Project: Cherry Vanity For Guest Bath (COMPLETED)

[Jim Becker]

Drilling the "naked" stile was a little harder than the door will be merely due to the clamping situation. I chose to just use the vice and drill horizontally. I'll say right now that I'm NOT impressed with the Rockler bit. If I were going to be doing a lot of these (and I may be...) a better cutter is going to be needed, IMHO. Or maybe I need to do some serious sharpening/honing...

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Hmm...the test fit with the sacrificial stile worked out well. Very strange...I followed the directions and it's spot on. Go figure!

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SO....time to move on to the real doors. (Gulp...) First they get marked...

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Then the big holes get drilled...no turning back now, baby...

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Drill pilot holes for the screws....

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Whew....I wonder if I did this right...

[Jim Becker]

Well...I am thinking that I managed to do it right and I'm very pleased with the results. I never thought I'd say it, but the adjustability on these hinges is really wonderful. And easy. That last part is a nice feature.

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Ok...carcass is done. Doors are done. Time to build some drawers. Time to play with a new way to build said drawers...pocket screws. I was impressed by the results that Mark Singer got on a few projects using this technique and decided that this would be a fine place to try them out. There are only two drawers and if I don't like things...I either live with it on this one and do dovetails on the rest or use the components as kindling for the wood stove and build new drawers. What the heck?

So, to get started I need to mark out the drawer components on the 1/2" poplar I chose to use for this function. Simple white chalk will do. I like to break things down before edge jointing as shorter pieces are quicker and easier to work with.

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Once rough cut, I quickly hit the edges at the jointer to provide one edge worthy of riding along the table saw fence as they are all ripped to width.

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These drawers will have sides that are 5 1/2" tall, so the sides, fronts and backs are ripped to that width. Because I am not using drawer slides, I'm going to put a "false back" on the drawers that will act as an anti-tipping mechanism for each drawer (more on that when I get to that point) and a limit stop so that the drawers cannot fall out of the cabinet. The "real" backs will effectively be forward such that the user will think that they have a full-extension drawer situation. (Yea, the latté was really good the day I thought of this idea... )

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The fronts, backs and "other backs" were sized at the TS using a miter gauge and a stop block clamped to the table.

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[Jim Becker]

The sides, being longer, couldn't have the stop clamped in the same way, so I flipped the miter gauge to the other slot and used the fence with a wood block to provide a means of duplicating all four to exactly the same length. (Note...the wood I'm cutting is not touching the fence during the pass through the blade)

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Next is was off to the "pocket screw drilling station" over at the miter bench to put a few angled holes in the fronts, backs and "other backs" for later drawer assembly. Note that these screws will not be visible once the drawers are assembled. The false drawer fronts will hide those in, um...the front...and the back(s) will be encased in the cabinet.

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Unlike drawers made with half-blind dovetails where you can just run a dado down the inside of all four drawer components (as long as the groove lines up with a pin), the fronts and backs for these pocket screw drawers need to have a stopped groove routed to hold the drawer bottom. That was done at the router table and it was the exact same setup I had used for the rails and stiles earlier in this project...I had left it in place for that purpose, too.

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And the 100th picture in this project pictorial (really...count 'em), is a nice portrait of a few drawer components anxiously awaiting some sanding and assembly into their destiny...which will be revealed in the "next episode" of this continuing saga of "as the vanity grows"

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[Jason Tuinstra]

Jim, great job so far. Look like you've got quite a bit of done since last I checked in. Everything's looking great. Keep it up. Thanks for the informative updates.

[Jim Becker]

Jason, that first picture in post #62 is of something that really made me smile...the first look at what the finished piece will be. Only the oil is on, but I'm very pleased with this project with only one minor thing that really will not matter in the end. Thanks for your kind words!

[Jason Tuinstra]

Yea, it's looking fantastic! Nothing like those sneak peaks along the way to keep you going. But alas, all this work and the plan is to have it sit. Perhaps you could find someone in the neighborhood to lease it for awhile

[David Klug]

Jim I like your drawing, looks like something that I would do. If you keep up with the step by step story you're liable to have your own TV show and give Norm a run for his money. LOL

DK

[Jerry White]

Yeah, Jim, it is really looking great! Thank you for all your efforts in getting the process recorded in pictures. An excellent tutorial!

Looking forward to the next installment.

Jerry

[Howie French]

Jim, the vanity looks great, I really like the doors and I also like this style very much. One question, the jig from Rockler for drilling the 35mm holes, can this be used on a drill press, I would think it would be much easier if it could.
I ask this because shortly, I will be installing hinges like this for the first time (on a cherry vanity no less).

Thanks for the tutorial, I have enjoyed it.


Howie

[lou sansone]

hi jim
thanks for the post. nice looking piece and I like the fact that you don't over do the drawing stage of things. you have a good eye for design. I have a bunch of cherry crotch and wondered how it might look once it was sawn up ( its now in 16/4 thickness from a pretty big cherry tree ). It is a lot of work to snap all those photos and write up the details. good job on the fitting of the drawers and doors .. best wishes
lou

[Karl Laustrup]

Thanks for taking the time to document this project Jim. The teaser pic of what the vanity is going to look like when done is great. That cherry is really nice.

Karl

[Mike Cutler]

Everything looks very nice Jim. That's going to be a beautiful vanity when finished.
The cherry crotch panels with the staight grain carcass are a nice aesthetic contrast.

[Jerry Olexa]

Looks good, Jim!! Beautiful work and love the look of the wood and the natural finish. Came together nicely. Thanks for the tutorial. Nice job!

[Jim Becker]

One question, the jig from Rockler for drilling the 35mm holes, can this be used on a drill press, I would think it would be much easier if it could.

Howie, this jig will not work on the DP, but when I do future projects, I think I'll use the DP for the job. The trick will be to set up the fence on the DP so that the center of the 35mm hole is in the right place relative to the edge of the stiles. It was an experiment. I think that the jig is well-thought out for its intended purpose which includes portablity. But it's just too much work to do this with a hand-held drill if the option of a DP is available.

But alas, all this work and the plan is to have it sit.

Indeed. That is frustrating, but necessary. I think that rather than consider paying for storage space, I may just put the time and money into putting access doors from the outside in the upstairs of the shop...I need that for the future, anyway as I'd like to move my lumber storage up there to create more shop space. I have room on the miter station for "special" material and would quite happy to have the other "inventory" out of sight and out of the way.

It is a lot of work to snap all those photos and write up the details.

One would think, but I've gotten a system down at this point. As I work through the project, I try to think what steps are important to anyone I might be explaining things to and let the camera take a shot at each of those points. I use a tripod and the shutter timer and most of the time, the shots are not posed, but the real work being done. It doesn't really delay my work and the brief break is actually good for pacing. Once I'm out of the shop and have the pictures dumped onto the computer, I keep a little note sheet in front of me as I do the editing to make them web-compatible (size, etc) so that when I start to write the posts, I have one to three words in front of me about each shot. That makes the writing easy and fast. The four posts from last night took about 30-30 minutes including the photo editing.

Spending this time is worth it to me if even one person is inspired to try something new or tackle a project they had been hesitant to do. I am not a very skilled woodworker...I don't get enough time to build my skills. But I'm not afraid to jump in and just do it. Worse case, there is some extra fire starter.

Jim I like your drawing, looks like something that I would do. If you keep up with the step by step story you're liable to have your own TV show and give Norm a run for his money. LOL

I don't think I could afford that...and Norm has forgotten twenty times the things I am yet to learn. (I do have an excellent video camera. The problem with that format is that it's a lot more work than taking stills, really would slow down the work {and time is already scarce} and it's expensive to distribute video directly. I don't prefer the You-Tube type thing)
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Thanks for all the kind comments, folks. Stay tuned...more to come!

[John Miliunas]

Hey dude, lookin' might fine there! Love that Cherry...Wonderful figure it's got going. Also, greatly appreciate the "step-by-step"; very nice to see how things go together and what it takes to get them that far. Well done, my friend!