2aHawaii
General Topics => Off Topic => Topic started by: Rocky on February 14, 2022, 05:49:19 PM
-
Any Wood workers out there ?
cabinets, furniture, frames, upholstery
-
Any Wood workers out there ?
cabinets, furniture, frames, upholstery
I started getting into woodworking a few years ago. Have accumulated a lot more tools and developed a few skills from online YT projects.
My plan is to replace my kitchen cabinets all DIY -- except for the countertops.
-
Any Wood workers out there ?
cabinets, furniture, frames, upholstery
My brother’s a wood worker, PM me contact info and I can get you two in touch.
-
I made all the cabinets for my house in Kailua, which I sold in 2015. I recently made this island for a second kitchen in my house. I have a lot of Festool brand tools. Their track saw, router, domino joiner, planer, 3 different sanders, vaccum, multifunction table, drill and jig saw. Also have Jet dust collection system and flatbed sander, Dewalt miter saw and Makita brand cordless tools along with a couple Milwaukee and Skil tools. I think I have more wood working tools than a lot of full time carpenters.
-
Any Wood workers out there ?
cabinets, furniture, frames, upholstery
Lance's son got into making furniture.
Sent from my SM-A102U using Tapatalk
-
wood
-
Heard wood workers were a splinter group of lumbar liquidators….. :P
-
Yup!
I avoid cabinets though, tried them once and it was a lot of work.
I do a lot of coffee table type pieces as well as some accessories, including 1911 grips.
-
Yup!
I avoid cabinets though, tried them once and it was a lot of work.
Cabinets are just wood boxes, but they have to be exactly square and all your cuts have to be spot on. 1/32 of an inch difference is going to show up. You need high quality tools that can make precise cuts as well as corner and bar clamps.
-
I have a CNC.
-
Cabinets are just wood boxes, but they have to be exactly square and all your cuts have to be spot on. 1/32 of an inch difference is going to show up. You need high quality tools that can make precise cuts as well as corner and bar clamps.
Most people who balk at cabinet making don't take the time to calibrate their machines, and don't understand the precision needed.
Invest in some high-quality measuring tools. A sliding combination square ain't gonna cut it. And for checking if a cut is square and flat, you need a known flat surface. Sometimes a piece of marble from HD for smaller pieces works, or you can use a known flat tabletop. I have a 3 pc set of rulers that are machined to be perfectly flat within a very tiny margin. Lay that against a cut, and you'll see light underneath if it's not perfect. For longer pieces, my high-end bubble level works great. I checked it with the longest ruler, and there's no light along either side of the level.
Once a cut is made, sometimes you need a hand tool to finish making it flat. Often a little sanding is all that's needed. Other times, a hand plane. For hardwood, you should have a jointer or some other means of making one face of the workpiece perfectly flat. A table saw with a jig or a hand plane can do this. All depends on the time and energy you have to apply to each cut.
They call it woodworking for a reason. It's work. If you don't want to do the work of learning to use the tools, maybe a CNC is a better choice? Many woodworkers are going that direction for the ease of batching many parts and products with little effort beyond setup and design.
I see many cabinet makers going the CNC route. They can do the door inlays, drill all the hardware holes, and batch out identical components over and over with great ease compared to making all the cuts themselves.
To me, the only real stress involved when I start a project is breaking down the material into the parts. I'm worried about an incorrect cut ruining a 4'x8' sheet and having to do it again, so I measure 15 times to make sure I know what I'm cutting, how it will be oriented (grain direction), which part in the plan it is, and whether it's better to make the final dimension cut initially, or leave some extra material for a more exact cut later. Once the pieces are ready for final assembly, the stress goes away, and the fun of watching a well-planned, properly cut stack of wood come together is very satisfying. Now I know why IKEA is so popular. They do all the scary stuff for you!
BTW, if your table saw and table saw sled (that you make yourself) are calibrated to make perfect 90 degree cuts, you can make some perfect 90 and 45 degree clamping guides to help with holding cabinet sides together at the perfect angle. A neat trick I saw was in this video to make a perfect 45-45-90 triangle with no math or actual measurements. Well, there's geometry involved, but nothing you have to hurt your brain over! Go to timemark 32:35...
Once you have some 45-45-90 triangles, you can make holes or notches in them to use for clamping to your 90 degree cabinet parts during assembly. This is a great use for all those plywood cut-off pieces you saved but have no idea what they can ever be used for! A variety of different size triangles could prove very useful.
https://youtu.be/njsD5W6fcI0
-
I have a CNC.
Show off.
:thumbsup:
-
Show off.
:thumbsup:
No. Because I can't cut straight. :(
https://www.amazon.com/Maslow-CNC-Router-Kit-performance/dp/B07VNNKGCT (https://www.amazon.com/Maslow-CNC-Router-Kit-performance/dp/B07VNNKGCT)
-
No. Because I can't cut straight. :(
https://www.amazon.com/Maslow-CNC-Router-Kit-performance/dp/B07VNNKGCT (https://www.amazon.com/Maslow-CNC-Router-Kit-performance/dp/B07VNNKGCT)
I have a lot of "help" when I need to make a straight, circular or curved cut. Routers with templates and circle jigs are great for nice, precise cuts without a CNC doing the work. Saw guides and table saw jigs are great for precision work with straight edges.
One thing we never consider going into the "hobby" is how poorly the materials we buy have been cut at the sawmill. Milling the lumber to the perfect sizes and shapes also requires machinery or tools and extra experience/skill. The one cut I can usually count on is a piece of plywood having a straight edge that's perpendicular on all corners, though I always check first. MDF is the most consistent from my experience.
I have a small jointer for flattening and squaring 2 sides of a workpiece. I can then make the opposite sides parallel on the table saw. I use the DeWalt electric planer to get the material all the same thickness -- sometimes before I make the last table saw cuts and sometimes after. As long as one side (the down-side) of a piece is flat, I can get the other side flat and parallel on the planer. This is great for ensuring all pieces are the exact same thickness. I've seen someone on YT use a thickness planer to make plywood thinner because they were out of 1/2" ply. That just seemed wrong! :crazy:
The 4 tools I normally use in the "milling process" are the circular saw as needed to cut panels and long lumber close to size, the jointer to flatten and square 2 edges, the thickness planer to flatten and make the 2 "wide" surfaces parallel, and the table saw to make the 4th edge parallel and get all edges to final dimensions. The planer can also be used to make all sides parallel with the opposite side without using the table saw if the piece is sort of square. If one side is much longer, it's safer to not run that piece on the short edge through the planer.
If you don't have these machines, the process can be done by hand, but you're going to be wishing you had the machines after a few days of flattening boards -- and them still not being flat.
I made these two chairs for my granddaughter out of nothing but pine 8' 2x4s.
(https://i.imgur.com/MYvLpf0.jpg)
-
Thanks all.
Getting too old to be work'n so hard.
Think I'm about to retire !
Getting rid of routers, rough, finish and trim nailer's stapler's, 3' & 4" Pony Jorgenson Bar clamps, sanders, biscuit joiner etc...
Some are new and unused replaced by insurance due to fire.
Also getting rid of some construction stuff like Paslode, Miller Welding helmet, safety harnesses and more.
Will post a list in classies but if your looking for it now, LMK.
:shaka: