Progress on the Nightstands

[OFWW]

Are you speaking of S4S? I have found boards supposedly like that and the only way they could say that was because to boards were cut down to shadows of their former selves. We have a couple hardwood inside lumber stores that I was planning on using for that as well as the ff.

Even Woodcraft sucked with what little they stock, and the box stores only sell unfinished "Bows" IYKWIM.

There I am learning still from the end grain, and also from what little stock I have at home. Related to this is the center of the door, the panels. I have read that it is better to join boards rather than use just one (like for raised panels) to eliminate warping, and best to use a good plywood, but then my options are reduced to a flat panel from what little I know, but a very stable door over the years that way. If so I could still make the cathedral frame I would imagine.

In all of this the end product is to be painted white per the boss, and Leon did mention a while back two different woods that would show very little grain when painted. Wouldn't it be possible to M&T the door frame with the arched top? Any additional thoughts would be appreciated.

I do have a 6" jointer/planer, a 12" planer that I am working the kinks out of, and of course a TS, BS, etc, along with a few planes, and hand tools, plus a router table, cast iron, but I am going to build a larger one soon. So it wouldn't cost much to try and see how it goes. I have been keeping track of the costs since if I can find a really decent set of cabinets for not much more than the wood it would seem foolish to let pride stand in the way.

I have noticed that most of the router slop is in the housings allowing the motor assy to shift about 3/1000 of an inch, side to side, and in one case it was the router motor bearings themselves that were at fault. I was making a simple art frame easel, double sided, for my grand kids when I first noticed the inconsistency that you are speaking of. The flip clamp on those that have a split base helps to lock it in place.

Seems like you are saying a router is fine for decorations, not for fitment.?

In all seriousness it wouldn't break my heart to stay away from that particular router bit setup, do to all the variations one needs to adjust the bit to, just to make a hidden tenon. And it would strike me that the most reasonable way would be to buy several sets of them so you could have each bit permanently set for each phase of the Job, but then I'd of spent half the money for a domino tool and only be able to use the bits just from cabinet door joints. :(

Yes, I was planning on making a few "toy' doors of whatever variety to set up a plan of attack as well as increase my comfort level with the processes.

Like Mike said, good luck with that! But yes, I would go to looking

Certainly something to consider, for sure. Just getting the right wood alone would be half the battle.

[Leon]

If you have the ability now to surface your material to a consistent thickness there is S2S, S3S, S2SR1, to name a few. Years ago I bought S2S to save money. Now that I sell most of what I build so I opt for S4S and pass the added cost on to the customer. It requires too much of my time to buy random width and hunt for which pieces can come out of which stock. S4S delivers to me precisely 3/4" thick, not 13/16", and the same width. My optimization programs take over from there.

S4S is typically the best but not guaranteed to be flat or straight. I go to the lumber yard and hand pick each piece. And typically the lumber yard is going to have the better pricing and quality.

Look at the local lumber yards.

If you are talking about solid wood panels it is difficult to find and or not economical to pay a premium to go with a single solid piece of wood for a panel. Assuming that the panel is going to be more than

8~10" wide. So gluing up is going to be how most go. IMHO a wide solid panel is not likely to warp if it has not already done so. It will be important to seal all edges and front and back so that it does not absorb moisture more in one area than the other. I try to finish as soon after milling especially if changing the thickness or if I make the panels into raised panels. And if you change the thickness try to take an even amount from both sides. I have seen wood warp pretty quickly in humid conditions when I only resurface one side.

Optionally you can go with plywood as this material is very stable but you are limited to plain flat unless you added some trim moldings to dress it up.

One other thing to consider with your doors that will receive glass. I build my glass door frames very similar to the way I build my cabinet back face frames. I use a lap joint for the corners and have recessed rabbet on the back side. Then I let my glass guy cut the glass and use a silicone like caulk sealant to glue the glass in place. No need for moldings to hold it in place and not glass rattle and the glass helps to stiffen up the door.

BUT as Swingman said, you are going to be doing special milling on these door parts. Consistent thickness, straight and flat stock helps you to mill correctly and gives much better results. It is always best to use flat straight stock but especially on a door.

Certainly or use the method I described earlier. Just cut your arch after cutting your mortises and or cutting the tenons on the ends of the rails.

With the jointer and planer you can buy rough cut wood but I would advise to buy all of your wood up front with room for waste and mill everything at the same time. You do not want to have to go back and surface plane a couple more boards and be trying to get the exact same thickness.

A router is fine for cutting tenons, groves for narrow plywood panels not so much. This was what I used before getting a nice dado set. Now the router set is more trouble unless you simply can't use anything else such as the rail and stile bit sets.

There is that and also router bit simply do not stay sharp very long and when matched sets are resharpened they don't often produces results like they did when new. Those 2 or 3 carbide cutters on each bit are removing a lot of material. And it should go with out saying you want to be using 1/2" shank bits when ever possible.

Yes it is. ;~)

[dadiOH]

IMO, your biggest problem is not going to be making the things, it will be the finishing. I'm assuming, since they are for the kitchen and that you will want gloss or semi-gloss. I'm also assuming, given the amount of work to get to that point, that you will want a close to flawless paint job. Very tough to do.

I have yet to encounter a wood that won't show grain when painted. I have yet to find a router bit that will leave a paintable surface. In reality, the wood used doesn't make much difference because you need a flawless surface on TOP of the wood before you paint and to do that you need a high build, easy sanding primer, maybe some filler* too. Years ago,when I was living on my sailboat, Interlux had a (pricy) gem. No longer available, best I have currently found is this...

It needs to be sanded PERFECTLY smooth and it is hard to tell when the sanding is perfect. Fingers and ears** are better than eyes. 3M flexible sanding sponges help a lot on curvy areas. Once sanded, a color coat which is then sanded off can help show primed areas that need more work.

When ready for the final topcoats, spray is needed. If you topcoat with an oil base paint, it can be rubbed out and polished; ditto white lacquer. Not much oil paint anymore, acrylic sands like bubble gum. Rattle cans will work. _______________________

*you can make a good filler with shellac and talc ** ears because you can hear the difference (when sanding) between sanded and unsanded areas. With a mechanical sander, there is a difference in the way the sander moves.

[-MIKE-]

They way you described this I thought it must be their version of Zinsser BIN which is shellac based. But in reading the tech notes, I saw nothing about shellac.

I learned about BIN in here and it is my go-to primer when I need a super smooth surface over wood that can be "level sanded."

Question: Have you used BIN and if so, how does it stack up against this product?

[dadiOH]

It is water base. I have used BIN but it has been so long ago that I can't make a valid comparison. I can tell you that...

1. this has a LOT of talc (very heavy)
2. dries to sandable in about 2 hours or less, depending on thickness, temp, humidity, etc.
3. self levels fairly well
4. sticks well

5.sands to powder easily.

Buy a quart and see. I'd like to know how it compares to BIN too :)

[dadiOH]

Also, I got on to it when I was making black face frames. It is very thick in the can, I watered it way down for the FF so I could spray it with Preval cans. The FF were already in decent shape, a thin coat meant less sanding and worked fine.

[dadiOH]

Whoops, no talc, calcium carbonate. That works too :)

[Swingman]

BIN, sprayed with HVLP on plywood and poplar:

(scroll to right to see the painted surface)

[OFWW]

Thanks for the link and the info. I saved it for future use.

When reading the recommendations I saw the comments on Zinnso (SP) primer, and the one that sanded like bubble gum. I called them on that product because it never "set up" after two weeks it was still tacky and the paint would just roll when sanded. Supposedly the tackiness was to allow the top coats to bond much better, and they did have another sealer, primer to use, somewhere in my notes I should still have their recommendations on how to get the primer off, and use the other version. I was fit to be tied, lost a month on that project.

[-MIKE-]

I remember those picture when BIN was first suggested to me. I used it (still do) to prime and paint the cut edges of high grade MDF panels. I was very impressed with how it soaked in, hardened, and sanded smooth on the cut "end grain" edges. I think I could've stopped at two coats but probably went to four on some edges, simply because it dried so fast. It builds up nicely and obviously takes paint as well as anything.

[nailshooter41]

Just a comment, Mike. Hopefully a helpful one!

BIN is my favorite primer and has been my go to for many years. SW has fin ally come out with a valid competitor, but that's another post.

BIN is NOT a building finish. In fact, too much BIN is a very bad thing. When applied properly, BIN is a semi-permeable finish that allows the top c oats of finish to penetrate it (also known as a bondable substrate) and get to the surface underneath. It is tempting to build with BIN because it sa nds so easily, but that is not it's purpose.

In fact, Rustoleum/BIN recommends only one coat applied at about 3mm, to fi nish out at around 1.5mm when dried. I had it on good authority from someon e I trusted that too much BIN would foul the top coat's abrasion resistance (substrate too soft)and that it would also diminish the ability of the top coat to bond as paint couldn't penetrate the multiple coats of BIN. I did n't believe it.

However, back in the lab (several houses and years ago after spraying out c abinets) I decided to try that idea out on scraps as it was certainly easy enough to do. Now I believe it; take it from me, it's true in both cases. Mike Marlow and I have discussed the value of reading the application info as well as the MSDS many, many times. I remember I went to the site, and there it was in writing that Rust/BIN recommends only on coat of product.

If find yourself in a project where you need some pore/grain/rough surface filling, I would strongly recommend this product.

I have used it extensively. The amount of solids per gallon works out to a bout 75% more (!!!!) than in BIN and part of its design intent is to be a f iller/primer. Like BIN solvent base, this has titanium dioxide as its fill er material, so it sands very well and looks like BIN when applied. You ca n roll this easily, brush it or spray it. If you spray, use a large tip gu n and plenty of pressure as this isn't a job for HVLP. Also, the lower vis cosity and high amount of solids can be a gun eater, so I shoot mine out of an inexpensive CAS gun from HF, and it shoots very well.

Just a quick warning on the BIN solvent based product.

Robert

[-MIKE-]

^^^^ MORE great info from this guy, here. ^^^^ Thanks, Robert, I didn't know about the one-coat thing with BIN. It's never been a problem so far, but if I need to build again in the future I'll try the SW.

[Puckdropper]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

*snip*

*snip*

3mm is just shy of 1/8". Did you mean 3 mil?

Puckdropper

[nailshooter41]

I absolutely did! Thanks for correcting that. I have had guns on the brain lately due to some recent activities, and everything was mm, not mil.

Robert

[Leon]

Damn!I have a lot of sanding to do to remove most of that 3mm now.

[nailshooter41]

LOL! Fear not, brother Leon. As a Knight of the Royal Order of the Gremlin Green, thou hast The Mighty Sword of Rotex in you scabbard. It will make short work of bad advice!

Robert

[OFWW]

I'm curious, what about the edging on plywood if primed and sanded.

[OFWW]

Now that's funny.

[Leon]

Thanks for appearing to be only human every once in a while Robert. Ye'ole master of fini'chen.

[Swingman]

Wobbit, you too esspensive ...