Dash almost complete...

In my last post I had the dash veneered on both sides and the cutouts for the gauges and switches prepared . I am now kicking myself for not taking a picture of the dash panel when I received it and the dismal state it was in. In any case, I began to apply the finish which consisted of a lightly tinted danish oil, the tint a light colored shade of walnut. After I let this dry for two days, I began to apply the top coat of a wipe-on polyurethane. Since the dash panel is exposed to temperature and environmental extremes, humidity, and possibly direct sunlight, polyurethane is a good finish to seal out the elements. The original dash panel delaminated and the veneer was flaking off due to these same environmental extremes, so I had to make sure the correct finish is applied.

I'm just about done with applying the multiple coats of this wipe-on poly with light sanding between coats with fine sandpaper. The back of the dash panel is similarly top coated with a polyurethane finish along with the continuous edge of the dash panel and the gauge openings. I'm trying to leave nothing to chance with respect to moisture or humidity permeating the dash panel.

In the photo, I have a portion of the dash panel. The bird's eye figure stands out well and is deep and vibrant. Next I will complete assembly of the small glove box hardware and ship off to the owner. From what I understand the restore of the vintage TR6 is going to be complete in a matter of weeks and I also look forward to seeing the dash in the car. If you click the image you can see more detail in a larger photo.

A different type of woodworking...

I've been tasked with reconstructing the wood dash panel from a vintage British automobile which is currently being restored. The dash was previously veneered and after about thirty five years, it succumbed to the elements and began to delaminate. Along with this, the original veneered surfaces were cracked and flaking off. This is a type of work I have not done before. The only effective way to remove the veneer completely and uniformly was with a sanding machine. After performing this on either side of the dash panel, I had clean wood underneath. The wood was high grade plywood with many plies. I judiciously re-laminated the laminations which were separating, which was no small feat. Once I was completely satisfied that the plywood dash had regained its strength and rigidity I began to plan the application of veneers both on the face and back of the dash panel.

The veneers were applied one at a time, beginning with the back of the dash panel. I cross banded or alternated two layers of the back cherry veneers to add rigidity and strength to the dash panel. I next cut out the multitude of holes from the back along with screw holes and rectangular cut-outs. I used reamers, sanding pads, and small half-round and round files to accomplish this.After I was satisfied with this, I applied veneer, bird's eye maple, to the face of the dash. Similar to the back, I re-created the holes, cut-outs, etc. from the front. Next, I veneered the glove compartment box door following the same procedure.

In the photo, I have just completed veneering and sanding the dash panel, glove compartment door, and have it fitted in its opening. Some more small detail work and I am almost ready to apply finish to the dash panel. There were some stressful moments in all this, veneer being so thin with very little margin for error, but it seems to have worked out. I thought I would share this experience.

Drawer cases installed...

After some deliberation, I decided that I really like the drawer case layout and went ahead and permanently installed them in the cabinet. The mounting method I arrived at is actually quite straightforward. The right hand drawer case is pegged to the bottom of the cabinet with four short dowel pieces. It is not directly attached to either the back or right side of the cabinet with this method, eliminating any wood movement issues however small they might be. The left hand single drawer case is also not directly attached to the cabinet side or back for the same reason. Instead I created a small platform for the left drawer case using two pieces of beech with grain in the same direction as the rest of the cabinet.

The two pieces of beech are directly below the left drawer case on either side and do not extend completely to the front, but approximately one half the distance. The drawer case can be considered to be cantilevered on this small platform. Also, to make the platform sides somewhat subtle in appearance, I created a fair size chamfer at the leading edges rather than have a square edge. This has successfully accomplished the effect I intended. The platform sides are pegged to the cabinet and right hand drawer case with one alignment dowel and subsequently glued to the left side and right drawer case. The back is open however, and the back panel can be seen in the opening.

I attached the left drawer case to the platform sides with 3 vertical lengths of dowels on either side, this adds considerable strength to the left drawer case. In doing so, I have left myself the option for the hidden compartment panel I might or might not install later on. In the photo, you can see the chamfered platform sides. Next, I begin to plan the actual drawers, something I've been longing to begin.

Laying out the drawer cases (1)...

I have had to take a short break from this project due to circumstances and other work in my schedule. I'm back on track with this cabinet now and I am in the process of laying out the configuration of the drawer cases. The original plan had one upper drawer at the top left and the two drawer assembly at the lower right. Upon reflection, I decided to configure the drawer cases differently as in the photo. This is somewhat of a staggered, stepped arrangement with the appearance of a floating drawer at the left with the original location of the two drawer case at the right. Since I have complete freedom to lay out the drawer cases as long as there is sufficient room above either of the drawer cases for art objects, I have taken this liberty in the design process.

At the left, beneath the single drawer case, I am also considering a false front which would appear as a solid piece of wood and is only removable through a hidden slot. This feature can be considered a secret compartment. I like the idea, but I also like the design of having the left drawer case appear to be floating as in the photo. I have mocked up the drawer cases with the empty compartment at the bottom left.

This is my current design dilemma and I will continue to experiment with the layout of the drawer cases.

Preparing the drawer cases (5)...

I left off with the individual boards which comprise the two drawer cases. I moved on, trimmed the boards and created the joinery for the sides and top and bottom. The joinery will consist of a rabbet with some small reinforcement. I need to accurately trim the sides of the dual drawer case since there is an allowance for the middle drawer divider which needs to be taken into consideration. The accuracy revolves around the fact that I want each of the three drawers to be of the same general height.The dado for this particular divider will also be stopped, end just short of the front of the drawer case. This allows me to have the upper drawer have a lower lip to meet with the bottom drawer, hiding the center divider in the process.

In the photo, the drawer cases, not yet complete are placed sided by side and amazingly enough, there is hardly a gap between them. This allows me some flexibility in placement of the drawer cases, which has not quite been finalized yet.

Preparing the drawer cases (4)...

I have completed dimensioning, handplaning and scraping the surfaces of the panels for the drawer cases. The panels were longer in length than necessary, an extra length allowance of each of the panels comprises one side of each drawer case. These drawer case sides will be rabbeted into the top and bottom panels. The grain orientation of the drawer cases is similar to the cabinet top and bottom, this is purposely designed in to accommodate any expansion and contraction due to humidity changes in the ambient air. In the lower drawer case, the sides are somewhat longer to accommodate two drawers and a drawer divider. The hardwood drawer divider will be fitted into dadoed slots in the center of either side of the drawer case. Dadoes run perpendicular to grain orientation as opposed to grooves which run parallel to the grain orientation.

The drawer case sides, and top and bottom panels are oriented in the same direction to have the complete drawer case movement occur front to back similar to the cabinet itself. The drawer case sides need to be trimmed to size next and then a dado created in the dual drawer case. The drawer cases are assembled afterwards with careful attention to maintaining the drawer cases perfectly square. Once the assembly is complete, I will fit the drawer divider into its dado.

I'm anxious to begin work on the drawers and have yet to decide whether the drawer faces will be a contrasting color, most likely so. In this case, I need to find a wood which complements European Beech.

Preparing the drawer cases (3)...

The measurements of the boards which comprise the four drawer case panels are a tad smaller than originally planned, so I have had to forgo squaring the ends of the boards of each of eight boards. Instead I have assembled the eight boards into four panels and will instead square then ends of these panels off. It is just an arbitrary decision at this point and doesn't affect the assembly of the panels, although nicer panels would have resulted had I squared the ends of the boards first. This also allows me to dial in as much length as absolutely possible in each of the panels.

I had also jointed the mating edges of each of the boards, the edge which mates with the other, matching board of the panel. This went well and I let the boards sit for a day or so afterwards to determine if any further cupping would result. A very small bit of cupping did result, and of course it becomes more pronounced due to the width of the panels. The next step involved scribbling witness lines across each of the cupped faces of the boards and handplaning the outside edge area working towards the middle. I regularly go back and forth with a flat, steel rule to determine how much progress is being made. I also try not to overshoot... which essentially decreases the overall thickness of each of the boards.

At this point, I have four panels ready to be squared to finish dimensions, both in width and length. A small part of each of the panels form the sides of the drawer case. I will also need to cross cut these sections off, which leaves me with four shorter panels which form the tops and bottoms of the drawer case.

I'm going to take some time and spend it outdoors today. We had wintry weather until late last week, but this week has been getting wamer and sunnier with temps in the low 70's today. We've had such a long winter up here, and this weather couldn't arrive soon enough.

Preparing the drawer cases (2)...

I left off in the previous post with a few boards to flatten and smooth with handplanes. I typically use a planing board with a plane stop at the end to perform this type of work. The boards are relatively small and are easily held against the plane stop. This allows me to quickly flip the board around to plane either side without needing to clamp the board again. If I were planing a larger panel I would most likely fasten it between bench dogs.

The handplaning of these particular boards is straightforward along their length with little diagonal planing... so it works out well. Handplaning these boards which will comprise the panels for the drawer cases begins with a long fore or jointer plane to flatten the faces of the boards and ensure they are flat and parallel to each other. I also have the final thickness of each board in mind and work towards this. After the individual boards were resawn a little cupping was introduced , inherent to resawing, and although acclimatization to the studio environment helps to relieve this cup and any other tension in the boards, some minimal cupping remains in each of these boards.

I use a jointer plane in this case, I have it tuned and ready most of the time for work like this. A shorter fore plane would also be ideal since the boards are relatively short in length. Once the boards faces are flat with parallel faces I then move on to a finely tuned smoother plane to ensure the faces of the boards are flat as can be. The term which is used for this type of board preparation is four-squaring the board which ensures that both faces and the two long edges are parallel to each other, and the ends and edges are perpendicular. After completing this process on each of the other boards which will comprise the drawer case panels, I will be squaring the ends to achieve both the correct length of each board and to ensure the boards are perfectly square.

Preparing the drawer cases (1)...

After slicing (resawing) and dicing (ripping, cross-cutting) the rough blanks for the interior parts, I am now left with a few fairly identically sized boards. The individual boards are thicker than the final dimension to allow for any cupping ,bowing, or twist that may result from the resawing operation and acclimatization of the boards. I have also resawn a few extra boards to allow for any problems or mismatched grain when creating the wider panels for the drawer cases. The boards are fairly similar in width but differ in length. Half are destined for the single drawer case, the other half to the stacked drawer case. Some wane or bark can be seen on a few of the boards and this will be trimmed off to create square edges with minimal removal.

I will let these boards sit on edge for a day or so and then proceed with hand planing them closer to the final thickness. Once the "approximate" final thickness is achieved, the next step in the sequence is to square the mating edges and join these boards to create the panels for the drawer cases. There are two approaches to creating the panels, either glue the boards up initially and hand plane or surface the panel to final thickness or ..... hand plane the individual boards close to final thickness and then join to make a panel. I prefer the latter as any strange characteristics of each board will be manifested before joining. This allows me to substitute one board for another, more stable board. Of course, there is a little final hand plane surfacing to complete the thicknessing to size step, but very minimal.

Selecting wood for the interior...

After having decided on a layout for the interior, I proceeded to take measurements of the
drawer case mockups. With these measurements in hand, I then create a cut list. The cut list provides me a clear idea of the amount of wood necessary to make both the drawer cases. The cut list also allows me to optimize the individual components for the drawer cases in order to minimize the wood necessary. This is only valid to a point however, as the wood components need to be selected with careful consideration to grain orientation and to maintain the harmony of the individual drawer cases.

With this information in hand, I selected an area of a large beech plank to cut my blanks from. Fortunately, I have some very nice European Beech planks in my studio I had acquired a while ago. The planks are rift to quarter-sawn in grain orientation and fairly thick at approximately 2.5 inches. The blanks are slightly different in size and are rift-sawn. The difference in blank size is attributed to the different size of either of the drawer cases. In the photo above, the two blanks can be seen along with my measurements and cut list. I also drew the components of the drawer cases out on another sheet of cardboard as a visual aid in laying out the components. Since the depth of the drawer cases is fairly large, I will be gluing two pieces of beech for each of the tops, bottoms and sides of the drawer cases. In doing this, I will try to maintain grain orientation and harmony to create fairly seamless components for the drawer cases.

Next I will layout and mark the boards to be cut from both of these beech blanks. After cutting the blanks in half and squaring one face and one edge of the individual halves , I will slice the boards off using a bandsaw similar to resawing.

Cabinet interior mock up...

I have been mocking up a few different layouts for the interior of the cabinet in the past few days. There are certain criteria which need to be considered in this process. The original design calls for three drawers with maximized interior space for art objects. One of the factors used in the design of the layout is the height and width of the cabinet itself and allowing as much room for taller art objects. This space will co-exist with the three drawers. Initially, I designed the drawers on the right hand side of the cabinet interior with two lower drawers, a space for art object(s), and a drawer above. I had also considered shelving in the design but decided against this as the height of the cabinet would further limit any taller art objects from being displayed.

In the photo, is my latest design of the interior. This layout is a good example of the design adage, "less is sometimes more". There is a fair amount of room on both the left and right side of the cabinet interior. The drawers have been divided into two assemblies with one drawer at the top left and two drawers at the bottom right of the cabinet interior. The design is also somewhat interesting and does not conform to the typical, established layout of drawers within a cabinet. This feature enhances the uniqueness of the cabinet interior in my opinion.

This design is not quite cast in stone as yet. I intend to further refine the layout with both interesting, unique design and optimized space as criteria. Mocking up is a great exercise in the design process, both initially and in finalizing the design. Having the components of a furniture piece mocked up to scale proportions reveals any design considerations which might have been overlooked in the initial design.