Back in stile

Remember the hanging wall cabinet? Well it still doesn't have any doors or drawers - so let's remedy that situation.  I decided the door fronts would be first, and why not amp it up a bit with through haunched tenons. I love haunched tenons because they let me cut all the grooves straight down all the rails and stiles on the router table without having to square anything off with hand tools.  But they do add an extra level of difficulty to the tenon construction. So I'll show you a way I quickly measure out the haunches and cut them with a hand saw.

And with stiles just an inch wide, I was worried shorter tenons might not be strong enough. So I decided to just run the mortises all the way through the stock. Top it off with some raised cherry panels for effect, I think these door fronts will really complement the hanging wall cabinet. Which reminds me, I need to start looking for some hinges pretty soon. Enjoy!

A game of recovery

You might recall that I’m building this entire live-edge hall table completely on the fly. This all started with the live-edge top dictating the exact size and shape of the carcass. While this project seemed simple enough, having no drawings, model, or even sketch started to become a limitation. I started to make some fairly dumb mistakes that I would have easily avoided by looking at a 3D model or even a sketch. But woodworking is a game of recovery and agility, and fortunately I didn’t screw anything up so badly that I had to start over. I retrospect, deciding to introduce drawers into the plan this late in the game probably didn’t set me up for success!


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You say molding, I say moulding

In almost every project I do, I usually feel like I'm coming down the home stretch only to realize that there are a whole bunch of small steps left. Each individual step is a fairly straightforward process but when put together, there's actually more work left than I'd really anticipated. This screen door project was no different. I had the door glued up and seemingly almost done, but the little details like chamfering the edges, cutting the hinge mortises, milling the mouldings, and applying the finish really added up. I also needed to apply at least four coats of finish since this is an outodoor project, which also added a good week of time to the build.

All that being said, its the small things that can really make or break a project. This is the point where it's so tempting to cut a few corners here and there, but usually where you can separate a good project from a great project in the final outcome. After the finish cures, I'll finally be ready to fit in the screening and hang my door and be happy knowing I did all the little things right.



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