you have yet to learn the first rule of wood working: there ain't no such thing as scrap!

With the cost of decent wood these days, you find a use for everything. Look at some of the end grain cutting boards some of the guys over on LumberJocks are putting out, Shear beauty out of "scraps".

Paul
the cheap little guy

Well its friday. And that means its almost saturday! I'm excited to get into the shop this weekend. The weather has been amazing here in Arizona. Finally less than 90 degrees!

This weekend I plan on getting the shelf and drawer dividers rough fit in. Hopefully get everything cleaned up with the #4. I have a feeling I will be spending some time at the water stones with this quilted maple.

If everything goes well, I'll get the back frame and panel glued up and fit as well.

Paul,
Great wood selection, And the BLO is the way to go. Its all I use on all of my projects. It seems to have the most affect on the wood when I use it strait out of the can. Then you just have to let it dry for a week or 2. Then top coat with shellac.

Paul what are the dimensions of this thing. It does seem to have all of the requirements of the www.woodexpo.us "Seed" project.

Keep up the great work.

Justin

Justin, The dimensions so far of the upper case is 12.5" Deep, 31.5" Tall, 25" Wide. I believe the legs will be roughly around 30"

I'm not all that aware of the woodexpo. Still new to this woodworking stuff I see its in Boston. Maybe a good reason for me to go back home in February!

Hows it all work?

Made a little more progress tonight. I was unsure about the process to take to get this shelf to fit and the sliding dovetail cut.

Here is the break down. (See photos below as well)

1. I cut the dados.
2. Re dry fit the case.
3. Snuck up on a tight fit on the table saw for the shelf
4. Added layout lines for my tails
5. Added stop blocks to my miter gauge and reference line for the blade.
6. Made the cuts.

It was actually pretty simple. If I were to do it again after I made the stopped cuts on the table saw. I should have lowered the blade until just an 1/8" of the blade was coming up to cut the tail shoulders. I later came back to do this but setup would have been there already.

Next I made a paring block (learned from watching Tommy's tool chest series. Then chopped away at the tails.

Tomorrow I will cut the sockets and move on to the drawer dividers and hopefully some door assembly!