Back in the Woodshop

I finally went back to work on the armoire today. I’d cut the posts out a couple of months ago and at the time, I had the intention of starting it up. But I couldn’t summon the discipline to work through it because, while the top half will be much simpler to construct than the bottom half, there are details that need to be worked through, those details are important and with the busy schedule I just couldn’t focus on them long enough to sort them out in my mind.

Details like, the width of the stretchers, how to mate the top-half with the bottom half, the profile for the cornice for the top, whether to make the doors all cherry construction, or cherry and maple construction. None of that includes the proportions so that that the top looks right sitting on the bottom. I’ve been mulling all of that stuff in my mind for several weeks now. Finally, with the break in the kid’s schedule today, I opted to start making it into a reality.

Even so, meaningful progress was minimal.

I managed to get some of the layout detail worked out for the sides. One thing I learned from building the bottom is, when mortises are required on adjacent sides of a piece that can’t be glued up at the same time, it’s better to mill one side and do an interim glue-up then mill the adjacent side. If all the milling is done at once, the dry fit may work out well but because only one side can be glued up at a time it will result in fit problems for the adjacent mortises. I also realized that I’ll be making some of the mortises with a haunch because of their proximity to the end of the post.

I managed to resaw the cherry boards for the panels that will make up the sides. I’d purchased a new bandsaw blade in anticipation of doing so and man, did it pay off. I got a 3/4″ variable pitch Timberwolf blade from Suffolk Machinery and had no problem cutting through the 12″ cherry boards.

The other useful thing I completed was installing a Veritas front vise on my workbench. The Wife had purchased it for me as an anniversary gift. She said “I want to get you one of these thingies.” I told her “Well, then make it that one.” Worked out well for me.

It was fairly straight-forward to install, though I was left wondering by the time I went through the instructions. They really seemed to over-complicate the process. My bench has a 2×4 frame with a piece of 1/2″ plywood and 1″ melamine on top of it, so I was able to mount the carriage behind the 2×4 frame. All that left was drilling the holes and cutting a piece of maple for the front jaw. Fortunately, I had a piece of 8/4 stock to work with for that. Obviously, care had to be taken with the hole placement; otherwise, the main screw and guide rods would not be properly aligned through the wood. Now that it’s all setup, I’m looking forward to taking advantage of it for the remainder of the project.