Pictures of the lovely planes loaned to the plane SIG to try out

Wood Objects 2011

Maker: Karen McBride

Title: Joan's Bed
Year: 2010
Dimensions: 48" x 105" x 24"
Materials: walnut (solid and veneer), cocobolo, ash and maple
Finish: Waterlox and walnut stain.
Photographer: Chris Solar (frontal, end crest detail, table detail)
Photographer: Jim McBride (centre crest detail, drawer)

The headboard hangs on the wall and the two night tables hang on the headboard. The head board is two large pieces, veneered with walnut, that hang at a 10 degree slant, much like a chair back. The two head board pieces separate at the cocobolo detail. The crest rail was made with hot pipe bent walnut alternately layered with tapered ash laminations faced with cocobolo. The crest rail walnut was stained to darken it. All the cocobolo was carved with a small rotary cutter. The Waterlox finish was applied by hand.

What woodworker doesn't end up doing at least one Kithen? This is Jack Schwass's Kitchen.

Here is his description:

General Comments: Building your own kitchen can save thousands over a custom (or even a flat packed set of cabinets) and allows you to get exactly what you want.  All of the base cabinets are 2" deeper than standard cabinets and the counter top was made wider accordingly.  Base cabinets all have adjustable legs which saves hours of shimming at time of installation.  The adjustable legs and add on toe kicks (which were melamine offcuts with maple veneer) saves material costs because they allow the use of  31" rather than 35" gables and backs.  All upper cabinets are 14" deep, rather than a standard 12, allowing for greater space and better space utilization (measure your large plates and platters).

Materials: Cabinet boxes, drawers and shelves were 120 gr. 5/8" white melamine - it means you never have to finish the inside of a cabinet or drawer ever again.  Drawers, rollouts and shelves were edged with maple.  Counters are 3/4" plywood with 1 1/2" x 3/4" edging glued on. High pressure laminate was glued to the plywood with contact cement, trimmed with an edge trim bit on a 30 year old B&D router and the maple rounded over with a beading bit. Sink is a generic stainless double sink, the underside of which was sprayed with gravel guard to reduce the noise.  This is much cheaper than the high end sinks with their acoustic coating.  Works very well too.

Design: Design was drawn from a number of sources, however it was my intention not to go over the top on the kitchen to avoid having to do the whole house over and to fit in with the overall feel of the house and neighbourhood.  A simple, clean design was the goal.

The two large drawers in the pantry cabinet at the end of kitchen were carefully designed to accommodate the cookie sheets vertically.  A week after installation, SWMBO bought all new cookies sheets that were about 3/4" wider (they now sit at a slight angle in the drawer).  Best laid plans, etc., etc.

The small drawer cabinet (beside the dishwasher) has 5 rather than the usual 4 drawers to avoid having deep drawers full of stuff that obscures that which you need which is always at the back on the bottom. 

Two soap dispensers (hand and dish soap) flank the pull out single handle faucet.  The pull out faucet is great for filling the coffee maker, large stock pots, etc.

Construction: Face frames (based on Danny Proulx's techniques) were maple, glued and nailed (18 ga brads) to the front of the boxes.  Doors were raised panel from 3/4" air dried maple using a LV router bit set. Started off sanding the panels to some ridiculous number - too much time.  Final technique was to flatten panels with 80 grit on the belt sander (Marty is the only one who seems to get glued up panels perfectly flat) then planing and/or scraping with card and cabinet scrapers - much, much faster and very effective. Panel corners were clipped at 45 degrees to avoid gluing them in to the corner joints when assembling (thanks Gord Graff for that one).

End panels were faux panels of 1/4" maple ply with frames made from resawn maple edged and coped with the same bits as the doors. 

Joinery was nothing fancy, just cope and stile for the door and large drawer fronts.  Boxes were butt joints with 2 1/2" particle board screws (lots of them). The angled pantry cabinet was a bit of a challenge to get the hinges on the left hand doors to close more than 90 degrees. I ended up cutting wedges for the mounting plates and small grooves in the door stile for the hinge.  The majority of the hinges are Blum 107 degree clip top with a few 170 degree Blum hinges where appropriate.  Drawers and rollouts used full extension Accurides. Every cabinet below waist level (with one exception) has either drawers or roll out shelves (no more searching in the back of the cabinet on hands and knees). 

Grain matching was a challenge, given that all the stock was rough sawn.  At one point, I had the driveway covered with every stick of maple I had, trying to match it up for colour and grain.  Quite successful, but not perfect since the lumber supply was finite.

Finishing: All panels received at least one coat of wipe on oil based poly (regular poly cut 25% or so with mineral spirits) before assembly to avoid the lines when the panels shrink in the winter. The first coat of finish on all wood surfaces was sanded in with 300-400 wet/dry silicon carbide paper.  This makes for a super smooth finish that wipes clean easily. Additional coats were wiped on and rubbed out with a rag after drying for a while (technical term, you know). Poly was used because kitchens take a lot of abuse - touch ups can be made with sandpaper, steel wool and poly in small areas.  I don't think this would be practical with lacquer finishes.

What he would do differently next time: It's been a few years since I finished this kitchen and there is little that I would do differently.  I'm very happy with the look and utility as is herself.

Maker: Ken Dixon

Goal: The client wanted a small bed side table with clean lines that would go with existing pieces in the room.

Materials: Air dried Walnut and Poplar

Dimensions: 18”high X 12”deep X 14”wide (size dictated by the client).

Inspiration: Based on shaker stile table, no plans per say just did a basic drawing with dimensions.

Construction: Hand cut half blind dove tales on the drawer, the table sides are joined to the legs using sliding dove tales.

Finish: Finished by sanding to 250grit then three coats of Ebony stain. The top has three coats of semi gloss poly applied with a foam brush sanding between, the last coat not sanded. The rest of the table has four coats of shellac applied with foam brush using 0000 steel wool between including last coat then a couple of coats of wax. The reason for the poly on top and shellac on the rest is I wanted the protection of the poly but I like the feeling shellac gives the wood.

Challenges: The major challenge for me was the hand cut dove tales. I have not done many of them so it is still a bit of a struggle to get them right.