Pictorial progress of entertainment center

[mbcabinetmaker]

Rick

Yes there are at present 9 individual pieces. I am not sure yet if I will leave the header pieces loose for installation of go ahead and attach them to the upper cabinets in the shop. There is a lot going on where the two connect so I'll make that decision a little later on.

I do have a Craig jig. I bought one at the Atlanta IWF (International Woodworking Fair) the first year they came out. They were made of a solid body of aluminum back then instead of plastic. I still us it for installation but the machine I use in the shop is a Castle. http://www.castleusa.com/pocket_joinery.html

Thanks for following the progress.

Mark

[mbcabinetmaker]

I am jumping ahead a little here but we have a lot of ground to cover. There are several moldings to be made for this project and all including the feet stock will be made on my Williams Hussey molder/planer.
http://www.williamsnhussey.com
Here I am making the fluted stock for the fronts of the cabinet. First I run the center flute then reposition the guides and run the other two. It is 3 passes for this molding.

Mark

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[mbcabinetmaker]

Last week in preparation for this thread I made this new jig. I realized my old one was not as safe as it should be. I enlarged the size and added a stop on the front to stop against the table. This is the bottom side showing the miter runners and stop.

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Now I slide it through the blade until it hits the stop, then carefully remove the half that is not clamped, then slide it out of the 520 table, collect the other half and then reload. It is designed to split a 7" square block. I use a lot of these and usually cut a 100 or so at a time. The rip fence is not used for this jig but I forgot to remove it in the second photo.

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[mbcabinetmaker]

Over the years I have developed my own assembly method use a combination of dado's, biscuits, pocket screws, glue & clamps and sometime brads. Easy on those on stain grade cabinetry. I hate to see a stain grade cabinet that looks like it got caught in a rabbit hunt. Our cabinets are paint grade and we are using soft maple for the face frames and doors. The trim is all made from poplar because it machines so well. Here we have the plywood parts all cut out.

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This is a glued frame ready for assembly. I find it easier to glue the frame flat on the bench and clamp the plywood work piece in the vice and insert the biscuits. I forgot to take that photo but you get the picture. This cabinet has no finished ends so we can use biscuits with pocket screw between them and don't have to clamp.

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This is our center cabinet that steps out 2" so the ends are finished. Here we will use biscuits and clamps. Buy the way I have dadoed all ends to accept the bottoms.

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Now we are ready to sand. I start with the belt sander with 100 grit. Careful
now no dipping and watch the cross grain! I then use 100 and then 120 grits with the random orbit sanders. If this were stain grade I would also do a final sanding with 150.

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All sanded and stacked. Now for the fun stuff. A ton of trim.

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One final word on sanding. Break (or ease) all the edges with a piece of 120 held in your hand.

Mark

[mbcabinetmaker]

Today I will start the trim on the cabinets starting with the English bead around the inside of the face frames. First I would like to share with you a jig I designed for the purpose of cutting smaller trim pieces. It clamps or screws to the miter saw table and works much to the same principle as a zero clearance throat plate would on a Mark 5 - 510 - 520 or a table saw.

I start with a 6" piece of plywood 8' long and run a 3/4 inch dado down the
middle. I then attach a 2" high fence into this dado.

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I attach cleats on the bottom that straddle the bed on my miter saw.

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My saw is a slider with a flip up lock to adjust the blade height. You might have to modify this design for a conventional saw but the objective here is to work safely. I once got hit between the eyes from a small piece of molding flung from the saw. Had it gotten me in the eye it would have been verrry bad.

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Now you see why I have the fence or back stop in the center. I use this jig a lot and rebuild it often when the cuts in the fence become sloppy.

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Go to the next post for a picture of the finished product

Mark

[mbcabinetmaker]

I find that it works best to set this up with 64" to the left of the blade as that is the side used for the stop.

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Would you look at that ! Its 8:45 and I haven't made it to the shop yet. Gotta go.

Mark

[mbcabinetmaker]

I made good progress today on the trim .This is my method for cutting and applying the English bead. I actually cut it back wards on the jig as you can see in this picture. This piece is for the bottom of the cabinet so first I make this cut.

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Next I hold the cut side against the face frame and mark the other side at the intersection of the other face frame. I then mark it B for bottom.

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Now its back to the jig and align the mark on the work piece with the cut in the jig.

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I will cut all four pieces at one time and do a dry fit inside the frame. Then I remove the pieces and apply a little glue to the inside of the frame with a 1/2 inch artist brush with short bristles. I then re-install the pieces and fasten with 1 inch brads. I fill and sand these holes.


Next post a finished cabinet.

Mark

[mbcabinetmaker]

All four pieces of English bead installed.

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[mbcabinetmaker]

OK there have been no questions for a while so I'll just assume I am doing a good job explaining things.

Our next step is attaching some blocks for the concealed hinges to mount to. These blocks are 3" x 3" x 11/2" thick and are glued, clamped, and screwed to the back of the frames.

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Mark

[mbcabinetmaker]

Next step is the fluted boards on the fronts of the cabinets. With these we have some minor design conflicts to over come. The design of this cabinet was a brainstorming between the builder and homeowner. Both new costumers for me I wanted to be very accommodating so I mostly listened. Now all I have to do is work through the problems.

First we have the face frame. Next we are stacking a fluted board on that. Next we are stacking a furniture style foot and a piece of trim on that. I want to block off the portion of the fluted board that the foot stacks on.

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This is a scrap piece of our foot and stretcher molding.

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This is the profile of the foot and the template for the cutout well do a little later.

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Mark

And those are my work boots!:D