Q&A - What would I do differently?

Round 3 of Brady Kirkwood's Q&A for the Jewelry Armoire / Lingerie Chest build he's going to undertake.  He graciously agreed to let me publish his questions alongside my answers in case anyone else finds use in them.

Question #3

What would you do differently, either in the making or the design? 

What would you do to make the assembly easier?

My Response: 

I wrote up a "What Went Wrong" summary at the end of the project.  I'll pull some from there.

• I never replaced those phillips-head screws for the back panels like I said I was going to.  I got too tired and didn't want to wait for an order of screws.  Note to Chris Schwarz: don't look back there.
• The aniline dye bled into the maple drawer sides.  I attempted to tape these off to keep them pristine, but it didn't work out.  Next time I'll prefinish the drawer fronts and then assemble.  Then when I'm fitting the drawers, I'll just plane their end grain off.  If I go in carefully with a paintbrush I might be able to just darken them a bit without it bleeding into the maple.  The only other method I can think of is to make my dry-fit as close to the drawer opening as possible so I don't have to remove any material.  Not sure how I feel about this approach.
• I continue to have trouble with drawbore pins blowing out the grain on the far side.  Quartersawn White Oak is brittle in parts, so that certainly doesn't make it any easier, but I need more practice.  I've solved this on the Flip-Top Table build.  Basically I use less of an offset for Quartersawn White Oak (1/64" to 1/32" maximum), and I spend a lot of time making the tips of my drawbore pegs perfectly hemispherical.  I used to sharpen them to a pencil point, but the point was catching the grain on the far side instead of sliding past, forcing a blow out.  I tried flattening the sharp point, but it wasn't enough.  I looked very closely at the pegs in Doucette & Wolfe's Trestle Table Build video and noticed his tips were much rounder than mine, so I went that route and it worked perfectly.  Also, I use my rattail rasp to file the entry hole on the breadboard tenon so that it has a bit of a chamfer.  This helps guide the peg into the tenon hole.  And finally, hide glue lubricates the peg as it goes in where Titebond II does not.  My best advice is practice on scrap until you get it right consistently.  If it fails, it fails catastrophically.  :P
• I kinda wish I made narrower pins in the dovetails.  These look like they could have been made by a machine router bit.  I was super nervous going into that phase of the project so I gave myself extra room to screw up, but I think I've got the hang of it now and can start leveling up my dovetails.
• The top isn't perfectly flat because my workbench wasn't perfectly flat.  It's close though.  If I were to build another bench I don't think I'd bother with the split-top.  One solid surface seems like I'd enjoy it better.  Add it to the list!
• I took a bit too much wood off a few of the drawer sides when fitting them, removing the possibility of a piston-fit.  I had to glue some thin shims to the drawer guides in the lower drawer bays and then plane them back down until the larger drawers stopped jamming.  I admit I was impatient at this point and wanted the drawers in and done, but this is the worst kind of mistake after all this work.  It's so important to slow down here and take super light passes and keep retesting the fit over and over again.  Once you go too far it's too late.
• My drawer closing stops were positioned too close to my drawer guides, thus preventing my large shoulder plane from fitting in there to tune the drawer guides like I intended.  I could have bought a smaller shoulder plane, but I chose not to.  If I had it to do over, I would have used a rabbeted guide as Mario Rodrigues does (See Popular Woodworking - February 2009 - Issue #174 - 7 Strategies for Better Drawers).  
• I should have planned the assembly better in the design phase.  I think the main carcass glue-up exceeded 70 parts.  I did a ton of dry-fit practice runs beforehand, but still... stressful isn't the word.  Also, despite them fitting perfectly during the dry-fit, the sliding dovetail webframe fronts didn't seat flush with the legs.  They're probably 1/128" - 1/64" proud of the surface.  I beat on them with a mallet really hard, but no luck.  And since they were pre-finished, I couldn't plane it flush after assembly.  Maybe I won't pre-finish this type of assembly next time for this very reason.
• I still hate machine routers.  I had to use it for the 52" long lock miters in the legs.  If I can figure out a way to do this by hand, I'll probably do it.  It'll be safer, quieter, slower, and with less potential for grain explosions.

New addition to the list, after living with the dresser for a couple years and looking at it every day....

The front drawer blades are displaying flat sawn grain.  I find this incredibly distracting.  I really wish I trimmed a piece off, rotated it and glued it back on so that these blades would display quarter sawn grain to the viewer. 

To Simplify the Assembly Phase

With integral side panels, I can't really think of a way to simplify the assembly.  Reason being: you can't put those side panels into their slots without putting all of the web frames and all of the legs together in a single glue-up.  More than 70 parts in a single glue up.  Woo!

My advice is to dry-fit as many times as it takes until you memorize the order.  Tune the fit of every joint that shows the first sign of binding.  The time to tune isn't when the glue is on.  :)  

Although... 

If you choose to not do the side panels, you can do an initial assembly of legs + top frame + skirts.  That will lock in the core length / width / depth dimensions of the entire piece.  Then you can take your time and put in one web frame at a time.  A much more methodical and relaxing process


Hmm...  perhaps there's another way to get those side panels in after the fact.  Maybe treat them like glass panels.  Put them in place after the initial glue-up and then tack or glue on a little strip of wood to hold them there and to hide the edges of each panel.  Like so... hm..... wait... no.  Never mind.  

If you're going to put the side panels in after the fact, you might as well just put one tall panel the size of the door bay.  Or even better, you could do thin, narrow, shiplapped planks in there running vertically.  That would certainly simplify the main carcass assembly, allowing you to break it out into stages.  It also maintains a consistent overall aesthetic.  Not too shabby!



Stage 1: Legs + Skirts + Top Frame + Back (and Side) Mounting Strips (something to screw or nail the shiplapped planks into)

Stage 2: Glue and tap in one web frame at a time.  They are pretty much self-clamping, especially with the plywood panels holding them to their exact width, pressing them into the leg notches.

Stage 3: Screw or nail on the shiplapped planks onto the back and inside the door bays

Stage 4: Glue on the rabbeted Drawer Guides, attach the Top

Stage 5: Make and mount the Doors & Hinges, tune the fit

Stage 6: Make & fit the Drawers

Stage 7: Attach the Drawer Stops, Door Catches, Knobs 

There's probably more, but this is off the top of my head...

By removing the side panels and their captive grooves, you will be able to reduce the width of the web frame sides, as some of that material is now unnecessary.  This will allow you to have 3/8" thick shiplapping for the door bays and end up with the same internal volume I did.  But if it were me, I'd make 1/4" thick shiplapping, as every bit counts in that cramped space.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a way to maximize the storage space in there without sacrificing wood strength or creating weak wood joints.  The easiest option is to have wider legs, pushing the doors out farther, but I wanted to keep it looking as slender as possible.  It's a tight space and a difficult puzzle to solve.

Flip Top Hinge Mortises

Alright, it's not perfect, but it's as good as I can manage on this project.  I'll try harder next time.  And by trying harder, I mean to say, I'll try to be more patient and stop to resharpen more often and take lighter passes with the plane so I don't take off too much.  These table tops are NOT perfectly flat, but they're damn close.  Good enough for my brother, anyway.

Hinge mortises!  I think I truly enjoy hand mortising hinges.  There's something about it that it's just so satisfying.  One straight chisel, one small gouge (I sharpened my first gouge!  (using Mary May's instructions)), and a router plane.  10 minutes per mortise.  I listen to audio books while I work.  Dracula!

Mmmmm... nice.

We didn't care for the shiny yellow brass, so I bought Jax Brown Brass Darkener.  You soak the hinges in acetone for awhile, then scrub them with steel wool to remove the lacquer on them.  Then you can soak them in the Jax for a minute or two, then rinse with water, wipe lightly with steel wool until you like it, dry them off and spray lacquer to lock it in.  These came out fantastic.

Product Review: Starrett 819 Automatic Center Punch

This tool is awesome!

Perfectly centered screw locations.  Easiest time I've ever had with hinges.

Ready for screws.  Speaking of which.  Did you know that hardware stores only sell even numbered screws?  These hinges call for #7 wood screws.  I had to special order them!  WTF!  I skipped ahead and started finishing the table tops while waiting for the screws to arrive.

 Rule #493: DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, drill through the front of your tabletop when pre-drilling your hinge screw holes.  Avoid this catastrophe by any means necessary.  I saw some guy on YouTube make a little depth stop like this.  Drill a hole in a piece of scrap, cut around it on the band saw, and adjust the amount the drill bit projects from it to your desired depth.  Easy peasy.

Flip Top Breadboard Ends

Alright, so next up we need to square those table tops.  The circular saw was on a job site so we had to resort to the router and a straight edge.  Not my cup of tea so I asked Nathan to do it for me.  I hate routers.  One slip and *poof*, all those hours wasted.

Then we'll need some elongated mortises in the breadboard ends.  I bought the Lee Valley Premium Hollow Chisels and they work SO much better than the stock set that came with my Steel City Mortiser.  Holy crap they cut with so little resistance it's like a new machine.  We took turns drilling mortises because it was actually fun for once.  I thought this would take me 2 hours (usually does).  Took 30 minutes to drill 20 mortises.

I should have drilled the drawbore holes before drilling the mortises, but no big deal.

What's this?!  A MISTAKE?!  How dare you!?  

I was so certain that a 3/8" diameter peg would both look right and be the right choice for strength.  Nope.  It looked so out of proportion that I immediately regretted not testing out my theory on scrap first.  We cut a plug from red oak (all we had available) and glued it in.  Sawed it flush and drilled a 1/4" hole inside it.  No one will notice unless they look right at it.  And I think the aniline dye will even out the wood tones anyway.

Took both of us to cut the wide tongues on the tabletops using the dado stack on the table saw.  One person to press down to make sure the blade cuts to the full depth, and the other to push it through.

A nice tight fight.

A smattering of tools for this step in the process.  It's important to slow down here and take your time.  You really want this joint to fit snugly without any unsightly gaps.  I went too fast.  Now I have some unsightly gaps.  I won't show them to you though.  Not when I'm this sober.

Oh!  Also, another mistake.  :D   I should have left the breadboard ends 2 inches long on both sides so that I'd have something to hammer against to disassemble a tight fitting dryfit.  :P   I think I gave myself 3/4" on one side.  Not ideal.   Learn from my mistakes!

Alright, slow and steady here, measure multiple times and make sure you've got it laid out correctly.

 Looks good.

 All cut up and ready for glue.  Notice the elongated peg holes and that the glue is only on the center tenon.  That means I learned from and successfully avoided TWO previous mistakes.  :)

I spring jointed the breadboard ends so that they would provide extra pressure on their outer reaches, so one clamp in the center should have been enough to pull the joint tight, but I must not have been perfectly straight, so a second clamp helped.  With that one drawbore peg hammered in, I shouldn't need anymore clamps at all, but I kept using them as insurance.

36 drawbore pegs and not a single blow out.  Amen!  I did have a few pegs splinter apart while pounding them in, so I just pounded a peg from the other side to push it back out.  No big deal.  I spent a lot of time rounding the tips of the pegs and filing the entrances to each hole with my rattail rasp until just a sliver of oak was providing the mechanical leverage of the drawbore.

Cut 'em flush and smooth the breadboard ends to be flush with the rest of the top.

Of COURSE I'd cause more tear out.  Goddammit.  This was a really deep tear, too, so there's no way I could smooth it without making a huge divot.  So I decided to try wood filler and hope that it would blend in when I applied the finish.  (It did.)   Newly applied wood filler on the left... and me pointing at a sanded spot of wood filler to show that you can't really see it all that much.

100th Post! ...and still screwing up.

So Jason selected Stickley's Aurora Finish for his Flip-Top Table.  Perfect!  I already know how to do that one and I don't have to stop and run a dozen experiments to get a different color.  Awesome!

So I pull up my handy dandy Stickley Aurora Finishing Recipe & Schedule post to follow my step-by-step notes at the bottom, to the letter.

I mixed up the dye, per my own instructions, and applied it to all the parts today. I let it dry, then put a coat of boiled linseed oil on and went to my Mom's for a pasta dinner.  When I got home I opened my laptop and decided to check the aforementioned blog post to see what the next steps are and I decided to just read the post from the beginning to relive my thought process.

My eye catches on the "1 oz powder to 1 quart water."  I see that I thought this concentration was too dark and too red...   I read on and notice that I triple diluted the mix to get the right concentration to match the Aurora sample.  I scroll down to my step by step instructions and see that it says to mix 1oz powder to 1qt water, and realize that I mistyped my own instructions!

I realize I just applied an over-concentrated dye to every part in this project!  It didn't look that bad as I was applying it, but that's never a good indicator as it looks completely different when it dries.  It didn't look bad when I put the boiled linseed oil on.  But after I realized what I did, I could see that it is, in fact, too dark and too red.

My stomach fell down to my feet at the realization that I may have ruined months of work and hundreds of dollars of wood.

I rushed downstairs, grabbed the can of mineral spirits and a rag and frantically rubbed it over every part to dilute the boiled linseed oil.  After that flashed dry I took hot water and soaked each part and scrubbed.

It worked!  Holy crap it worked!  I was able to remove quite a bit of the reddish/purplish tone.

The only problem now is that each part got a different level of dilution, so I'm going to mix the formula correctly this time (1oz powder to 3qt water) and reapply.  I don't think applying more dye of a given concentration darkens it further.  If you want it darker you have to add more dye powder to the solution.  I'll confirm that on a test piece, just to be sure.

So that's my 100th post.  I almost ruined the finish on a beautiful table and saved my own ass at the last second.  Here's to 100 more!  :-P

Flip Top Table Lock Miter Legs

I really do not enjoy lock miters.  There's no room for error.  You get one chance to get that shape right and if you mess up, you can't just run it through the router again.

So these aren't perfect, but they're close enough.

After the glue dried, some legs had an open seam.  There's a trick to solving this problem.

Step 1: Stare at unsightly open seam with disdain.

Step 2: Take your burnisher (or screwdriver) and start at a shallow angle to one face of the leg.  Start rubbing back and forth, applying firm downward pressure.  

Step 3: Take another pass at a steeper angle.  Gradually push the wood and glue over.  Do one side, then the other, then back and forth until the seam closes up.

Step 4: After a light sanding, it's pretty much seamless.

5 lock mitered quadrilinear legs done.  Always make 1 extra leg.  You never know when you're gonna screw up.

So yeah, lock miters.  Not a huge fan of them.  It's a fussy, tricky joint that can fail at any moment.  Maybe you set up the router fence incorrectly so now nothing lines up right.  Maybe you set everything up perfectly but there was a huge chunk of tear out that was completely out of your control.  Maybe you wobbled a bit as you were pushing the wood past the router bit so now there's a bump in the profile, preventing the joint from seating correctly.  Maybe you did everything right but for some reason got an open seam during the glue up.  Bleh.

I read one post about a guy beveling the edges of each board before sending them through the router, to minimize the amount of material the bit has to remove.  He seemed to suggest that this minimized tearout, though not 100%.  His lock miter bit must have a different profile than mine.  If I did a 45° bevel it would cut away part of the little tongue.

I don't know if I'll keep using this joint.  Maybe I'll start glueing a few boards together to make thicker stock and do a thick veneer to cover the other two faces of the leg.

I'm just glad this part is done.  Lock mitered, quadrilinear legs are the least enjoyable part of furniture projects lately.  I really hate routers and this has to be the least enjoyable router bit to use.

Jewelry Armoire / Lingerie Chest Complete!

It's done!  She waited through 2 birthdays, 1 anniversary, 1 Christmas, and 1 Valentine's Day... but it's finally done, and she seems to feel that it was worth the wait.  /phew!

If you've followed this blog this far, I won't make you way any longer.  Here are the photos:

The Butcher's Bill

In which I attempt to catalog what went right, what went wrong, what I've learned, and what mistakes I'll try to avoid in the future.

What Went Right

I've added several firsts in this project.

• First attempt to design a piece of furniture based on the Golden Ratio
• First handcut sliding dovetails
• First Stickley Aurora finish
• First solid wood drawer bottoms
• First drawer slips
• First drawer closing stops
• First velvet-lined drawers
• First invisible hinges
• First web frames suspended in each leg where the legs have mortises at precise elevations
• First mortise & tenons that meet inside the leg at a 45 degree miter
• 52" long quadrilinear legs!
• A real shooting board plane on an accurate shooting board is a thing of beauty, speeds up accuracy chores like nobody's business, and is totally worth the cost.
• I made my first donkey-ear shooting board attachment so I could plane accurate miters on 1/8" thick material.  It's just a quick jig so I could get back to work, so I didn't make it nice, but I've already thought of ways to improve it for the long term.
• I made my first sticking board so I could plow grooves in narrow stock.
• A carbide-tipped bandsaw blade is also worth the cost.
• A power thickness planer is absolutely worth the cost. 
• Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the grain orientation and selection for key parts.  The top 6 drawer faces all came from the same board. The bottom 3 drawers were from a separate board but the dye really evens their appearance out nicely.
• Zach at Dunham Hardwoods did a fantastic job, once again, in hand-selecting defect-free, color-matched, beautifully figured hardwood for my project.  Thank you, Zach.

What Went Wrong

• I broke the brass thumb screw that locks the depth stop on my Small Plow Plane.  Lee Valley was kind enough to send a free replacement, but that knob broke too.  I kept tightening down because the depth stop was still moveable.  Marty at Lee Valley worked with me for a few weeks.  He sent a brand new plow plane, 2 brass thumb screws, and another depth stop post so that I could compare.  They asked me to mail in my plane for their inspection, ended up mailing it back and asking me to compare it to the new one and keep whichever was performing better.  This level of customer service is incredible.  They really went above and beyond in standing behind their product.  If I wasn't already a loyal lifetime customer, I would be now.  I'm happy to say that we found a combination of depth stops and associated parts that lock the depth stop in place better.
• I broke the drill bit in one of my hollow-chisels for my mortiser.  I haven't been happy with the set that came with the tool anyway.  I should have saved my money and gotten a Powermatic, but I'll settle for upgrading the chisels before the next major project.
• I never replaced those phillips-head screws for the back panels like I said I was going to.  I got too tired and didn't want to wait for an order of screws.  Note to Chris Schwarz: don't look back there.
• The aniline dye bled into the maple drawer sides.  I attempted to tape these off to keep them pristine, but it didn't work out.  Next time I'll prefinish the drawer fronts and then assemble.  Then when I'm fitting the drawers, I'll just plane their end grain off.  If I go in carefully with a paintbrush I might be able to just darken them a bit without it bleeding into the maple.  The only other method I can think of is to make my dry-fit as close to the drawer opening as possible so I don't have to remove any material.  Not sure how I feel about this approach.
• I continue to have trouble with drawbore pins blowing out the grain on the far side.  Quartersawn White Oak is brittle in parts, so that certainly doesn't make it any easier, but I need more practice.
• I kinda wish I made narrower pins in the dovetails.  These look like they could have been made by a machine router bit.  I was super nervous going into that phase of the project so I gave myself extra room to screw up, but I think I've got the hang of it now and can start leveling up my dovetails.
• The top isn't perfectly flat because my workbench wasn't perfectly flat.  It's close though.  If I were to build another bench I don't think I'd bother with the split-top.  One solid surface seems like I'd enjoy it better.  Add it to the list!
• I took a bit too much wood off a few of the drawer sides when fitting them, removing the possibility of a piston-fit.  I had to glue some thin shims to the drawer guides in the lower drawer bays and then plane them back down until the larger drawers stopped jamming.  I admit I was impatient at this point and wanted the drawers in and done, but this is the worst kind of mistake after all this work.  It's so important to slow down here and take super light passes and keep retesting the fit over and over again.  Once you go too far it's too late.
• My drawer closing stops were positioned too close to my drawer guides, thus preventing my large shoulder plane from fitting in there to tune the drawer guides like I intended.  I could have bought a smaller shoulder plane, but I chose not to.  If I had it to do over, I would have used a rabbeted guide as Mario Rodrigues does (See Popular Woodworking - February 2009 - Issue #174 - 7 Strategies for Better Drawers).  
• I should have planned the assembly better in the design phase.  I think the main carcass glue-up exceeded 70 parts.  I did a ton of dry-fit practice runs beforehand, but still... stressful isn't the word.  Also, despite them fitting perfectly during the dry-fit, the sliding dovetail webframe fronts didn't seat flush with the legs.  They're probably 1/128" - 1/64" proud of the surface.  I beat on them with a mallet really hard, but no luck.  And since they were pre-finished, I couldn't plane it flush after assembly.  Maybe I won't pre-finish this type of assembly next time for this very reason.
• I'm officially done with my Benchcrafted Classic Leg Vise.  Moving that peg manually every time I change thicknesses bugs me.  I'll be upgrading to their CrissCross version in short order.
• I still hate machine routers.  I had to use it for the 52" long lock miters in the legs.  If I can figure out a way to do this by hand, I'll probably do it.  It'll be safer, quieter, slower, and with less potential for grain explosions.

The Aftermath

I've actually been having a hard time adjusting to not having such a major project occupying a substantial part of my brain.  I get home from work or wake up on a Saturday with nothing to work on.  It only took me two days to start getting the shakes.  I had to tell Carolyn: "Whatever happens, don't let me start a new project."

These past few woodworking projects have taken so much focus and dragged out for so many months that upon completion there's a real sensation of ...emptiness? at not having them within my care and attention anymore.  Still, I'm relieved to have this dresser completed.

When I brought it upstairs, Carolyn asked me how it feels to finally be done, and I guess I was sort of in shock about it because I just felt completely numb and thoroughly wiped out.  It was as if the cumulative weight of the entire project came crashing into me.  I wasn't allowing myself to pay attention to all the steps it took me to climb the mountain and only now turned to look back to see where I've been, and the length of the journey is daunting.

I started woodworking 5 years ago.  I had to go look that up.  It seems like it's been so much longer than that.  With each new piece of furniture I can see that I'm getting better and that my skills are improving.  This dresser is a huge leap for me.  The complexity and quantity of joinery and measurement and precision required ... man.  I still get a little surge of excitement when a piece of furniture ends up exactly as I designed it in SketchUp.  "This was in my head at one point, and now it's standing here in front of me."  

As with all of my work, I continue to see tiny flaws here and there.  Mistakes no one else will notice, and I've written them here just as a reminder to myself.  They don't really matter much, as they can't outweigh the beauty of the end result, but nowadays the flaws are in areas I wouldn't have anticipated.  It's not an obvious flaw like a bad-fitting joint or bad finish.  It's more about design, where I should have paid more attention to grain direction, or realized that a board oriented in that fashion would display flatsawn grain and not quartersawn or riftsawn grain (which would have been more preferable).  I don't think this is the kind of lesson I can learn from books or blogs... I gotta make those mistakes myself and consciously decide to avoid them in the next project - the sort of wisdom that comes with the actual experience of doing the thing.

For My Wife

You put up with me when my brain latches onto a complicated puzzle and can't let go.
You wait patiently while the project invariably drags out into several months, looking forward to the time when I can return to spend time with you and our family.
When you do complain, it's out of worry for my happiness in pursuing this hobby, am I enjoying it or am I pushing myself too hard?
You do without me so that I can have this activity in my life.
You carry the weight of my absence and keep our home in one piece.
You don't add anymore pressure to me than I've already added to myself.
You make it work.
You've waited and watched for years as I built furniture for other people.
...and you've never asked for something to be built for yourself.

For all of these reasons and more, I give you this.

The depth of my knowledge.

The height of my creativity.

The intensity of my focus.

The best of my ability.

The fullest expression of my love.

Attaching the Hardware

Hinge Mortises  

I didn't have much trouble mortising the hinges onto the back of the chest.  Mostly chisel work and finishing it up with the router plane.  Easy peasy, nice and relaxing.

I need to buy a drill bit centering marker jobbie because two of my hinge holes were a little off.  I made a few "toothpicks", added a little glue and shoved them in, let them dry, cut them flush, and drilled the holes in the correct position.  Worked nicely.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how to transfer the hinge locations to the underside of the lid.  With all of the hinges in their closed position attached to the back of the chest, I rested the lid in position so that it was flush to the back of the rear legs of the chest.  I took my marking knife and marked the sides of each hinge, cutting a little mark into the underside of the lid.  Easy enough.  But how was I going to measure how far inward onto the lid the hinges project?

Using a pencil, I marked where the lid overlapped the cylinder of the butt hinge.  Then I set my marking gauge to the distance of the front of the hinge to that pencil line and used this gauge setting to mark the distance the hinge reaches onto the lid.  None of that probably made any sense.  I was focusing too much on not making mistakes to bother getting the camera.  Sorry.  More chisel work and router planing finished up those hinge mortises.

The Problem with Fancy Brass Screws

Then it was time to screw the hinges on. I thought I pre-drilled large enough holes, but the very first brass screw I tried to drive in snapped off.  I had to go buy a pair of needle nose pliers and chisel around that screw in order to get a good grip on it.  Crossing my fingers, I managed to get it out.  /phew!

After that, I practiced on some scrap white oak until I found the correct diameter drill bit that would allow the screw to go in smoothly.  Not trusting the weak brass, I used some harder metal ones (of the same "number") to establish the thread with less likelihood of snapping.  I did this to all 24 screw holes and then used the brass screws with confidence (and paraffin wax, too, just because I'm paranoid).  I didn't even risk using a power drill.  I screwed them all by hand so I could feel for any resistance that might bend the brass.

Then I had to figure out how to hold the lid in position so that I could attach the lid to the base.  I cut two pieces of wood to the exact height of the bench legs, and two longer pieces.  Then clamped them to the bench so that the lid could rest on the shorter boards while the longer ones acted like arms holding it at 90 degrees.  Thus I was able to lay the hinges into the corresponding hinge mortises so that I could screw them in along the back of the bench.  I even took the time to clock my slotted screw heads.  /Screw-snob!

Clocked screw heads, and you can just make out the "toothpick" repair on the inside of the leg (to the left of the lid support).

Lid Supports.  

I wanted the lid supports to be mounted to the 2"x2" legs so that the sliding till would have more room to slide around.  So that's what I did.  And as soon as they were attached, I took one last look and began to literally and figuratively shut the lid on this project.  ...which is how I ran face first into yet another mistake.  The lid stopped closing 5" above the top of the bench.

The geometry at play requires that the lid supports be mounted to a back panel that is 3/4" thick.  By mounting it 2" from the hinge pivot point, I ended up with 8 screw holes to plug and hide.  So it is what it is, and not what I thought it was going to be.  I moved the supports to the back rail, which happens to be 3/4" thick, and they work as advertised.  Lesson learned.  Know your hardware.

Tray Runners

4 screws each.  Easy peasy.  I put a healthy amount of wax on the rails and a couple more coats of wax on the tray.  The tray slides all the way across with the flick of a finger.  Much better than I expected.

Coat Hooks & Mounting Hardware

I measured, drilled and attached the hooks to the mirror and attached the cleat to the back and mounted it on the wall.  My wall is bowed in two directions so the mirror wasn't sitting flat.  I went and bought another cleat to help suck the bottom in and prevent it from bouncing so much.  My next house will have flatter walls.

That wraps up all the hardware.  Next up: The End!

Breadboard Un-ending

Everything was going so well with the breadboard ends.  The mortises were wider than the tenons, I tuned the fit perfectly, I squared up the shoulder so there were no visible gaps.  So far so good.

I clamped on the breadboard ends before taking a 1/4" drill bit to mark the current location of the center of the holes.  I used my double square to measure 1/32" or so toward the shoulder to mark where I needed to drill the holes in the tenon for the drawbores.

I drilled the holes.  I reattached the breadboard ends and peeked into the holes and everything looked good.

As I stood back and began whittling the pegs I had half a feeling that I was forgetting something, but // Wow, no mistakes so far, what a great day this is turning out to be!  Let's keep going! //

So I glue the front tenon, clamp the ends on and peg them one at a time.  Everything worked perfectly.

I cleaned up the shop, went upstairs and my wife asked me what the best thing that happened today was.  // I didn't make any mistakes! //

It wasn't until the next morning while in the shower that I realized I forgot to elongate the drawbore holes in the back two tenons.  Grrr!

"Can't you just leave it?"

// No.  When winter comes the wood will dry out and it won't be able to shrink.  Those two pegs are keeping it expanded, and it might crack right down the length of the bench lid. //

"You need to make it right then.  It will bother you until winter that you didn't do it correctly and if it breaks you'll be making your third lid for the same project."

// Yep. //

So I cut the breadboard ends off and chiseled off the glue.

It's not all bad.  I had plenty of extra 5/4 stock to make new breadboard ends and now I know just how easy it is to remove them.

I cut a kerf between the tenons using the bandsaw.  Then extended the kerf with the fret saw.  Then whacked each section off with chisel & mallet.

The glued section was removed with chisel & mallet, riving the wood and then shaving it off.

The two back tenons now have elongated holes to allow for wood movement.

New breadboard ends, comin' right up!

All better.