Category: Woodworking

The table top is the largest part of the project. Not necessarily the most complex but certainly the most time consuming. As a result, I ended up working on multiple other items, notably the table top support structure, in between. For example. after glueing up the top , I was working on the slider rail components. So, the following article while focussed on the top and its joinery was only a portion of what was worked on in the last couple of weeks. However, I have gathered the work sessions together to provide a more coherent story of working the top and will do so similarly for the under framing.

Because the top is for an extension table, the top is made up of pieces of wood that run across the width of the table. This is done so that the seasonal expansion and contraction of the wood will not affect the alignment of the joints too much. As I am building the table it is February in Wisconsin. With outside temperatures now in the -20 to +30F range, the humidity is reaching the seasonal bottom. So I have to be careful to ensure that the wood movement will be accomodated and it will be mostly expansion from here on out.

The initial glue up of the 3 slabs is fairly straight forward. The top, including the center wing is to be 8 feet long and about 41″ wide. The center is approximately 24″ wide and each of the end wings is ~36″ wide. The pieces were jointed both by machine and with hand plane tuning of the joints. They were then glued up. At this point the joints in each slab were then hand planed and scraped to be reasonably flat. With the faces reasonably flat, it was time to attack the edges and square up the pieces. My stock was not defect free and I started with glue-ups that were about 46″ across with the hope of 40-42″ clear center sections. The defects at the ends included knots, tear out and jointer snipe.

Squaring the panels

The first step was to rip the panel pieces to width so that both of the long grain edges were parallel. The next steps were to cross cut the pieces to the approximate width of the table top so that they were then neat rectangles. I did this by using a large drywall square clamped to the top and a circular saw for the first pass and then a second pass with a router and 1/2″ end mill to clean up the cut. The router pass took off <1/8″ and left a nice clean finish (without any saw marks / burns). The goal was to get the pieces within 1/8-1/4″ of final width when they were all lined up.

Making the butterfly wing

The center panel then had to be cut in half across the width of the table. This was done on the table saw. The edges for the center joint were then tuned up with a hand plane to remove any saw marks. The butterfly wing uses Soss brand invisible hinges for the center joint. These allow the wing to fold back on itself 180 degrees and are invisible when the center wing is opened flat. The hinges need to be mortised into the center edges of the butterfly wing panels. The alignment is critical, so I used a micrometer adjustable fence on the router to set the distance of the mortise form the table top and then carefully marked the ends of the 2 sets of mortise cuts. As you can see, the green masking tape is used to help make the ends of the cuts more visible. A plunge router with 1/2″ carbide end mill (up cut spiral in router bit terms) is used for the cuts. The longer cut for the lip of the hinge is done first which is ~1/4″ deep. Then the plunge depth is reset for rest of the hinge mechanism mortise (~7/8″ deep) and the narrower deep mortise is cut in 2 passes. I made the cut for the lip purposely a bit deep to allow for final planing if required and adjustment of the fit, shimming up the hinge ends with plastic card stock (hotel room key cards).

I had a recessed pull left over from the boat construction and it adds a nice touch to the leaf, making it easier to grasp the leaf to open it. The placement is such that the pull handle will lay on top of the outer rails so that it will not hang down when it is open.

I also tested the operation of the butterfly leaf in the table frame. The goal was to ensure the leaf really fit prior to putting in the alignment pins and setting the final width of the table top. Construction of the frame will be covered in a future post.

Alignment pins and final trimming

Pins are used to align the leaves of the top. This is to counter some warping and keep the butterfly leaf level with the rest of the top. Having matched sets of holes was a bit of a worry bout I found a doweling jig at Rockler that is just the thing for this. The pins and their sockets require 8mm / 5/16″ holes in the edges of the top panels. The holes for the two large end panels are drilled first. Then the butterfly leaf is drilled to match the corresponding mating side holes. A 5/16″ drill bit in the large leaf hole accurately aligns the jig for the butterfly leaf holes.

Now the pins and sockets could be placed in the holes for the test fitting. Everything fit perfectly. However the 5/16″ holes are a tiny bit large for the 8mm hardware. Getting the pins out was easy. However the sockets are not easy to grasp> I sacrificed a small screwdriver to the cause. I heated the tip red hot with a torch and bent it at a right angle. This took a couple of passes. Then I cooled it by plunging into a block of wax, rehardening it a bit. The pins were then glued in with thick superglue. The sockets were set about 1/32″ below the surface to allow for final tuning of the joint.

Next the long edges of the top had to be trimmed to final width. The ends panels were about 1/4″ wider than the butterfly leaf. The final trimming was done with a router and 1/2″ end mill. I made an alignment jig by routing a scrap of plywood to the width of the router base edge to the edge of the bit. This was used to set the long straight edge (Rip Straight) and it was clamped in place. 2 passes were made – one at 1/2 depth and one at full to allow fast enough of a cut and eliminate burning.

The top was scraped and then sanded as one large panel. Sanding was done with a random orbit sander at 150 and then 220 grit. Final sanding was by hand with a sanding block in the direction of the grain

The edges were then partially rounded over with a 5/16″ round over bit. This was not a full depth cut but instead left a bull nose profile. As you might expect there was some tear out of the end grain. The video below shows how to clean this up.

The top is now ready for finishing. However, with subzero temperatures this will have to wait a few days (need ventilation). So on to cleaning up the frame and rail system.

You might think that “coloring the wood” is an odd phrase but in this project I am dealing with a notoriously difficult type of wood – Cherry. While lovely, cherry is notoriously difficult due to its problems: widely varying colors between planks, divergence of color in different planks as the wood ages, splotching with most stains, bleed back splotches when dyed. THis could be partly solved by getting a whole tree custom cut and dried, but what if that tree was still not the color you wanted – e.g. one of the very light variants, or had sapwood incursions that you wanted to hide, etc.

What I am doing, is using a variant of a finishing system I have been using for almost 20 years and it was taught to me by Jeff Jewitt of (homesteadfinishing.com) at a Wisconsin Woodworker’s Guild class almost 20 years ago. It uses a combination of dye to determine the base color, shellac as a sealer and light toner, gel stain to enhance the wood grain and then finally your top coats of choice.

When starting out to achieve a new wood color combination, I make a series of test panels to determine which dye color to use and dilution, shellac color, and which gel stain color(s) to use. I have built up a library of these for Oak, Ash and Maple, but did not have a sample set for Cherry. Additionally, the wood I bought has both very light and very dark heartwood and I would like to even it out. Plus, the Behlen Solarlux dye I had used in the past on Cherry was now discontinued.

To start, I ripped some scrap pieces of both the light and dark cherry and sanded it close to what I would do for the piece (yes there are still imperfections, but overall it is close). Then I dye each side of the panels. One side was Transtint Golden Brown and the other side Transtint Reddish Brown at the recommended dilution. Once this dried thoroughly I applied 2 wash coats of shellac per side Zinssner Seal Coat diluted 50% with alcohol on one side and Shellac Shack Ruby (~1.5lb cut) on the other. Once these dried I then masked off sections for each of the candidate gel stains. I tried General Finishes (GF) Georgian Cherry, GF CandleLight, and Minwax Cherry. The results at this stage are seen below:

As you can see the left 2 planks are much closer in color – this was using the Reddish Brown dye. The right 2 planks did not pull together with the Golden Brown dye. This is the side with the Seal coat / blonde / amber shellac. The darker cross bands, from the bottom are: GF georgian Cherry, GF Candlelight, MW cherry. We decided to go with the Reddish Brown Dye, Ruby shellac and GF Georgian Cherry gel stain.

The parts were carefully sanded to 220 grit, vacuumed and tacked off. The dye and shellac were sprayed with DeVilbiss Plus HVLP gun and 1.2mm tip at 30-40 PSI which provided a very fine mist. Below you can see the pieces with the front 2 just having the dye applied. The back 2 have the first coat of shellac applied (and still wet).

It is very important to let the pieces dry thoroughly (1 hr in the winter) between coats) to avoid bleed back and splotching problems. With bleed back you spray or wipe on and everything looks OK< and then come back 15 minutes later and splotches have appeared as the finish dries and underlying finish or dye is wicked out of the pores. After the 2nd coat of shellac dries, the surfaces is thoroughly scuffed to full scratch (no shiny spots) with a maroon Scotch Brite pad. Using the Scotch Brite instead of the equivalent 320 grit sandpaper gives a better finish and GREATLY reduces the chance of sand throughs with the thin shellac layer. Next, the gel stain is wiped on and buffed lightly off.

The gel stain really enhances the grain (and any errant scratches as well). While still wet it also gives you a good idea of the look of the final finish.

The complement to prefinishing the pieces prior to assembly is then to use a colored epoxy for the glue. In most cases – e.g. Craftsman Style Bed, Crib or Dressers, I will completely prefinish before glue up. In this case, as I want to use a water based finish, the oil based gel stain needs to dry for 2 weeks first, so I proceeded with glue up after letting the stain dry for a day (risking damage to the stain). The joints are taped off as part of dry fit assembly to ease clean up of excess epoxy. The epoxy is mixed up and then tinting powder and a couple of drops of the Transtint dye are added along with Colloidal silica. The Silica thickens the epoxy and lightens the color. The goal is to end up with the epoxy being the same hue but slightly darker than the finished wood. If it is lighter it sticks out like a sore thumb.

When using epoxy it is always a good idea to use gloves. I will often just use “Liquid Gloves” (Available at Ace Hardware). Clean up of the joints is done with paper towels lightly dampened with denatured alcohol. WHen clamping joints glued with epoxy you do not need (nor want) a lot of pressure, unlike the typical PVA glues. The strap clamp and big rubber bands (for trash can liners) provide plenty of clamping pressure. Consistent pressure is important. You don’t want to over tighten and loosen and have a glue starved joint.

I use West System Epoxy. In this case I used the fast hardener as well as the Colloidal Silica (I like the big tubs from System 3).

For an earlier and much more complex glue up of a King Sized Craftsman Style Bed headboard with nearly 80 pieces see:

The wood was broken down into usable lengths, run through the jointer with the power feeder and then planed. It became evident that there was an almost even split of “light” and “dark” cherry pieces. So the next step was sorting them out. Teal had asked for a lighter top and at one point we were considering hard maple. So, the light pieces were selected and then further sorted and matched for the top panels.

As you might expect some were rejected for use in the top, due to bad imperfections (tear out, knots in the middle, etc). The rest were matched up and the edges jointed, as well as being ripped to maximum usable width per piece. This machining / matching / culling continued for a few rounds until I had what looked like enough boards for the 3 major panels for the top. The 2 end panels are about 36″ wide and the center about 24″ wide. The pieces were then cut to rough length – 44.5″ to allow for trimming and removal of the hard to eliminate jointer snipe at the end of the cut. Note that some sources say that adjusting the outfeed table of the jointer can eliminate snipe, but this is wrong. The goal of the outfeed table height vs cutter blade height adjustment is to have a straight edge. Matching the outfeed table to the highest point of the arc of the cutter knife is key to straight edges and the first phase of a good glue up. However, it does not always eliminate snipe whether on my previous 6″ jointer or my current 135 year old 16″ Colladay monster of a jointer.

After jointing, ripping and frequently jointing the ripped edges, lay the boards out for best grain and color match as well as trying to alternate the ring direction if possible. Mark across all of the faces, across the grain, in pencil with a large V or Triangle. Th is is to keep the pieces in order and reduce the chance of an unplanned flip of a board during planing or glue up. The the next step is to fine tune the edges with a hand plane. Yes, you will find claims of “glue line ” rip blades but this does not work reliably for much more than 20-24 inches. Wider pieces benefit immensely from (optionally) running on the jointer and hand planing for a perfect fit and invisible glue line. When hand planing for final fit you want a #4 to #6 plane. My favorite is a Veritas low angle jack rabbet plane set for a very fine .002-.006″ translucent shaving across the width of the blade. Yes, this is 1/2 to 2 sheets of paper thickness. The regular low angle jack would work as well, but I can only afford one of these, and this one is also great for truing up tenons as well.

Next best choice for a plane is typically a old Stanley or Record #5 or #6 with the frog moved up and the mouth set very tight. Having an even shaving across the width of the blade is very important. The goal is to remove the “hills” from the joint without adding any new slopes and gaps across the width of the joint or inducing tear-out. A firm, steady stroke, evenly applied across the width of the board is required. It usually takes a few tries to get a perfect fit. I do prefer to sneak up on the fit rather than risking a bad gouge and tearout. Being able to have finely set planes for this sort of joinery and others for regular “rough” planing is reason enough to have 2 of each size for your favorites (typ. $35-55 each at flea market, garage sale or ebay).

Once the joints are good, now is the time for the glue up. I prefer Titebond III as my go to glue. Not only is it water proof, it offers a few minutes more working time than Titebond II or ordinary PVA such as Elmer’s. For the bottom clamps, Bessey K body or the Jorgensen equivalent are ideal (but 3/4″pipe clamps will work too). You will need a large flat work surface and the best I have is the tablesaw for pieces this size (~36×44″). Apply the glue evenly to each side of each joint and then just barely tighten the boards in the clamps. Next place clamps vertically across each joint – not super tight yet. This will hold the ends in alignment. Working across the glue up, even up the middle of the boards, pounding form the top or pressing up from the bottom and then tightening the clamps a bit more. Once the board edges are even it is time to place the alternating top clamps. Now work your way around and progressively tighten the clamps and keep checking the joint alignment and tapping or pounding the high boards into submission. If you wonder why there are top and bottom clamps you have probably not yet seen a “board fountain” when clamping from only one side, and then while tightening, the whole thing sort of explodes upwards due to the clamp bars curving under pressure. Ideally, you want to be able to run your finger across a joint and not feel it. A bit of care now will save a lot of planing and scraping exercise later. Flattening a table top by hand can count as aerobic exercise!

Next, will be cleaning up the top panel joint lines as well as starting on the base / leg joinery.

With the back and doors assembled, now we can start on the “dresser drawers”. The drawer fronts are solid stock. I chose maple as it can be finished clear and provides a pleasant contrast to the planned light grey / off white color of the paint.

Check your actual dimensions vs the drawings. The 3 drawers when stacked should have 1/16-1/8″ gaps on each side and between the drawers. Rip the drawer fronts to width. Then cross cut them apart for height. The goal is to have the grain flowing across all 3 drawers if possible. In my case I had some long narrow pieces of maple left over form the cabinet project and used them. Cut the rabbet for the bottom panel in the lower edge of each drawer front. Then cut the side panel rabbets. These rabbets will cover the ends of the plywood when the drawers are closed and provide ample glue surface as well as a self-squaring reference edge during assembly.

Rip the sides from 1/4″ plywood and the back form 1/2″ plywood or solid stock. The sides are 1/2″ shorter than the drawer front minus the 1/4″ bottom panel. This is to allow space for the drawer runners/kickers which will be glued to the cabinet sides.

Lay out the parts for the glue up. I use thick super glue / cyanoacrylate. Having an assistant spray the accelerator once you have the pieces in position is a huge help. This avoids all but finger pressure clamping.. I attach the sides to the front as the first step (use accelerator). Then the back, and finally the bottom and once the back and bottom are in place and the drawer is square, then hit it with accelerator.

The next step is to place the runners (1/4″x 1/2″) in the case. This is a little bit fiddly to get the spacing just right. Since I was doing mulitples, I made spacers to aid in gluing in the runners (more super glue). For a single cabinet, marking the lines with a square would be sufficient.

Prior to painting, break all of the corners with sandpaper or preferably a 1/16″ radius router bit. Softening the edges gives better dent / ding resistance and just feels nice. Any gaps or edge voids should be filled with Bondo. Make small batches as it cures fast. Sand everything to 120 grit.

Cut the 1/2″ dowel for the closet rod to length. Make the closet rod support blocks from scraps (~1.75″ tall x 1″ wide x 1/2″ thick ). For the hangers we have, a 1″ space above the rod seems ideal. Drill the hold for the rod in the support blocks a bit oversize (e.g. 9/16) to ease assembly after painting.

Paint should be a water based enamel. We used Benjamin Moore INSL-X Cabinet Kote which is very durable. I do NOT recommend the BEHR enamel / trim paint as it is too soft.

Once painted the finishing touches can be applied. The closet rod is installed with CA or hot melt glue. You want the blocks to slide easily so that you can get the glue on both blocks and everything slid into place prior to the glue setting up. Similarly, the mirror is held on with hot melt glue as well. It is centered in the opening.

Now it is time to install the hardware. Start with the outside corners. Next add the hinges and latches. Then the handle and the bottom feet. All screw holes should be pre-drilled. The tiny screws easily strip or snap off.

The feet were 3D printed using TPU filament. The Sketchup and STL source files are available at: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4723078. Note that for TPU you need a direct drive extruder.

Materials and suppliers

Lee Valley

00D4470	(4) 25mm x 9mm BP Filigree Corners
00D8221	Pr 1-1/8″ x 1-3/16″ Snap Clasps
00D8170	Pr Brass Case Handles

Rockler

1/2″ diameter knob for top and middle drawers
#37663

3/4″ diameter knob for bottom drawer #36459

Stick Fast Thick CA glue #32660

Stick Fast CA accelerator / activator #67713

House of Antique Hardware

Pair of Small Victorian Butterfly Cabinet Hinges – 1 3/8 H x 1 7/8″ W (R-08BM-1562X)

Amazon

4″ beveled edge 3mm thick mirrors

Hot melt glue

Hangers

Small brass colored screw assortment

Note: commissions hopefully earned on the Amazon links.

My grand-daughters were getting 18″ – “American Girl ” style dolls for Christmas. My daughters asked that I build doll cases for them. They had some suggestions on how they should look based on a discontinued one from Pottery Barn Kids and another on Ana White’s website. One of the goals is that these would be able to be passed down to future generations much like the Pencil Post doll bed I had made for Elyse, as well as other accessories that had been saved. So, they need to be rugged as well as pretty.

The ruggedness drove the use of 1/2″ baltic birch plywood for the sides. This will provide a strong base for the hinges, latches and handle. The “fronts” and “back” are 1/4″ plywood to save weight and these really don’t have any hardware fastened into them . The vertical “closet” divider is also 1/4″. The top of the “dresser” is 1/2″ but you could probably substitute 1/4″ as well. The sides could easily be solid wood, but I had the baltic birch left over from making kitchen drawers. The girls wanted these to be painted rather than stained. So this also opened up some more flexibility in the joinery choices.

The joinery is simple with all rabbets and dadoes. The rabbets make it relatively self-aligning and ease single person glue ups. The dadoes are just for the inset dividers, so that there is no need for additional brackets / gussets.

After ripping the sides, tops, bottoms to the same width of 5.5″ , then cut the pieces to length. The sides are 21″ long, the long / back top and bottom are 17 1/2″ long and the door top and bottom are 8.5″ long.

Next the rabbets for the fronts and back are made. These are 1/4″ wide (across the thickness of the plywood) but the depth will depend on exactly what thickness plywood you have for the fronts and back. It could range from 5mm all the way up to 1/4″ (6.3mm). Cut these rabbets for the fronts and backs first on all of the sides, tops and bottoms.

Ideally the rabbets are all done with a dado blade. Bury the blade in a sacrificial fence for the back panel rabbets and then push back the fence for the top and bottom (approx 1/2″ wide) rabbets.

The last cuts are for the dadoes. These will likely be a different width. With a dado head this means removing, adjusting and and then resetting the height. The key thing to watch for is that the dadoes must be equal to or slightly shallower than the depth of the back panel dadoes to ensure that they will not show on the exterior, once it is assembled. The test cuts below illustrate this.

The dadoes for the ~1/4 ” panels are likely need to be narrower than a dado set can go. So you will need to make the first cuts, move the fence make more test cuts and proceed.

With all of the case pieces cut our you can now start to assemble. What is critical is that the 3 case pieces are square once assembled.

The assembly for the “front doors” is similar. However be sure to dry assemble them and make sure the pair is not wider than the back. A small gap is OK and even desirable i.e. both doors together 1/16-1/8″ narrower than the back.

When designing these cases, I was doing it the “old fashioned” way with my gridded notebook, pencil and ruler (can’t forget the eraser as well). The sketches below are photos as my scanner apparently died recently.

Today, we delivered and set up Olivia’s bed and dresser.  There was some final assembly work and alignment of the drawers in the pedestal.  She was also taken with the idea of the cubby spaces underneath being the “lower bunks” for her stuffed critters.

The new pulls match on the dresser and the bed drawers. They are a sort of ’50s look.

 I think she is pleased.

 

This finishing schedule is my go-to when I need robust color. I learned the basic technique a number of years ago in a class that was put on by the Wisconsin Woodworker’s Guild featuring Jeff Jewitt. Jeff also runs Homestead Finishing.

I wanted the bed and dresser to look like they belonged together, however the bed is red oak and the dresser is cherry so an exact match is not feasible.  The dresser had been my Dad’s and was a mid-century brownish grey color. When I scraped and sanded the old finish off the dresser, the cherry had wide swaths of sapwood in the top and drawer fronts. This was too jarring for my taste. So after removing the top, I sanded the underside of it to match how the top would be and made some tests with dye and stain. This proved my theory, that dye and stain could even out the sapwood -heartwood variation nicely.

The original finished was scraped and sanded off down to bare wood.
The colors of the cherry then showed through. However there was a lot hf difference between heartwood and sapwood. This may be why the factory finish was so opaque.

Finish schedule

• 2x Light spray coats of Transtint medium brown dye in alcohol per label instructions.
• 2x wash coats of 2lb cut blonde shellac also sprayed on.  These must be light coats or the shellac with dissolved dye will bleed back out of the pores resulting in “pimples”. This can be severe on the Oak
• Scuff sand with green Scotch Brite pad. This is roughly equivalent of 220 grit sandpaper.
• General Finishes Nutmeg gel stain . Wiped on liberally and wiped off after 10 minutes.
• Allow to dry for one week as the oil based stain would otherwise cause adhesion problems for the following finish coats
• 2-3x coats of General Finishes water based polyurethane – matte lustre . These were sprayed on for the head and foot-boards of the bed, brushed on all other pieces. Each coat consisting of a tack coat and flow coat from opposite edges of the pieces.  On other pieces I have used the General Finishes Endurovar or Precat Lacquer. However this was done mid-winter and this was the least obnoxious finish for indoor application (and without risk of explosion).
• Dresser top was also rubbed down with 0000 steel wool to eliminate the last brush marks.

Progress photos

View of the headboard after the dye and shellac has been applied and the gel stain is half applied.

The headboard and footboard had plywood scraps attached to the bottoms of the legs this mad handling of them MUCH easier with no worries of tip-overs.