{"id":7188,"date":"2021-12-31T22:57:50","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T03:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/?p=7188"},"modified":"2021-12-31T23:35:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T04:35:40","slug":"is-it-worth-it-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/31\/is-it-worth-it-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it worth it? – part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"wall<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

[32″h x 20″w x 8″d] The curved sides of this cabinet started on the bandsaw, of course, but then I used the #20 compass plane<\/a>, the RP rasp<\/a>, and scrapers. The best tool for final truing of the curves was a simple purpose-built<\/strong> sanding shave. This is just a 14″-long stick, about 1″ x 2″, with the working wide face planed a bit convex, to which is attached PSA sandpaper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all the tools on which we spend a small fortune, almost every project necessitates a shop-made<\/strong> tool to save the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dowel joinery<\/a> went well. I have plenty of experience with it. Well, except for one section where I used too much glue and paid the price correcting a squeeze-out mess. Think!<\/strong> It is so much easier to avoid than to correct mistakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just clamp the carcase together, right? No. The curved sides required specially shaped clamp blocks<\/strong>. It was so easy to draw that nice curve on paper . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the door frame joints<\/strong>, I choose regular mortise-and-tenons rather than slip joints, which look cool but are a major pain to clamp. I routed the mortises and then carefully set up the bandsaw to make the tenons within a shaving or two (or none) with the rabbet block plane. It’s all about making a precise kerf-width-thick gauge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"stiles<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There’s a limit to masochism, or maybe not. The unconventional arrangement of the door frame rails and stiles made the final fitting of the doors more difficult. This was, however, a key design element<\/strong> of the piece so it was worth the trouble. The step at the junctions of the inner rail and stile on each door was another pain. A bigger pain would have been to try to assemble the door pieces in the wrong (impossible) order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a lot of mulling over, I decided to use magnet<\/strong>ic catches. I should have embedded the fixed magnets in the fixed shelf but I made a separate little block for them, which could be removed and replaced if everything did not work out. The catches work nicely but I should not have chickened out on the design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See the convex front edge<\/strong> of the sides? That feature made everything more difficult, especially the final fit of the doors. Does it matter? Yea, I think so; I like the look. It’s just a matter of deciding if it is worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem with one-of-a-kind work<\/strong> is that you never experience all the issues and see the end point until you’re done. Yes, I would have done some things differently if I were to make this again. But I’m not going to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top panels are opalescent art glass<\/strong>. I learned a lot about art glass and glass cutting tools and techniques for this project. I installed the glass with strips that are screwed in place, not nailed as Krenov did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the start, I planned to use Z-clips<\/a> to hang the cabinet. These are essentially metal French cleat hangers but take up only 1\/4″ of depth in the back of the cabinet. They must be accounted for when forming the rabbet for the back panel, including some consideration for walls not being perfectly flat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virtually every project requires learning<\/strong> about a new material, technique, finish, or design element. I enjoy that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spalted big-leaf maple panels<\/strong> were a nice find, and they bookmatched well for spalted wood. Like most well spalted material, there were some soft areas that needed hardening. Protective Coatings PC-Petrifier works well with minimal darkening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the hinges, bright or even brushed brass just would not look right, and the antiquing on the hinges that I bought proved to be delicate, so I blackened them for good with a solution from Rockler<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go through a dozen or more other special issues with this piece but you get the idea<\/strong>. The truth is that there is a lot of thought, time, trouble, and \u2013 is suffering too strong a word? \u2013 in making these things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are these details worth it?<\/strong> How about the specialized tools, finding the right wood, correcting mistakes, refining the design (over and over), finding the way out of construction problems, and on and on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only the maker<\/strong> can answer these questions. That’s the privilege \u2013 and the joy<\/strong> \u2013 that comes with making things. Best wishes for you and your projects. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[32″h x 20″w x 8″d] The curved sides of this cabinet started on the bandsaw, of course, but then I used the #20 compass plane, the RP rasp, and scrapers. The best tool for final truing of the curves was a simple purpose-built sanding shave. This is just a 14″-long stick, about 1″ x 2″, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7188"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7209,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7188\/revisions\/7209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}