Wardrobe, Part 3

Resuming this build series from Part 2, I'd just finished dry filling the side & back panels. As I was fitting the back panel, the reality of its size became apparent... this was going to be a pretty big build...

Thankfully, the fit went well. One of the things you might notice in the above photos is a little bit of discoloration on the stiles. That is just the tannins in the oak reacting to the environment. It is a "flaw" unless I was doing some very dark coloration to the wood. But my planed finish was a sort of medium, and the discoloration would be visible. But I decided to work with it anyway, and even with some other "less than perfect" material, because I wanted to approach this from a practical "we need a wardrobe" perspective, rather than a "this should be in a gallery or museum" standard. I want to embrace that approach more in my work - making good furniture with great craftsmanship, but not getting obsessive about getting a glass finish on the underside the feet. Any examination of fantastic pieces in museums, historic homes, etc, will show you that is the approach craftsmen of yore took - the backs of cases, the underside of drawers are usually raw and unfinished. Our modern "every single unseen surface should be gallery perfect" approach is over the top, and I hope to remain practical in that light.

To that end, I put the slightly "off" pieces and parts in places that would rarely, if ever be seen, and have no effect on the functionality of the piece. Here's an example of the pieces I used for the bottom panel; there was a nail removal chunk (done by the sawyers) missing from the middle of the glued up panel. Instead of ditching the material, I did a patch repair, and that area is on the underside of the bottom of the wardrobe. Good luck lifting up this huge, fully loaded wardrobe and seeing that.

Next, I did more panels, this time the two large doors. The same as the sides and back. I saved the prettiest pieces and panels for the doors - the most visible part of the piece.

With all the panels dry fit, it was time to get into the PITA part of doing solid panels vs plywood panels (discussed in Part 1) - finishing the panels before assembly (as well as the inner edges of the frames). I got all the parts labeled, knocked apart, and ready to go.

twelve panels

a zillion rails & stiles

The finishing process was some light shade of brown water based dye, followed by several coats of amber shellac. I had to come up with a way to store the twelve panels as they dried, as well as the zillion rails and stiles. The rails and stiles just ended up on my "assembly table" (aka, my table saw + outfeed table), and the panels ended up in this dowels + 2x4 rack I improvised. The rack worked well, as I shellacked one face at a time, left it it dry, then did the other face.

dowels and 2x4 drying rack

inner edges of the rails & stiles being finished

This took a while to do, and with some real life interruptions, longer than I liked. But after the finishing was done, glue up & assembly went fine. And that's how the wardrobe stayed, for a long time, as other projects cut in line ahead of it. More in part 4...

wardrobe pieces (doors, sides, back, top, bottom, and inner divider) taking up shop space - I ended up stumbling over them and moving them back and forth, working around them, for the next several months. 

Resuming Shortly

It's been a few months since the blog was updated. In that time, I've been woodworking a lot, with many completed projects, some new tools and new techniques to report on. Stay tunes, and I'll start getting those posted.

Not a Myth - Wood Moves

This weekend, humidity in the Chicago area was hovering around 94%, and its been between pretty high for the whole month of August. With extremes like these, it's been a great change to see the effect of wood movement on my past projects, and hopefully learn to better appreciate this unstoppable force.

One of my biggest, and earliest woodworking projects was to build a full set of kitchen cabinets when we re-did our kitchen. The design has 33 cabinet doors, 17 drawers, and face frames, all made from flat sawn red oak (and then the standard plywood boxes and drawer bodies). As this was early in my woodworking journey, I didn't have the level of appreciation for choosing proper grain direction that I do now. The frame and panel doors were made with plywood panels, a few with glass, and stub tenons & grooves (as opposed to full mortise & tenon joinery). The potential was high for them to move over time. But so far, I've been lucky: just a few of the 33 doors have moved a bit. Let's look at them...

This first photo shows the bottom inside edge of this door getting swollen, to the point where some force is needed to close it. It's also tight on the bottom edge. The door facing it is fine, however.

swollen at the bottom, making it hard to close

This pair of doors have also expanded towards each other, making for a tight fit. If I close the tow of them together, they close tightly. If one is closed, I can't close the other.

tight here

can't close one at a time

This door has twisted, so that the lower corner is "in" about 1/4" inch.

do the twist

And the rest of the doors and drawers are fine. 4 out of 33 is not bad for blindly picking wood without careful attention to grain. Of these 4, now might be a good time (at the point of maximum expansion) to trim the 3 "swollen" ones down to where they are just barely working smoothly again, knowing that they'll be fine as it shrinks, and for the next time it gets humid again. Now is the time to deal with this, as It's impossible to guess how much of a gap to leave in the dry seasons. For the one door that's twisted, I have to either live with it, or re-make it, this time being conscientious of the material.

Also in the kitchen, we have some birch laminated slabs for the counter tops, and two of them meet at a right angle. In the winter, there is as much as a 3/16" gap at this joint. But now, they are tight. They're only butted up to each other, and attached to the base cabinets with clips, allowing them to move.

that's tight!

Last year, I built a window bench / banquette, with batten supported lid/seats. These were fitting perfectly then, but looking at them today, the tops have moved about 1/4", and now stick out proud from the "side" pieces, who's grain is oriented 90° from the lids...

sticking out

The obvious fix here is to remove the lids from the piano hinges, shave some length off the back (where the lack of finish will not be seen) and re-attach them. I think I'll have to be careful not to cut them perfectly flush now, as they will shrink again, and be uneven the other direction. I'll have to opt for a happy medium, somewhere in between.

Here's an example of how good design can compensate wood movement. On the mission pedestal table I built last year, the wide tops have indeed expanded. But the movement is only visible where the the edges of the skirts are pushed apart, on the underside edge of the table. The table top still looks good, with the two halves coming together tightly. If I had built the top and skirt to fit tightly during of high humidity, the opposite might have happened during the dry season: the skirt pieces would have been flush, and the gap between the two halves would have opened, which would have been ugly.

a gap, but down where only furniture nerds will see it

The lesson from all this is not to think wood movement is theoretical, or can't happen to you. It's not, it can, and it will. It's therefore a good idea to take the time to examine the things you've built, and take note of how well, or how poorly, your earlier designs have held up under the extremes of humidity, and build your future projects accordingly. I'll revisit this in the middle of winter when things are bone dry, and we'll compare how the piece have moved, looking at both the fixes and the pieces that I left alone. Fingers crossed. However, as we're talking about wood, there's never going to a perfect fit. The wood will move, and our furniture must move with it. Hopefully, joints won't crack, doors won't stick, and boards won't twist, but when (not if) they do, take it into account, and learn from it.

A tool cabinet, not a tool display case

A couple of years ago, I got around to making a wall-hanging tool cabinet to store my hand tools. It was made from red oak, with birch plywood for the panels, and while not pretty, did a good job at holding my tools. The design came from the countless other wall hanging tool cabinets I'd seen posted here and there in the world of online woodworking, and I was pretty pleased with the result. Over the following months, I adjusted the tool holders, added more tools, moved other around, and fiddled with it until it became pretty full. More importantly, it became more useful, as I was more comfortable with where everything was stored, it was easy to reach for what I needed, sometimes without looking. It was also easy to know when I had forgotten to put a tool back into place.

But I screwed up on one of the most important things about a tool cabinet - closing the doors. I was so pleased with how the cabinet was set up, and seeing my modest but nice array of tools, that I left the doors open not only when I was working, but also when I was not. I liked walking into the shop for another session, and seeing my tools smiling back at me, all in their nice holders, all in order, ready to go. I felt fine about things. In fact, sometime last year, I'd even purchased one of those rust inhibitor stick-ups, the kind that releases a rust inhibiting vapor, and put it in the case. Of course, those only work in a closed space, and not sitting near my tools in an open cabinet.

And then, recently, I started to see it: little black spots here and there on a chisel, or the sole of a plane, or the blade of a saw. Where there was once jew a few, after  while there were quite a few more, and I realized I was starting to have a rust problem. I knew about the theory of protecting my tools from rust, sure, but in the first several years of woodworking, I really hadn't seen it appear on any of my new tools, or on my used/vintage new-to-me tools, after cleaning the rust off them when first acquired.

Bullfrog vapor corrosion inhibitor

So, feeling like a fool, I resolved to slay the beast. I spent all of one afternoon going over every single tool in the cabinet, removing any rust spots, or soon-to-be rust spots, using an abrasive pad and WD-40, then cleaning the remaining parts of each tool, wiping them all over with a WD-40 covered rag. The proceeded to vacuum out the insides of the cabinet, wiping it down with a tack cloth until it was dust free. And finally, I proceeded to place everything back, and even replaced the long since uselessly depleted Bull Frog vapor corrosion inhibitor. And then I  CLOSED THE CABINET DOORS.

That evening, with dirty hands, some messy rags, and feeling stupid, I vowed to not be such and idiot. Not only do I now keep those cabinet doors closed when I'm not using the tools, I also make a point to brush and blow any dust off each tool before I put it away, and wipe the metal surfaces it with an oiled rag - stuff I should have been doing all along. Airborne dust and salt settling on your tools attracts water, and that is where the rust comes in. Its pervasive, and one of the dustier places has to be a woodshop. So, yeah, finally, I'm serious about establishing good habits to keep the rust monster at bay. And I can get by without seeing the spread of nice tools all in a row, knowing they're well protected.

After all, its a tool cabinet, not a tool display case. 

Not pretty, and that one door hangs a little crooked, but at least they're closed.