WIP : Tall Storage Unit

[Ironballs]

You can almost see the small oak forest that is my chair in component form behind there.

If you drag this one out a bit Bill you'll be able to enter it in the next compo

 

[Dave S]

Now that is looking very interesting. I must admit I had stuggled until now to visualise this, but now I see it I like it.

Looking forward to seeing the conclusion.

cheers
Dave

 

[Mattty]

Good to see you back Billy. Those panels look great. Keep the pics coming.

 

[wobblycogs]

Wow :shock:, I wasn't convinced I'd like this piece earlier in the thread but I absolutely love that design now it's mostly together. I thought there would be too many different types of wood but they complement one another beautifully. Hope you will post some larger pictures of the finished piece.

 

[billw]

Blimey - 3 months since I posted anything! Well there HAS been some progress, slow to say the least but I am now at the stage where I can start to appy a finish to some of the components ready for it to be glued up.

The walnut is being given a coat of boiled linseed oil before the whole thing is lacquered.

Only things left to be made are the door handles, and the strips to go across the top and bottom door panels. The hingeshave been bought and I just need to do the rebates to fit them in.

So - here are the latest images.


A close up of the doors - the top and middle panels. The middle is chestnut.

Looking down on the doors (this is all dry fit)

The front - the panel you can see to the right is the back panel - for these photos I'd not fitted the back or top panels but then again you can't see either of them!

And finally from the side

There's been a few "design changes" along the way, mainly to cover up mistakes - the through tenons were changed so that the end was at the same angle as the pegs which I think looks good.

There's about 5 weeks left before the end of term, at which point I am hoping it is all pretty much constructed and has its linseed oil coating on.

It's half-term this week so there won't be any more progress - of course if I had put any thought into it I'd have brought some pieces home and applied the finish to them.

 

[billw]

Another update - no pics this time though as I forgot to take some!

I've given the main carcass a coating of boiled linseed oil and it's all looking quite marvellous, next step is to get it lacquered but I need to wait for some tutoring on the subject before I attempt it.

The doors are now glued up and they need a bit of sanding before the linseed oil is applied, then I'll need to fix on the ebony detailing and handles.

I'm not too far away from finishing it now, hopefully get it all done by the end of next term so I can bring it home before the summer.

 

[billw]

An update with some pics.

First the carcass - this is with one coat of boiled linseed oil, it needs touching up in a few places where the wood's suffered from tear out that I opted not to try and resolve because it was just going to be too much hassle.

I'm using pivot hinges as that's what the original piece used. They weren't cheap but they are gorgeous (and sadly about 90% hidden from view!)

Here's the pics of the hinges in the carcass, not screwed in yet as they'll go in once the lacquer's on.

And finally, here's the doors - sadly I have realised I've got them the wrong way round, so the RH door is the one on the left! The bars across the panels are ebony, and have been fitted flush with the outer frame, they go into the frame by 15mm on either side of the centre panels.

List of things to do

1. Finish off fitting the hinges to the doors (bit of tidying up after the grooves were routed) and check doors for initial fit.

2. Apply linseed oil to walnut parts of doors

3. Glue ebony bars to doors. Make handles and fix to doors.

4. Finish off the shelves

5. Fit the blocks that the floor panel will sit on.

6. Lacquer it

I've realised how long this has taken me to make, but in reality I only get to spend 3 hours a week on it, and of that 3 hours I would suspect only 2 of them on average were productive, so 60-ish weeks at 2 hours = 120 hours to make. This does include making lots of mistakes!

 

[billw]

Fitted the doors today.

They don't meet in line at the top and there's a 5mm gap between them down the middle. Every piece of wood that could be warped is warped, wasn't noticeable until you attempt to fit them together.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry. Will post pics tomorrow.

 

[billw]

Very much feel like I'm talking to myself :shock:

So here's the doors fitted. They were a bit too tall, so I skimmed a bit off each of them to accommodate the hinges. Sadly For whatever reason one of the doors wasn't entirely square and the cut has made a delightful triangular gap appear at the top of it. Too late now, live and learn stuff that.

The worst thing is that dry fitting the doors shows they fitted OK. Now there's a chuffing huge gap between them. Where did that come from :shock:

My solutions currently under consideration are

1. ignore it, it's not getting sold and I'm more proud of the fact I managed to create something half decent than I am embarrassed about it not being perfect

2. Simply re-drill the screw holes for the hinges on the doors (or the frames) and move the hinges in by 1mm each side, which should just about halve the gap without making the gaps at the side seem enormous, indeed at one side there's absolutely no gap at all, so i could possibly extend to 1.5mm there.

3. On the inside edge of each door, fit a lip of ebony, which will then curve outward from the edge around the middle to form the handles of the doors. A nice little touch, and I can sand down the lips to meet perfectly, even though the edges wouldn't be 100% straight I think the variance would be barely noticeable.

One of the issues is that the two uprights at the front are warped - they both warp the same way so one is pressing against the door and one is bending away from the other.

I had planned to use a middle shelf as a way of pulling the two together and it does to some degree work, although not brilliantly. It rectifies the issues of the gaps on the outside edge of the doors rather than the inside.

I did have thoughts about entering this in the F&C competition that's going on at the moment, but that gap on the top of the RHS door has dented my confidence!

 

[TrimTheKing]

You're not on your own bill, I'm here with you, in spirit

Is it definitely the doors that are out? Have you checked the internal diagonals at the front to see whether there's a bit of squint in the frame?

A packing piece down the middle, sculpted to take the handles would be a good solution.

You could always take the doors off, get them to fit the opening, then lip all of the door edges to take out the gaps, the plane back to fit...

Keep at it lad, nearly there :wink:

 

[woodbloke]

Fitted the doors today.

They don't meet in line at the top and there's a 5mm gap between them down the middle. Every piece of wood that could be warped is warped, wasn't noticeable until you attempt to fit them together.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry. Will post pics tomorrow.

This piece had the potential to be visually stunning, but there were some fundamental errors made. Crucially, the timber wasn't conditioned enough. It may have been technically dry but I suspect that it was machined too soon down to the finished size. I always, always bring timber down to within a couple of mm of finished and then leave it for at least six weeks...if it's going to do anything, that's when it'll do it and you can then sort it out before bringing it down to the final size, preferably by skimming it with a hand plane or very fine cuts on the p/t.
It's clear to me also that the time element seemed to be rushed as it was done in a limited period each week at college with all the pressures that this sort of situation will inevitably bring.
Thirdly, I've said this many times but will say it again...making an heirloom piece like this is as much about thinking your way through the project as in actually making it. Had you stopped for 30 minutes and made a brew whilst you contemplated the right way to show those doors, you wouldn't have fitted them the wrong way round!
I'd get the piece finished as best you can and then take stock of the process of making and where it went TU...hopefully you can chalk it up to experience :wink: - Rob

 

[TrimTheKing]

Had you stopped for 30 minutes and made a brew whilst you contemplated the right way to show those doors, you wouldn't have fitted them the wrong way round!

They're not the wrong way round are they?

I understood it to mean that he had photographed them the wrong way round initially. If you look at the latest set of pics then they are oriented differently on these than the pics where he mentions having them the wrong way round.

:duno:

 

[woodbloke]

Had you stopped for 30 minutes and made a brew whilst you contemplated the right way to show those doors, you wouldn't have fitted them the wrong way round!

They're not the wrong way round are they?

I understood it to mean that he had photographed them the wrong way round initially. If you look at the latest set of pics then they are oriented differently on these than the pics where he mentions having them the wrong way round.

:duno:

Might be Mark...I'll go back and have a looksee - Rob

 

[billw]

Yeah I photographed them the wrong way round, they're fitted correctly.

 

[Mattty]

Looking great mate. The door panel timber is amazing!

 

[billw]

Fitted the doors today.

They don't meet in line at the top and there's a 5mm gap between them down the middle. Every piece of wood that could be warped is warped, wasn't noticeable until you attempt to fit them together.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry. Will post pics tomorrow.

This piece had the potential to be visually stunning, but there were some fundamental errors made. Crucially, the timber wasn't conditioned enough. It may have been technically dry but I suspect that it was machined too soon down to the finished size. I always, always bring timber down to within a couple of mm of finished and then leave it for at least six weeks...if it's going to do anything, that's when it'll do it and you can then sort it out before bringing it down to the final size, preferably by skimming it with a hand plane or very fine cuts on the p/t.
It's clear to me also that the time element seemed to be rushed as it was done in a limited period each week at college with all the pressures that this sort of situation will inevitably bring.

Those two points are pretty much connected - if I waited for timber to condition what would I do with 6 weeks of my term? The term's only 10 weeks long to start with so losing 6 waiting for timber to dry would be a killer

 

[billw]

You could always take the doors off, get them to fit the opening, then lip all of the door edges to take out the gaps, the plane back to fit...

Keep at it lad, nearly there :wink:

I like that idea - quite a bit of work though!

I think going down the middle with ebony might just work - or I could of course use another piece of walnut but my thoughts were that it would look a bit "glued on" whereas using ebony would make it look more as if it was intentional than a botch job!

 

[TrimTheKing]

You could always take the doors off, get them to fit the opening, then lip all of the door edges to take out the gaps, the plane back to fit...

Keep at it lad, nearly there :wink:

I like that idea - quite a bit of work though!

I think going down the middle with ebony might just work - or I could of course use another piece of walnut but my thoughts were that it would look a bit "glued on" whereas using ebony would make it look more as if it was intentional than a botch job!

Shouldn't be too much work.

Just decide on how thick you want the lipping around the edges (for example 10mm). Square up doors to same size. Cut back by 7mm all round. Then plane to fit the doors. Should be able to do that in double quick time if you size the lipping right to leave yourself with the minimum amount of planing to do to fettle it.

 

[woodbloke]

Those two points are pretty much connected - if I waited for timber to condition what would I do with 6 weeks of my term? The term's only 10 weeks long to start with so losing 6 waiting for timber to dry would be a killer

...and therein lies one, or possibly the main area of concern...time :wink: For severial years I used to run an evening class during term time and this was always the issue with students...ie: can I get it finished and out the door during term time?
I'd suggest that you have two projects on the go, the large one where the timber has to condition fully in the 'shop and a smaller one (say a casket...plenty of work in those) that you could tuck under your arm at the end of a session and take home. Whilst you're waiting for the big stuff to settle down, you've got something smaller to be working on where the timber is fully conditioned as you'd be storing it at home - Rob

 

[billw]

Aye, my wife would be absolutely delighted in me having a whole production line of unfinished projects :wink: