Flavor #13 - Build a Piece of Furniture with your Dad

Build a Piece of Furniture with your Dad - Dale Shearer, Idaho Falls ID

Friday, April 2, 2010

I sat looking through my dad's huge stack of wood working magazines, hoping for something to catch my eye. I had only been home in Idaho a couple hours, but I wasn't wasting any time. Flavor #13 was "Build Something with your Father" and I had no idea yet what that "something" was.

My mother helped me sift through the countless pages of wooden art, combing over everything from jewelry boxes to gazebos. I had somewhat settled on a cabinet of some sort where I could house little mementos of this crazy year, but while all of the curios that we came across were beautiful, they seemed too polished, too generic for me. I was looking for something completely original.

Of course if I wanted something original, I'd probably have to design it myself. When my dad got home from work, we resulted to searching online. Google turned up a variety of picture boxes and shelving units, but it was a red box with a cheery yellow sunflower on the cover that caught my eye. Turns out it was a key holder. My mind removed the little hooks and began to envision compartments like one of the curio cabinets I had seen earlier; then, it chipped away at the sunflower on the door to reveal a peek-a-boo to the inside; finally, I recalled small drawers I had seen on the base of one of the cupboards and decided it would be interesting if you could pull a keepsake drawer out through the center of the box.

After doing a few sketches, we needed something to help us envision the dimensions. I searched my dad's office and ended up finding a cardboard box that was perfect, as well as some sort of computer part that served as the drawer. The size of the drawer was important, because all of the compartments would branch off of that. We mapped out everything on the box and figured out how much wood we would need. Then it was off to the hardware store.

The Materials:

2 boards of pine: 1" thick, 4" wide, 6' long

1 board of poplar: 1/4" thick, 4" wide, 4' long

The Home Depot smelled like freshly made saw dust. My dad and I winded through the aisles of tools back to the wood section. Because I was planning on painting the box instead of staining, we opted for pine for the box and poplar for the shelves. This wood was softer and easier to work with. My dad checked to make sure the boards weren't bowed and didn't have any knots (knots could affect the integrity of the wood) and we made our purchase.

When we returned to the house, we turned on the heater in the shop and enthusiastically sat down to my mother's home cooked dinner. I ate my fill, uncertain of when I would again see the light of day. The last bite came too soon, it was time to get to work. I borrowed a raggedy sweatshirt from my mom and my dad and I walked briskly through the Idaho cold to the now toasty shop.

The Box Frame:

The first thing we needed to do was cut one of the pine beams into four, 16" long, pieces. Introducing the dual compound sliding miter saw. My dad placed the beam on the bass of the machine, matching the measurement we had marked with the blade of the saw. He then scooted a sliding panel until it was flush with the end of the beam and locked it down. Because we wanted all of the pieces the same length, we could use this stopper as a guide. Like a pro, my dad started the blade, and within seconds we had our first piece.

Now it was my turn. I lowered my safety goggles and approached this rather large and impressive machine. One hand steadying the board the other gripping the handle, I pushed the red safety in with my thumb, and squeezed the starter button with my other four fingers. The blade responded with a harsh whir. I then pulled down on the arm, bringing the saw horizontal, and drove the blade forward, cutting into the wood. In that instant I got a tiny glimpse of the whole tool obsession. Soon we had four, 16" long, pieces making up the top, the bottom, and the sides of the box.

Next we needed to connect the corners together by creating an l-shaped groove called a rabet on both ends of the side pieces.

We did this so the top and bottom pieces could fit into the groove, making the joint less visible and stronger.

To create the rabet we used a jig that my dad had fashioned himself. He said that he had seen it in a video and thought it was a good idea. That's my dad: he sees something he likes and figures out how to make it. The jig looked similar to the Roman numeral II: two parallel pieces of plywood capped by two thinner strips. The left parallel piece was stationary; the right piece contained bolt that could slide along grooves the strips, allowing you to adjust the gap between the boards. We wanted the rabet to match the depth of the adjoining boards, so we set the gap to an inch, then slid one of the side pieces under the jig, exposing the end we wanted to cut, through the gap.

To create this L-shaped groove we used a plunge router, which does just that. This spring-loaded contraption requires you to you grasp both side handles and press downward, plunging the bit into the wood. The bearing above the bit rides along the edge of the jig so that you won't go outside the lines: kind of like a stencil. After adjusting the bit to cut half an inch deep, my dad made the first rabet. Then he removed the piece, so I could do the other end. As I traced the bearing along the gap we'd created, I was fascinated at how the wood seemed to dissolve before my eyes.

The Back:

The top and bottom pieces fit into the rabets perfectly. Now it was time to create rabets lengthwise on the backside of all four pieces so that the backing of the box could set inside the frame as well.

Because these rabets would be significantly longer than the first set, we decided to do them with a table saw. First we matched the height of the adjustable saw blade to the thickness of the plywood backing, so that it would cut the right depth. My dad lined up the first piece against the table guard and ran it lengthwise down the blade.

After observing him for a couple boards, I followed his example and did the other two.

Next we rotated each piece and cut ran the blade up the backside of the board to meet the previous cut.I'll confess I was

slightly intimidated by the table saw. Even though I used a driving stick to drive the wood across the blade it was still a little nerve-wracking. My dad cautioned me to keep my eyes on the blade the entire time, and I respected that advice. That blade could do significant damage.

The long strips of wood fell away and the result was a rabet that bordered the backside of the entire box.

The Compartments:

We clamped the box frame together, and plotted out compartments in pencil on the backing. I was amazed at my dad's ability to add measurements so quickly. It seemed that while I was still figuring out which mark on the tape measure was the 1/8" mark, he was already sawing. Using the Miter Saw, we cut the poplar into the different dimensions.

In order to make the compartment seams stronger we decided to use a dado, which is like a rabet except the dado is a u-shaped groove because the cut is made in the middle of a piece of wood instead of on the end.

To create a dado, we marked where the piece of poplar intersected with the frame, then used the laser guide on the Miter Saw to create consecutive little cuts until the groove was big enough. After all of the dadoes were complete, we reclamped the box frame and inserted all of the poplar pieces.

After verifying it was square, we glued the frame's rabet joints together with wood glue and reinforced it with finishing nails. The finishing nails purposely don't have heads on them so that they'll sink into the wood. To drive them below the surface, we used a brad nailer, which you place over the top of the nail and hit with a hammer.

After the frame was solid, we added the backing. We used regular nails for this job because the backing would need more support, and the heads wouldn't be seen from the back. We no longer needed the blueprint, so we decided to flip it to the back so that I could keep a memory of how we designed it.

It was getting pretty late, but we decided to try to glue the little compartments. After inserting all of the pieces in the little slots, we noticed that some of our angles were slightly off. The box was square, so that meant that it had to be the actual compartments; if just one of the vertical pieces was too long or too short, it could affect the angle of the horizontal pieces. By that time our brains were fried, so I convinced my stubborn dad that we should go to bed and figure it out in the morning.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

The next morning our brains were fresh and we were able to look at the shelves with rested eyes. In examining the compartments, we discovered that one of the upper left vertical pieces was too long and was pushing the intersecting horizontal piece downward, so we shaved just a smidgen off of that piece with the miter saw. Fixing that problem resulted in one of the other intersecting pieces being too short, and since we'd used all the poplar, we had to return to the home depot.

While we were there, we stopped by the hardware picked up a magnetic latch for the door. We also looked for knobs for the drawer and door, but I didn't see any that I particularly liked. I figured that I would have to search online for a knob at a different time.

After remedying the piece that was too short, we measured again, and the angles were correct. We quickly and carefully glued all of the compartments in place and clamped a few of the walls to ensure they stayed put. Just to verify it was square we cut a block of wood the size of the drawer and placed it in the middle of the drawer slot.

The Drawer:

My dad picked out a block of wood, about 3/4 inch thick, to act as the front of the drawer. It seemed too thick to me, but my dad explained that half of the thickness would act as the face of the drawer, covering the outer seams of the slot, and the other half would be rabeted to inset the sides of the drawer.

After we cut the out the drawer front, I used a table router to round the edges, giving it a more polished look. A cool thing about a table router is that it shaves on the bottom, so you only see the product after you flip it over and it has magically transformed.

The drawer front measured 5" wide by 3 1/2" tall, allowing for the slot edges, which were about 1/4" thick. We then cut the sides and back of the drawer out of poplar about 1/4" thick, and cut the bottom out of a piece of melamine about 1/8" thick.

We ran the drawer front down the table saw one way, and then the other, carving out 1/4" rabet on the top and bottom to allow for the slot edges, and 1/2" rabet on the sides to account for both the slot

edges and the sides of the drawer.

We didn't need to tack on another 1/8" for the bottom of the drawer because we were planning on using--you guessed it--

a dado.

We cut 1/8" dadoes into the bottom of the front, sides and back pieces.

Now it was time to put this puzzle together. We lined the edge of the first side piece with glue, applied it to the rectangular of the cover. Because one clumsy swing of the hammer could actually demolish such a delicate box, I let me dad drive the nails while I held it steady. Then we did the same with the other side piece, inserting the bottom piece into the dado slots to add more support. Finally we nestled the back piece in between the two sides.
Beads of perspiration later, we had created what my dad acknowledged as the smallest drawer he'd ever made.

The Door:

I wanted the door to fit together like a picture frame, so we cut the other pine beam into four pieces with 45 degree edges. The rotating base on the Compound Miter Saw made this a cinch.

To join the corners together, we used a nifty machine called a Biscuit Joiner to cut horizontal, crescent-shaped slots in the edges of each piece. We then covered oval shaped wooden disks called biscuits in glue and inserted them in the slot, covering the biscuit halfway.

The remaining other half of the biscuit was inserted into the corresponding slot.

After we glued all of the edges together, we used pipe clamps to hold the door in place while the biscuits expanded and sealed the joints. It looked as though my door was in a straight jacket. There are clamps that are actually made for such purposes, but my dad didn't have one so we had to be a little creative. The convenient thing about a pipe clamp is that one end of the pipe is fixed and the other slides up and down the pipes, so you can adjust it to where you want.

After the door was dry, we sanded down some of the seams with an oscillating disk sander and then used the router table to round the inside of the door's hollow. After the routing, the peep-hole didn't look quite right until my dad chiseled out the corners. I realized that it was those simple touches that turned an amateur project into a finished piece of art.

The Top and Bass:

For the top and bass of the box we decided to use two pine pieces from my dad's scrap pile. The boards were about 3/4" thick, and I felt they overwhelmed the box, so we ran them through a Thickness Planer. This tool was one of my favorites. You set the dial to a desired thickness and this machine actually shaves the board down to that measurement. It reminded me of making pasta and continually running the dough through the noodle maker. Of course, the noodle maker didn't spit out wooden confetti all over the place. When we were satisfied with the thickness, we nailed a piece on the top and the bottom of the box with finishing nails.

The Drawer Pull:

As my dad sifted through the workshop drawers looking for hinges he came upon an old gold-tinged knob, perfect for my little drawer. This shop had been my grandpa's and it was very possible that he had touched this very same knob. I cradled the new found treasure in my hand, taking joy in the fact that my grandpa would now be apart of my memory box as well. After my father put the smallest bit I'd ever seen into the drill press, I cautiously pulled down on the lever, drilling a hole in the center of my tiny little box. I then pushed a screw in the hole from the back and twister it into the drawer pull.

Sanding:

Before our last trip to Home Depot to pick out some hinges, we filled all of the nail holes and other flaws with puddy. When we returned, we used the disk sander as well as to even out the wood as much as possible.

The Hinges:

My dad asked if I would like the hinges on top of the wood or set inside. If they were on top the door wouldn't lay completely flat, so of course I said I wanted it the other way. Little did I know that this process would take more time than the door and the drawer combined. We measured where the hinges would go, and then carefully traced the outside of the hinge on both the box and the door. My dad then lined and filled in the trace with shallow diagonal cuts about 1/32" deep. He explained that the small slits help to control the depth; if you tried to cut the wood in one strip, it would naturally follow the grain and perhaps cut too deep or unevenly. During this process, my father and I both silently agreed that he would do the chiseling and I would watch and pray.

This process would have been hard enough, but the fact that my father's chisels needed to be sharped and we couldn't find his sharpener made it downright tedious. Finally, a disk sander, sand paper, and sharpening stone later, each rectangle was the appropriate depth.

But the drama wasn't over yet. We lined up the hinges and used a center finder to punch a starting point into the wood. My dad prefers manually driving screws when working with hinges so we used a Push Drill to create the holes for the screws. I was impressed at how easily this spring-loaded, screw-driver punched through the wood, but because the center finder was a little off, one of our holes didn't line up with the hinge. So, we had to plug the hole with glue and wood shavings and let it dry and then move the hole over and drill again. This seemed like the kind of fix I would come up with, so I was amused that it actually worked.

After we screwing all of the hinges in place, came the moment of truth. We tried the door and thankfully it opened and closed with no interference from the top or bass of the box. Although the hinges were a nightmare, it was worth it to have the door lay completely flat.

The Final Touches:

Now it was a matter of the little things. We screwed a magnetic latch on the inside of the box, and it's corresponding magnet on the door so that the door would stay closed. For the hanging slots in back, we used the Plunge Router, this time with a special hanging slot bit. This bit enters the wood with a larger hole, then slides upward into a narrow slit so that you can hang it on the wall.

The Triumph:

A little over 17 hours of labor, and my beautiful memory box was finished. My mother came out to the shop and took pictures of our tired but triumphant faces. Though it had only been about 17 hours, I felt I'd learned so much. The rest of the evening, I couldn't help but hold my new keepsake, running my hands over its smoothness and opening and closing the perfectly hinged door.

Even now, I marvel at the beauty of what my dad and I created out of a few beams of wood; a completely original piece that will serve as a reminder of this challenging and fulfilling year. But what makes it even more special is the fact that the memory box itself is a memory that I created with my dad, one that I will treasure always.

*This blog entry, I am grateful for my talented and supportive parents. Especially this last weekend, I'm thankful for my dad's patience and my mom's much needed cupcake breaks. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful examples in my life.

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