Calling all TF carpenters & joiners

[forteh]

Some of you might know that I'm gutting and rebuilding my kitchen from scratch. Everything is hand made from solid wood, no chipboard or laminate in sight!

I've almost finished all of the cupboard carcasses (open framed in 2x2 planed, topped with birch worktops) but need to make up some doors.

Now I could put some together but I lack some of the tooling I would like to have to do the job properly and as it's the visual front end of the cupboards, consistency and repeatability is key.

Looking for two sets of double doors nominally 900x800 aperture and a single door nominally 500x800 aperture. Door construction will be 2 1/2" border with T&G infill, total thickness of no more than 1" or so. Bog standard pine is fine, they're going to be painted. Knots and blemishes aren't an issue, it's a country kitchen style so function over perfection; rather have character than blandness

Any one fancy a woodworking project? Hit me up with some ideas and cost, looking at you @Tom Booth

& @CurtisRider

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by forteh

[Tom Booth]

If love to Ed but I've got work coming out my arse at the minute to be honest. Ask at your local timber yard, they will know of someone to take the task on and usually know who's good and who to avoid.

[CurtisRider]

I'd also love to but I'm in Suffolk now so posting them up would make it less than financially viable for you as well as me being also far too busy! 

Making doors is very easy though, you don't need anything overly special tool wise really. Do you own a router? If you don't then you should as they are one of the most important woodworking power tools to own! Ideally a 1/2" router, fixed to a basic table with a piece of 18mm+MDF or ply on top and away you go

[forteh]

I did wonder about the transport cost but figured a pallet wouldn't be too bad.

Guess I'll have a crack at it

I have a 1/2" router (a big hefty erbauer thing I grabbed from a local FB page for 35 quid) which had an intermittent speed control fault, occasionally the power will drop and it will spin at about 20% speed, it normally picks up again soon enough so not too much hassle.

What I don't have is a table so only have it for freehand work at the moment, the guides rails that came with it are shonky cheap plastic that have cracked so worthless.

What I wanted to do was form the frame rectangular from the 2 1/2" x 3/4", rout out a 3/8" rebate on the inside back and panel it in with 5/16" T&G.  I guess I could pretty easily rig the router onto a sheet of ply to make into a table, screw some gates on and jobs a good un. I don't think the router has a latch on the tigger though, that might be an issue.

What's best practise for ensuring making the joints and ensuring they are square? I have access to a dewalt chopsaw which helps but the only method of jointing I have is glue and screw which often ends up slightly out of square. I don't want to ply back the doors if I can help it, it will leave an ugly edge with the doors open. I also don't really want to have to invest in biscuit tooling for one job (albeit would probably prov useful in the future). If I knew how to dovetail I would in an instant

[Tom Booth]

Best bet is to buy a 1/2" collet slot cutter with variable depth. Aim for something around 12mm thickness of cut. Your uprights alot from top to bottom on the Inner edges, the slats cut a slot on those on the lower edge of the top one, and upper edge of the lower. Then using 12mm mdf face with your chosen timber have them cut to size, side the lot together with a good wood adhesive and clamp.

Your effectively making a mortice and tenon that carries/frames your inner panel too.

With a homebrew table the cuts would be super quick.

Best way of ensuriby square is to take time setting up your tools. Genuinely i can loose and hour or so finding true 90* on my chop saw. Hence why I now own 2, one for angles and one for straight cuts haha. Set up time genuinely will save you hours later down the line.

[forteh]

It is a plunge router so I can alter cut depth no issue, I have a bunch of router bits (generic wickes multi pack of assorted and some plain shank worktop bits) but nothing of significant quality - I dare say for my limited usage top quality isn't a major issue for now. Something like this would be nice but way more than I can budget for.

Would it be feasible to do a type of open top motise & tenon so I cut/rout a fork in the end of the upright and a single finger sized to suit the slot in the horizontal, glue the two together and clamp it square? Alternatively would a half lap joint be workable enough?

I need some clamps, only have a single irwin quickgrip at the moment!

The chopsaw has locks at the major angles with a quick release clamp so can repeatably switch from 90 to 45 to 30 in seconds.

[Tom Booth]

Yeah that's a better explanation of what I was going for haha.

Sorry when I mean depth I mean depth into the cut material, your mortice depth. Usually it's by means of changing the bearing size on the cutter to adjust.

Triple check your chop saw. Both of mine have those generic stops but they're horseshit.

Buy some super good quality clamps. They always come in.

Www.axminster.co.uk

They usually have good deals on good clamps, check them for cutter bits too. I've had alot from there and even the budget range is superior to the shit you buy at screwfix. I've got some cutters that are 5/6 years old from there that are still as good as the day I bought them.

[forteh]

Talking of router tables, I forgot I bought this for a tenner a couple of years back, obviously designed for a 1/4" router but I reckon I can probably rig mine up to fit.

There's the same kit (albeit in slightly better nick and more complete) on ebay for 120 quid! Think I did ok with it, it's got the table, fence, sprung wood holding pushing guide thingy and a bunch of other bits I have no idea how they fit

Edited March 2, 2018 by forteh

[tomturd]

I made similar doors to what you're talking about (I think!) - "shaker style" (but with a plywood panel, not T&G) using just a table saw. Initially I borrowed a trend router and table off a mate, but got on better with the table saw and a sled. So if you have a table saw that's fairly accurate, it's possible.

This sort of design:

 

[forteh]

Oh to have the luxury of a table saw

But yes, that sort of style but with the T&G infill rather than ply.  I think once I have a router rigged up with a fence it should be pretty straight forward.

[forteh]

Picked up a smaller router, a black and decker kw779 of ebay for 20 quid, it should fit the elu table I have and will be a bit more handleable than the big erbauer. It's only 1/4" but should be fine for the smaller jobs.

Will make a table to fit the erbauer, been offered a 1200 square oak worktop for nowt that I'll use part of to make into the table and use the rest for shelving. With a bit of imagination I can use the fence and accessories from the elu table.

[CurtisRider]

Glad you are making a proper router table, the Elu one has such a tiny surface to work on! I would use a bearing guided rebate bit, that way a fence isn't entirely necessary and you can save time. The KW779 is a great little 1/4" router, I had one for years in frequent use and it just would not die (I sold it recently as I realised I had 11 routers an only used 3 of them1), whereas my Trend T3 was and still is a total shit that I can't sell as I just couldn't be so cruel to anybody so it sits in the cupboard of shame. 

Speed control fault on your 1/2" router is probably an easy fix, for me it's always been the little TRIAC that has died. 

[CurtisRider]

Some bi folding doors I made recently for an inbuilt wardrobe, where the rebate is at the joints I just used an MDF offcut as a sort of biscuit, same applies for a solid wood door though

Shit photos but you get the idea! This was my first attempt at this sort of thing and it really was very easy to make them (fitting was a slag as the rail kits are terrible!)

[Tom Booth]

Nice work Paul, I need to make new wardrobes for our house but don't have the time. It's the last job in our house though so its really bothering me .

 

[CurtisRider]

Cheers Tom, it was pretty essential for us to have something like this to maximise storage space as this house is fairly compact. I even added IR sensors so lights come on when you open either door, my girlfriend was very excited about that!

 

[forteh]

Yes it is a tiny table, I figured it would be only for small jobs, not running a 6 ft rebate.

Reassuring to hear the recommendation on the router, black and decker was always a reasonably good brand when I was young, however I got one of their jigsaws a few years back and it was cheap diabolical tat. Took a flyer on the router because its obviously of an older generation.

With the duff speed control could I just bypass it and the main trigger and wire in a toggle switch? The erbauer doesn't have a latched switch so using it on a table could be tricky! Or zip tie the trigger on and plug it into an external switch?

Stop showing off with the doors!

[Tom Booth]

54 minutes ago, CurtisRider said:

Cheers Tom, it was pretty essential for us to have something like this to maximise storage space as this house is fairly compact. I even added IR sensors so lights come on when you open either door, my girlfriend was very excited about that!

 

That's a nice idea, our wardrobes in their day were probably pretty expensive, they're fully inbuilt pine throughout but they're super 90's .

Thinking of pulling the lot out then fitting a sliding track setup as the gap between the base of our bed and the wardrobes isn't massive so would help no end.

[forteh]

Super ghetto broken router fence rig up

Works to a fashion but far from accurate or safe!

Also just realised that I don't have any 1/4" router bits to go with the new machine. What should I get? Want to buy a couple of decent bits, is there a general go to choice?

[Tom Booth]

F'kin braver man then me..

[forteh]

Was only trimming the back groove off some t&g, very slow and careful mind!

For reference, the router is held in the wobbling bench thing, the broken fence is held against the foot plate with the quick grip. It was surprisingly stable

[Tom Booth]

Woodworking tools have 100% of my respect now after running my middle finger through table saw a few years ago. My old boss used to laugh at the lengths I went to in terms of protection but I'll never do anything that stupid again, that was f**king scary..

[forteh]

My dad introduced me to machine tools when I was about 6 with the watchmakers lathe, then loose on the hand tools (metal and wood) around 8. I progressed onto the miller and full size lathe around 12.

The only machinery he wouldn't let me touch was the radial arm saw.

He did have a minor paddy when he caught me swinging an adze towards my shins instead of away

Oh and then there's the incident with the bill hook

[CurtisRider]

Sketchy b*****d! Likewise with Tom, I am really careful now as I also trimmed my finger with a table saw. Routers can be lairy things so please take care! I tend to use Trend pro by default for my router bits, Wealden are good also. For the job you are doing then you may get away with something cheaper, I've been pleasantly surprised by some of my eBay specials that I have bought for one off jobs that have happened to come in useful later on. 1/4" shanks require light passes, a good rule of thumb (if you still have any) is to not remove any more material than the thickness of the shank on each pass.

[forteh]

See, having learned to mill on a machine with 3/4" backlash in all slides I always take smaller cuts than required.

That rig up was taking 2mm x 8mm cuts, high bit speed and slow feed. One hand steadying the machine and one pull feeding the wood across the bit, at no point were my fingers less than 2" from the spinnywhirlyfingerchopper

If it were a bigger lump of wood (rather than 20x8 mm strip) or bigger cuts I wouldn't have considered it.

[forteh]

I done gone made a thing!

Set up the elu table with the kw779, mounted it onto some 3/4" mfc I had left over from an old vivarium build. Replaced the shonky jaws on my workmate thingy with the mfc sheet and now have a good height, stable router set up. Gives me a reasonable size flat area to build on and clamp to. Got a record underslung vice and marples mitre jig that I'll attach later for added utility. The whole lot will fold up to take less space in storage.

Bought a 1/4" dovetail cutter (only a 10 quid screwfix job but all I could instantly buy) and with a bit of trial and error made a door frame with dovetail corner joints

Rebated the inside to take the t&g planks to infill the panel and glued the frame together. Unfortunately I cut a couple of the dovetails a bit loose and the back split out of them but have been thoroughly glued and clamped. By the time the panel is glued and pinned in it should be a very solid assembly.

Will sand and plane it to fit the slightly out of square frame (which is built on an out of square floor ) before slinging some hinges on there. I initially left 1mm clearance on all sides when taking the measurements, squaring up the outside should open some of the gaps up but should I be aiming for a little looser?