Woodworking Tips from Pop…

Building a custom bar…..Page 4

 I didn’t get to the arches today like I had planned today. Pop always says write your plan down on a piece of paper and then throw it in the garbage. Because in this business things rarely work out as planned. Instead we worked on the raised panel doors and the columns for the upper back bar. The 5 piece door system we started yesterday came together pretty well. We planed the glued up boards down first to ¾” and then sized them all to fit inside the stile and rail frame. The boards were then profiled on a shaper with an automatic feed and given that raised panel profile that looks so good. After the panels are profiled, they’re inserted into the stile and rail frame and clamped together until the glue dries. See stile and rails for details on how this is done. Tomorrow we’ll sand the doors, profile the edges with a router, bore the 35mm hole for the hinges and hang them.

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We can’t work all the time, so I decided take a break from woodworking and have a few laughs.

Pop definitely does not endorse alcohol, sex, drugs, or rock n roll, but he does enjoy a good laugh!

Hello World

Do cutting arches intimidate you? Maybe this post can help out.

The ability to cut a true circle or segment arch is a huge part of building custom interiors. Just about every other bar or built-in that we build will have some type of arch of one form or another.
Cutting arches used to be a very intimidating procedure for us until a few years ago when we discovered the right way and the easy way to cut an arch. I’ll be honest with you (We Cheat). I use a construction calculator to find the radius and then it’s all about just learning to make the jig to cut it out. The construction calculator is the ticket, we used to full around with string lines and I would talk to these math gurus about finding the radius and they would lose me in about the first 5 seconds of the conversation. Then one day Pop showed up with an $80 calculator that change my life. I’ll admit it takes a few minutes (120) to figure out how it works, but once I did its second nature now.

Figuring out how to cut an arch goes like this, you have three variables to deal with. The run, the rise, and the radius. The run is the horizontal measurement, the rise is the vertical measurement and the radius is the point from the center to the outside of the arch.

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Building a custom bar…..Page 3

Face frames and Door components

I know it still doesn’t look like much, but today was a very productive day in building this classic bar. Pop was really pushing!

 We spent the day milling Stile and rails for the doors, making and installing face frames on the back bar, building a few drawers, gluing up door panels and cutting arches out with a router. I don’t believe we stopped all day.

The first step we took today was measuring and cutting the material for the face frames. The face frames were dressed at 2″ wide for the side, 4″ wide for the base and ¾” thick. These dimensions are typically our standard sizes for a bar like this, however they can vary depending upon the job. Since the doors and drawers all overlay the face frames, it’s generally easier and more accurate to install the face frames first, and then get the dimensions for the doors and drawers.

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Part 1

This weekend I had an opportunity to visit the woodworking show in Atlanta, and the place was packed! All the great tools and craftsmen displays were enough to keep me wandering around for hours. Most of the same companies were there like Kreg, Dewalt, Bosch, Freud, Delta, and the one that impressed me the most was the Legacy ornamental milling machine. I visited one of these shows a few years ago and was introduced to this American made machine and was pretty impressed then, now after a few years it seems the company has taken their products to a new level. I watched as one of their representatives carved a spring like candle stick in about 20 minutes. Not only was I impressed with the machine, but the demonstration was done so professionally that I couldn’t help thinking to myself that this is a first rate company. Legacy Woodworking Machinery not only offers a variety of products at several affordable price ranges, but an extensive online support system that I have never seen a tool manufacturer offer. They call it the Legacy Woodworking Academy.

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 Turning crown molding into baseboard

Recently we’ve been doing some cabinet projects that require a more furniture grade look. One inexpensive way we found to achieve this result is to add decorative feet to the base instead of a traditional toe kick. Now, you can go out and purchase a decorative foot or spend hours or days carving one, but who has the time for that. The solution is simple, modify a piece of molding already shaped. The molding we’re using on this cabinet is a crown molding without the bevel on the back side. We will be referring to this molding as the baseboard. The baseboard we’re using is a little wider than our typical toe kick, so we’ll have to rip some off  on the table saw.

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Sometimes I just can’t leave well enough alone. I decided today to include another new category on this site called “The Woodworkers Gallery”. This is where I’ll post, not only my projects but other craftsmen’s as well. These are projects that inspire us and I felt they should be included on this site.
Surfing the internet has made it possible for us to view many custom woodworkers that share their projects on the web. One site I’ve recently come across is a woodworking site called LumberJocks. A website for woodworkers around the world to interact with each other, showcase their projects and share tricks of the trade. I’ve come across several outstanding craftsmen on this site that I will be showcasing some of their work in this category.

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