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Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Making Lemonade

Moving along in my hanging wall cabinet project, I was really starting to feel like I was getting my groove back. In this next phase of the project, however, I needed to tackle some tricky joinery with some fairly thin stock. While this project originally seemed like a good way to ease myself back into woodworking game shape, I quickly realized the joinery I decided to use - stopped dados and sliding dovetails - wasn't going to be quite a easy as I hoped.

As it turns out, my biggest challenge actually had little to do with experience, technique, or materials. But rather a simple design flaw in a tool that can be found in almost every shop. In this episode, you can find out where I ran into trouble and how I plan to make lemons out of lemonade.

5 comments:

Dave said...

Don't you hate it when that happens? I had something similar happen on a small wall hanging cabinet I made. In my case it was when I was drilling the screw holes for the hinges. I guess I was slightly angling the drill and the small bit flexed and came out the side of the case. My repair was easier than what you're facing though. Since it was a very small irregular shaped hole, a little CA glue and dust/shavings from the piece filled it in well enough. It is still visible, but looks like a natural defect in the wood.

pmelchman said...

rob,

lemonade is my middle name!!! I did something very similar. I was making a jelly cabinet for a client and I was using my festool domino, making plunge cuts....and BAM!!! forget to rest my depth of cut and plunged clean through ....right into the top of my table saw YIKES!!! Here is a link to the photo
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.539193646149419.1073741844.104734526262002&type=3

I did a quick repair, they loved it...they said it will strike up conversation.

patrick melchior
dragonfly woodworkinig

Rob Bois said...

Patrick, I completely feel your pain. But nice recovery on that project!

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes...an 'opportunity'...I've become (too) enamored of metal plugs, in addition to wood- I've got brass, bronze, aluminum. I especially like the way brass accents the wood...Rusty

Nik Brown said...

I saw the triton router on this video and thought "Hmmm I have the big triton in my router table and have been relatively unimpressed. (it was an inexpensive way to get a router and lift in place) But if Rob uses the smaller one as his handheld one I should probably give them a second look for a hand held application"... and then I saw the problem the depth stop set screw caused you.... It reaffirmed my thoughts on triton... cool ideas and features... but the fit, finish and tolerances suck! :) Your contrasting plugs turned out nice though!