Dining room sideboard

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  • Cochese
    Veteran Member
    • Jun 2010
    • 1988

    Dining room sideboard

    It's been a little over a year since I surprised my wife with her dining room table (http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=56159) and her birthday is well...in hours.

    My plan for the last week or so was to give her the gift of organization. Since she isn't very easy to buy for and she gets frustrated easily with how the house gets messy, I was going to buy her a couple of bookcases to help with the home schooling. One would be a replacement, the other additional. Since barely anyone anymore sells decent bookcases for a decent price, I was going to go Ikea, since we have had good success before.

    Unfortunately for the last several months they have been out of stock locally. So early Friday morning (I'm talking 3-4 am) I came up with the idea to make her a matching sideboard to her table. Same height, with the ability to move school stuff over when it becomes dinner time and a place to store school materials on some shelves. I had the concept in my head in a few minutes, and I formalized it in Sketchup this afternoon.

    I stopped by the lumber yard after school dropoff and picked up some 8/4 soft maple for the legs. After lunch it was back with the bigger car for some domestic 3/4" birch that I had to crosscut in half to get it in the SUV. Back home I started cutting the pieces down to size on the table saw. It was worth spending more for the domestic, it cut so much better. Unfortunately there isn't as many plies and voids are more noticeable.

    I ended the evening jointing, planing and ripping four legs out of the maple. They started curling immediately, so I set them in a press using my newly flattened workbench. I also put dados in the case on the top and bottom, plus a starter set of 8 shelf pin holes for the set of adjustable shelves.

    All this happened in about 3 hours or so of work time. Perhaps slightly more. I was amazed at how fast and easy things were this time. I can't explain why. Didn't have time for pictures unfortunately, but will take some tomorrow.

    For tomorrow, I need to finish the shelf pin holes, assemble the case, notch the legs to fit the corners and glue everything together. Then it's hardwood trim on the exposed front ply and sides, a plywood back, and the top with a hardwood perimeter. I'm hoping another three hours will do the trick, as long as the legs stabilized okay. It will be stained when possible to match the table with the same General Finishes Java Gel Stain.

    This is the concept:
    I have a little blog about my shop
  • Black wallnut
    cycling to health
    • Jan 2003
    • 4715
    • Ellensburg, Wa, USA.
    • BT3k 1999

    #2
    Good looking project, waiting for pics.
    Donate to my Tour de Cure


    marK in WA and Ryobi Fanatic Association State President ©

    Head servant of the forum

    ©

    Comment

    • Ed62
      The Full Monte
      • Oct 2006
      • 6022
      • NW Indiana
      • BT3K

      #3
      She should like that. Happy birthday to her.

      Ed
      Do you know about kickback? Ray has a good writeup here... https://www.sawdustzone.org/articles...mare-explained

      For a kickback demonstration video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/910584...demonstration/

      Comment

      • Cochese
        Veteran Member
        • Jun 2010
        • 1988

        #4
        I straight up ran out of time. In order for me to get dinner on the table, I had to cut it off at 4:30, but I still wouldn't be done if I was still out there. I'll run down the to-dos at the end.

        This is the workbench doing duty as a press:


        I spent some time getting rid of the burn marks off of the sugary maple this time, since I knew I wasn't going to have time to stain it. Dogs, the end vise and the #5 made quick work of it.


        Once I got the legs cleaned up fairly well, I set to work assembling the cabinet. I thought I had enough scrap to make a back, but the only thing I had that worked were two pieces of hardboard. Luckily they were nearly a perfect size. I screwed those to the back and pinned them in the middle at the support piece. I used my homemade shelf pin jig, a scrap of pegboard and two scraps of plywood to register the edge. The shelves have 8 different positions they could go to. The cabinet went together very well - honestly, this is the best I've done so far.

        To attach the legs I decided to do stopped rabbets along the height of the cabinet and full 1.5" square bottoms to match the table. I ran the legs through the table saw and finished the rabbet by hand. Finally got to use the Narex corner chisel and I love it. Sharpening might be interesting though. Legs done, they got attached to the cabinet with glue and screws - high traffic plus high weight meant not just glue or using brads.

        What's left to do? Trim for the exposed plywood on the front and sides, trim for the shelves, plug the remaining screw holes on the legs and to make the top. Of course, stain and doors as time becomes available.

        By far my best work top to bottom, even incomplete. Will look great when it's done, and will be what I'm most proud to show off. The things I learned between the table and this are very apparent, and I will at some point redo the entire dining room table with the techniques I have a better handle on. Some of that includes basic construction - I tried to get too fancy with the table base.




        EDIT: scratch the trim on the front exterior, I just realized if I don't want the doors to stick out past the legs I need to just do the doors.
        Last edited by Cochese; 11-23-2013, 07:10 PM.
        I have a little blog about my shop

        Comment

        • Pappy
          The Full Monte
          • Dec 2002
          • 10453
          • San Marcos, TX, USA.
          • BT3000 (x2)

          #5
          scratch the trim on the front exterior, I just realized if I don't want the doors to stick out past the legs I need to just do the doors.

          What about using iron on edge banding? Shouldn't add enough thickness to make a difference.
          Don, aka Pappy,

          Wise men talk because they have something to say,
          Fools because they have to say something.
          Plato

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