davepolaschek

May 21, 2020

First order of business today was putting the back on the carcass. This involved cutting plywood, so I got out the saw horses and circular saw. Three cuts to get the ¼” maple plywood to size (or between 1/16 and ⅛ oversized, I'm not accurate enough with a circular saw to cut any closer than that), then glue onto the carcass and screw the plywood in place.

I set some scrap wood on the ply to push it down onto the horizontals in the carcass while the glue set. They don't provide a lot of structural strength, but by gluing them to the back, they'll be supported by it a little. And then when I put on the cleat and spacers on the bottom, those will be screwed into two of the three horizontals, stiffening and strengthening the case even more. Will I need all that strength? Probably not, but I've never been disappointed overbuilding shop furniture, and when I've built it without thinking about future overloading, I've had problems, so best to overdo it now.

With the back on, it's time to trim the three oversized sides down to flush with the carcass. I use a jack plane for that, and set heavy, it didn't take many passes before the back was trimmed down and smoothed to match the sides.

You get funny looking shavings trimming the edge of plywood this way, but it gets the job done quickly, and actually leaves a pretty good edge.

With the back trimmed to size, it was time to install the cleat. The cleat is behind the rack that holds the braces, and is glued to the back, and screwed into the vertical sides of the carcass and into the rack. The two spacers that are the same thickness as the cleat (so the case will hang level on the wall) are screwed into the sides and the shelf between the two rows of drawers.

That done, it was time to hang the case on the wall and start filling it up. I still have one or two braces I haven't unpacked yet, plus a couple eggbeater drills to hang up. And I need to build the seven drawers to hold various bits. Spoon bits are in the upper left, with two sets of bits below, a modern Jennings pattern set, and an older Irwin pattern set. Plus there's at least one tool roll of bits somewhere, and miscellany like the hollow auger (in the 14” sweep brace on the right) and the tapered reamer in the 8” sweep to the left of it. I'll start pondering drawer materials tomorrow, I guess.

I also will need to get a coat of oil on the back, and a couple coats of shellac on everything, plus ponder the doors one of these days, but it's done enough for now, I think, and I can take my time building drawers.

Oh, I also widened the rightmost slot in the rack. My 14” sweep brace has a thicker handle than all the others, so it needs a wider slot. A planemaker's float and a cheap rasp did the job pretty quickly.

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Contents #woodworking #storage

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