the town my mom lives in, but since
we're all moving now makes the name seem
a poor choice. Anyway. It's intended as a
decorative storage cabinet that sits below a mounted
television in my mom's condo. It's made from
sapele, ambrosia maple, and ebony. I really
tried to use the wood grain in some
cool ways on this piece and it was
super fun to build. So let's dig in.
I made some MDF templates that I'll use
throughout the build and they'll come in real
handy for layout. The goal whenever possible,
is to find grain that naturally follows the
curves of the work pieces. It can be
tricky and sometimes wasteful to do this,
but I personally think that it's worth it.
For this top rail, I found a thicker
piece with a gentle curve and I just
resaw that in half and flip the
pieces so that they not only follow the
appropriate curves but are also a book match.
It's subtle but cool. So now I'll start
milling the cabinet frame and legs to final size.
I won't be cutting any curves just yet.
Next up we can mortise the legs.
I have a bunch of mortices of various
sizes so I lay them out carefully and
do the cutting with a plunge router and
an edge guide. The bit is a quarter
inch, up spiral. Notice I'm using an additional
piece clamped to the work piece for extra
support and before anyone says, why didn't you,
why don't you? You should have or blah
blah domino. This build is a guild course
and in the guild I'd like to show
a variety of techniques with a strong focus
on the most accessible methods and don't worry
the domino will make an appearance later.
The rails also need mortises and they're
a little bit trickier to do So I
made a very simple little jig from plywood
and scraps the jig holds the work piece
securely while still giving me a nice reference
surface for my router. Works like a charm.
Yeah baby. Now the mortises need some
tenons so I'll plane some stock down to
a quarter inch and then round over the
edges. These long sticks can then be cut
into individual tenons and hey look at that.
It's a bottle of Titebond II! Just
thought I'd mention that. No reason. Now you
don't have to do this. But I like
to pre glue the tenons into the rails.
This makes the dry assembly quite a bit
less floppy and reduces the number of mortises
I have to worry about in the
final glue up. Next up, I'll cut a
series of grooves for our panels.
There are two side panels and one back panel.
The cabinet has a bottom panel so I'll
use the table saw to make those grooves.
Where the bottom rails meet the legs,
we need to extend the grooves to accommodate the panel.
Looking groovy. After a quick
measurement. I'll cut the bottom panel to size.
To help prevent damaging the rails, I'll ease
the corners of the panel and a little
dry assembly to make sure everything's doing what
it's supposed to do. I think that's it.
Next up the doors. I'll cut the parts
to rough size then use my templates to
finalize the size and shape.
Since I already showed how to make the joint using a
router this time I will use the domino.
The top rail gets a notch cut out
that still allows the domino to fit and
puts the mortises where they need to
be. Without the notch there just won't be
enough mortise left after the curve is cut,
the door stiles can be cut using the
domino and the domino dock from my buddy
Ramon Valdez it's a pretty cool device.
To finalize the shape of the door parts,
I'll attach the template using CA glue
and blue tape and then flush trim at the router table.
The doors have panels so
I'll cut the grooves using a slot cutting
bit. On curved edges, there's really no better
way to get the job done.
Hey look! More Titebond!
Alright so let's make ourselves some ambrosia maple panels.
I'll flatten the three quarter inch stock and then re saw it
in half to make the book matched panels.
By the way, the streaking that you see
in ambrosia maple is actually caused by beetle
infestations. I'm also cutting enough stock for the
sides and the back panels And one thing
that's funny about woodworkers is that we often
know what's going to happen, we've seen it
happen, we know it's probably gonna happen again,
but we soldier on reveling in our stupidity
in hopes that maybe just maybe this time
will be different. Oh, balls too much pressure.
The door panels need to get their shape
from the inner perimeter of the door.
So I'll use the door itself to draw
it out and then cut to final size.
A little test fit and it's looking pretty good.
Before final assembly, I'll sand the door
parts, add some gentle profiles and then apply
a cool little detail to the joinery areas.
We usually want this to be crisp and
continuous, but this time I'm intentionally rounding it
over to create a sweet little shadow line.
Oh baby. Yes. Now for the final glue
up, I'm using Titebond's liquid hide glue.
I honestly don't know why I don't use
this more often. It gives you extra working
time. It's reversible with heat and moisture and
it cleans up easily with water. Yeah,
I should probably use this more. With the
doors glued together. I'll test the fit in
the opening and make a few little adjustments.
A hand plane works great for this,
but if you're a power tool nut,
get yourself. One of these little guys a
giant disk sander. Now we can install the
knife hinges. I actually broke out an entire
tutorial on installing knife hinges from this project.
So if you'd like to see that,
click the link or find it in the description.
Next. I'll lay out for a few
shelf pin holes which are holes for pins
that will hold the shelf and now it's
time to finally add the curves to the
frame, parts will be cut to rough size
and then flush trimmed to final shape.
And now we're down to the nitty gritty
before assembly as I add round overs,
soften edges and sand wherever I can to
prep for finishing. I'll do this assembly in
stages, starting with the front frame, then the
back frame and then I can bring the
whole thing together with the bottom panel and
the side components. Now this is where that
hide glue really shines as it gives me
a bunch of extra time to get everything
perfect. And honestly, if I can give you
one piece of advice that will benefit every
future project you do, it's to to use
long set glues for your more complex glue
ups. If you're rushing because the glue is
setting up, there's a real good chance you're
gonna make a mistake and ruin a project
that you've already invested weeks in. Don't ask
me how I know. Now let's make a
drawer, I'll use regular maple for the box
rabbets at the corners will be reinforced with
brass dowels and we'll cut some grooves for
the bottom panel at the table saw.
I made my bottom panel from half inch
ply since I'm actually trying to use up
material before my move. But to make it
work with a quarter inch groove, I gave
the panel a nice perimeter rabbet. Just know
that on a drawer of this size a
quarter inch panel makes a whole lot more sense.
After the glue up, I'll drill all
the way through for the brass dowels.
Now the drawer front is made from
ambrosia maple and features a sapele detail on
the sides. So I'll cut a half lap
on each end of the drawer front.
I could then glue in a small piece
of sapele. This is purely decorative, but I
think the effect is cool. Some dude on
instagram came up with this idea when I
posted an early sketch of this piece and
he's gonna be mad if I don't give
him credit. So thanks guy on instagram,
Once the glue is dry, I can give
the drawer front its final shape.
Since I have easy access without the top in place,
I could just glue the drawer front directly
to the drawer box. Normally, I attach drawer
fronts with screws for the sake of future
adjustments and repairs. But on something this small,
I don't mind just gluing it in place
plus hide glue is technically reversible. So if
something happens, I do have some options.
And now for the top, it's really just
a big sapele panel with a few curved
edges and now's a good time to make
the shelf too, which is just from half inch maple.
And remember like my friend Meghan
Fitzpatrick always says... "your hand is not a hammer"
Okay, The top gets a nice little
round over some sanding and boom. It's ready
to roll. Now for the hardware. I'm using
Makassar Ebony to make custom door and drawer
pulls. I don't normally work at this scale.
So I did find it kind of challenging
and in some cases my fingers got a
little bit too close to the action,
but the final result turned out pretty nice.
Now this is the pull for the drawer.
It's a different design from what I did
with the doors, but it's clearly in the same family.
At this point, the doors will
just push into the case unchecked. So it's
a good idea to install a stop,
I'll add some magnets to the door and
the stop to not only stop the doors,
but to hold them closed. The side and
back panels will receive faux dividers. We could
have done an actual divided panel for this,
but this method is a whole lot easier
and it gives us the look that we
want for a lot less work and honestly,
no one will ever know. Wait a minute.
So for the finish, I bet you can
guess that's right. A hard wax oil.
I'll apply two coats in total. You can
really see the wood come to life with
finish. By the way, I've got a video
showing how to apply hard wax oils on
both small and large pieces of furniture.
I'll put a link in the description for
you. To attach the top. I'll use these
nifty little right angle clips that secure the
top while allowing for wood movement. Now I
can install the doors....The shelf...and
the drawer. So there it is the Littleton
console, a wonderful example of woodworking micromanagement
in all the best ways. I hope you
enjoyed watching. And if you want plans and
the full video course for this project,
Head to theWoodWhispererGuild.com
and I'll hook you up. Toodles.