Categories
Joinery London Practical techniques

Dry fitting an alcove cabinet

This little job is actually for my best chum, so it needs to be right. I’ve used solid wood on parts that I felt would benefit from being done to a good standard. The doors and face frames are Poplar (Tulipwood here in the UK), but all the other sheets parts are in MDF or MRMDF. There was just a little bit of fitting required for the applied mouldings on the doors. I did that then went to see if this while thing fitted in the corner it was designed for. Thankfully, it did!

I don’t have a mitre saw, so I made up a quick jig for cutting 45-degree mitres for the applied mouldings. The jig was ok, but I realised in use I could have made it longer, in case I make larger doors. Hey-ho, it’s fine for this.
The doors are obviously going to be painted, so looks good enough for me.
All three doors done.
I fitted the doors into the face frame on the bench with 3mm shims all around and shaved where necessary to get an even fit.
Nice, consistent gaps.
On site today and plinth has been fitted at base. Once the job is sprayed, this will be fitted, levelled up and will take out any unevenness in the floor. For now, the cabinet is just resting on it. We will be bringing the electrical sockets into the cabinet later.
In this pic, you can see the face frame needs to come down to cabinet level, so we cut away slots into the skirting. You can cut slots, or take off whole pieces of skirting or cope the face frame over the skirting profiles. Many ways to skin a cat.
Blessed with nice, straight walls here. The plasterer did a good job in the corner.
Face frame in on lower cab. Upper cabinet will be bookshelves and I’ve added side blocks just to help support upper face frame. Probably unnecessary, but it was helpful when the box was on the bench and I was laying on the face frame for measuring.
Doors just popped in with shims for now, but whole design should work well I think. There will also be a narrow length of ogee profile skirting along the bottom.
Upper face frame now in. This took longer to fit, as we had a bit of back and forth trimming for the walls.
All seems to work well. Time to take everything out, fit the hinges for the doors and then disassemble for the sprayer.
Categories
Hand Tools Joinery Practical techniques

A small exterior door project

This door was made for an outhouse. The client wanted an exact copy in timber that would last a little longer than the previous door. I was quite pleased how it turned out and I learned a few things, which is always good.

Not a bad match. The door will shrug off water as the panelling hangs, but I did make the bottom cut off a few degrees, just in the hope of slowing any capillary action. I always treat parts of exterior jobs with Tetrion wood hardener too.

Before I started work on the copy of this door, I wanted to check how the upper corner joints went together, as the client specified an exact match. The ‘long and short’ shoulder joint is what’s used here, as the next shot shows a little better.

Part of the joint has broken off here, but essentially the face of the door that is rebated for panelling has a rebate that is run right through the joint in both stiles and rails. The joint has to accommodate this, so the shoulder one one side reaches further than the other. This picture is not a great illustration, as the chunk of wood behind is part of the rear profile of the stile, but you can see the stepped shoulders of the top rail.

This is a better example! From Charles Hayward’s ‘Woodwork Joints’ book.

My choice of wood for this job was Accoya. A very stable engineered wood, commonly now used in joinery applications, particularly exterior jobs. The timber should experience next to no shrinkage or movement and takes paint well.

Setting out on a kitchen table. Sigh. This job came in while I was searching for a new workshop. I’ve since signed on the new space, but the door had to be made in the interim. Sometimes you just have to ‘make do’. Here’s I’m ganging up the two stiles and marking out for mortices. I already know the thickness of the panel material, as I’ve measured from the existing door.

I treated myself to a Bridge City Tools square some years ago on eBay. It needed a bit of work to clean it up, but nice to have.

When you don’t have a workshop with a strong bench and a mortiser, you have to work out how you are going to cut deep mortises. I wanted to avoid chopping out by hand, as I was restricted to a workbench in the garden. The deep pocket cutter from Wealdon Tools turned out to be a lifesaver.

Plunging the mortises with a Triton TRA001 router and the deep pocket cutter produced a lovely result. I took a deep breath here as things started to look a bit more achievable in the time frame. This joint is the lower rail in the stile, so the mortice is equal both sides. This rail allows to the panelling by being thinner and the panelling simply passes right over it.

Not glued, just cramped up in the hallway so that I can check for square. Thankfully, it was.

I got on with the panelling next. I had already taken the Accoya panelling down to 13mm on a thicknesser at a ‘day-rate’ workshop local to me. I dropped each piece into a simple jig which allowed me to make a tongue on one edge with my bargain Katsu router. (These small routers are one of the best bargains on the internet).

Normally I would expect shiplapped boards on these doors, but the original had tongue and groove fitting. Hence I copied that and using Accoya, there should be little or no shrinkage hopefully.

The stiles are made long, so in this picture you have to imagine them trimmed back to the top of the rail, but you can see that the rebate is run straight through on the stile and the rail. the panelling drops into the rebate and I will add a groove all around the inside of the rebate later. This will mean once I cut a tongue onto the tops of the panelling, all the panels can ‘lock’ into the groove for a snug and strong fit.

The tongue and groove panelling. If this wasn’t Accoya, I would leave a 2mm expansion gap everywhere, but with engineered wood, I’m closing it right up.

Everything locked into the grooves and skew nailed into the rails. The outer strips of panelling have been cut so that they have tongues to go into stile grooves.

Some minor filling here and there and I added a few front nails too, just for good measure. Only because this is going to be a painted job.

Not a bad match. The door will shrug off water as the panelling hangs, but I did make the bottom cut off a few degrees, just in the hope of slowing any capillary action. I always treat parts of exterior jobs with Tetrion wood hardener too.

From the back.

The offset joint on the top corners. Mid and lower rails don’t need this, they are just finished thinner by the depth of the rebate so that the panelling goes over them.