Woodwork

Cabinet for 78s

admin — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 20:02:31 +0000

Cabinet for 78s

I have a small and slowly growing collection of 78 rpm records. I'm fairly conservative about buying new ones, both because I'm cheap and because there aren't that many artists that I know and want to collect from that era. I'm also not really looking for value necessarily, but things I enjoy listening to.

In any case, I'm up to about 130 records, and they've overflowing the shelf I'd taken in our regular LP vinyl collection, which could also use the extra space. Another complication is that we don't have much space in the house for more furniture. The obvious solution (for me, anyway) is a small cabinet dedicated to 10" records, both making space for 78s and preventing it from being taken over by vinyl.

To keep the cost down, I decided to use birch plywood for the case, 3/4" for strength since that shellac gets heavy. The design was inspired by some tapered walnut legs that my dad gave me years ago. I have no idea where they came from, but they seemed like they'd fit in with some of the mid-century modern pieces we have.

Measuring out 11" shelves for enough height, I cut the initial pieces to size and planned out dadoes for shelf and dividers. The front edges got a 1/2" rounded inner corner on the router table. Everything will just be glued so there won't be any visible fasteners, but the interlocking center pieces will add a lot of structure.

Here I'm preparing for the glue-up using these picture frame corner clamps to hold and align the front edges and miters, along with a few long bar clamps around the whole thing.

After that cured for a day I made a quick sled for cutting miter key slots in the corners. I wanted both the extra strength and some contrast to the sea of light wood.

It's not exactly a production-quality jig, but did the job just fine and kept them consistent, using the fence as a stop. I cut slots for double-kerf thickness keys on the outside and a thin one on the center.

With the keys in place and trimmed, everything got a final sanding and finished it with 3 coats of clear polyurethane. The legs are mounted on some maple pieces I had, cut to a 15° angle and installed with lag screws that fit the existing threaded holes.

And the cabinet installed in place with all of my current 10" 78s. Small felt pads cushion the feet and help fine-tune the leveling on our old floors.

I measured about 10 records per inch, in standard paper sleeves, so the cabinet can theoretically hold about 400, but I have a few albums that take up more space, plus dividers. In any case, I can easily triple the size of my current collection and still fit just fine.

admin Thu, 10/27/2022 - 15:02

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Woodwork

New camp kitchen

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 01:44:40 +0000

New camp kitchen

Our old camping box was starting to break apart at the hinges, so i made a new one.

The old one was plain pine boards, nailed together and painted. I decided to get a little fancier with this one, but still pretty cheap and quick. I cleaned up and reused all of the old hardware.

This one is plywood with box joints, 1/2" on 3 sides, 3/4" on the back for better hinge support. It's both a bit larger and a bit lighter than the old one, with a couple of small changes. This one has a slight overhang on the top of the lid to make it easier to lift, and i added some rubber feet to the bottom, so it'll hopefully be more stable on uneven tables.

Everything from the old box fits easily, and i may add something to hold lighter things in the lid space. The lid folds open almost flat, so it makes a nice work space if needed.

admin Wed, 09/30/2020 - 20:44

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Woodwork

Kitchen cabinets: remodel phase 2

admin — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 03:24:39 +0000

Kitchen cabinets: remodel phase 2

When i bought my house, the worst part of the kitchen was a near-total lack of cabinets. I mean, besides the 4 doors to the kitchen and the lack of home for the refrigerator. But aside from that, cabinets.

Built in 1909, the house likely had free-standing cabinets for most of its life. By the time I bought it the only cabinets aside from the pantry were on the wall around and above the sink.

This is how much storage and counter space we had around the stove:

The narrow shelf in the left nook was part of a shelf unit I built many apartments ago, and it just happened to fit here. The small table on the right i built for a different apartment with the same lack of countertop problem. It was a pretty lousy solution for the house, but all i had for several years here.

I wanted more cabinet space, but nothing pre-built seemed to fit. The nook at the left was a complication, and the lower right space also had a heat vent on the baseboard, and the left side of the stove had the gas line coming up through the floor. I figured I could more easily design and build my own cabinets.

First, I contracted some electrical work to have new outlets installed for the microwave and counter spaces, and wiring for undercabinet lighting. Here i'm test fitting the upper cabinets to test the locations for the new outlets & light wiring. I also ran speaker wire for the cabinet tops, to tie in to the house system. We like to listen to music while cooking.

I built all of the cases using basic pocket screw carcasses, with maple-faced plywood and a clear poly finish. The drawers are the same plywood but with box joints. The undercabinet lighting is pretty nice to have.

The right lower cabinet is a bit shorter for a cooking prep surface, easier to work on. It also has a sliding garbage/recycling center and the main silverware drawer. The left side has a drawer and 2 sliding shelves for pots and pans. The right cabinet also has a tunnel to re-route the heat vent out through the kick plate, and insulated so we aren't just making the garbage hot all winter.

This is the space with finished cabinets, pre-counter, but with the finished doors and drawers in place:

The counter top is 2" maple butcher block, found at Bauer Brothers salvage in Mpls, and plenty big enough to fit into the space. The left side needed a little extra fiddly cutting to fit in the odd space.

The last pieces were the spice rack on the right side, and this cover for the kickplate heat vent outlet. I couldn't find what i wanted, so i cut this out of 1/8" aluminum plate, with more hand cutting and filing than i want to admit. It's also practically impossible to see it now that it's installed.

Overall, this was easily the best and most practical remodeling project i've done on the house.

admin Fri, 02/16/2018 - 21:24

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Woodwork

Mom's kitchen table

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2015 22:54:04 +0000

Mom's kitchen table

My mom remodeled her kitchen over the winter of 2014-15, and wanted a new table that fit the space better than the huge table she was using then. We talked about the size and usage and decided on a single leaf drop table that could snugly seat 6 when open (when us kids and family visit) but also still have room for a newspaper and coffee when folded down.

She wanted something tough enough for daily use, so we went for hard maple even though she also wanted a darker finish, which isn't usually maple's forte. After some experimentation i found a combination that's a reasonable compromise and works pretty well in the room.

A good friend happened to have some planks of maple and a thickness planer, so we spent a noisy afternoon prepping stock for the panels. I got the leg stock from a local lumber yard and started cutting parts. The legs got a simple 2-sided taper and i used a molding edge on the apron pieces.

I'd never made panels like this before, and i wish i'd been more careful with the alignment from the start, because i spent a lot of time getting the joints as smooth as i wanted.

Finishing also took a lot of time, between sealing and getting the finish dark and even over a light wood. I can see why people like to spray stain on things like this. The top coat is a few coats of Arm-R-Seal poly.

The main table has fixed legs with standard hardware. I don't have a pic of the folding legs, but they're fairly heavy duty hinges with catches to hold them both up and down so storing is more stable.

The finished table in the usual folded-down position:

I'm pretty happy with the design, and it's still holding up well 3 years later.

admin Mon, 07/06/2015 - 17:54

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Kitchen remodel, Phase 1

admin — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 23:24:09 +0000

Kitchen remodel, Phase 1

My house was built in 1909, and i'm absolutely sure that from about 1909 to 1930 or so it was a perfectly delightful and usable kitchen. After that it went downhill because here's the thing: it was never designed with a place to put a refrigerator.

This is a common problem with houses of that era and earlier. They had an ice box in the back hallway that stored perishables and a pantry for the dry goods, and the whole kitchen could be dedicated to utensil storage and work space. (Probably with standalone cabinetry, but that's a story for phase 2).

This is the starting point for the space:

This is looking toward the back of the house, standing in the doorway from the front. From here you can see the other 3 doors that lead into the kitchen that help chop up any wall long enough to make into a counter. Or store a fridge, which here is partially blocking the swinging door at the left. This sucked.

The middle door in this pic (with the window) is the pantry, and the right door is the exit to the back yard. They were separated by a wall, but HERE'S THE THING: what if that wasn't a wall? The right side door could be a wall and we could exit through the pantry instead.

So that's what i did.

The back hallway had its own challenges, as the years of icebox use there had rotted the maple floor underneath, starting into the top of the floor joists. I sistered and reinforced the joists and installed a new subfloor, then tiled the entryway.

Since i was losing some shelf storage space in the pantry, i built a cabinet for the space where the fridge was.

This was the first time i'd done this scale of cabinet work, and it was challenging to make a built-in piece to fit walls that weren't necessarily smooth or square with each other or the floor. I opted for a sort of Hoosier cabinet variant with lower storage, drawers, and upper cabinets. It's only about 14" deep, but plenty enough for our daily dishes, and a relocated outlet lets us use the toaster there too. The original plan was to build glass-front doors for the upper shelves, but I like it better as open shelves.

This is the current view of that wall, with new fridge. The plan is still to remove that door behind the fridge to replace it with wall, maybe this year.

admin Sun, 09/14/2014 - 18:24

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