Blanket Chest Design – Starting Point

My wife has another assignment for me.  This, of course, is what we woodworkers live for.  We get to spend time in the shop building stuff, earn brownie points by delighting our loved ones with the product of our ingenuity, and maybe pick up an new tool or two along the way.  What’s not to like?

This time, the project is a blanket chest to go at the end of the bed.  I realize that there are plenty of plans for these out there but, if you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know that I’ve just got to change things up – can’t help it.  I decided that this was a perfect time to design my own chest.  I also realized that this would also be a great time to give you a glimpse into how my thought processes work (scary, I know) as I go through the process step-by-step from initial concept to completed chest.

I started by listing the features my wife wanted in her chest.  This would provide the basic framework for the project that we would flesh out as we went.  Her basic list was:

• Frame-and-panel construction.
• Raised panels.
• Padded top.
• A solid plinth base – no feet.
• Should be extra-long to harmonize with the king-size bed.

That’s a pretty short list, but don’t be deceived – my wife is not very good at details.  These have to be established slowly through repeated conversations and preliminary sketches.  The next step was to show her examples of existing pieces so that she could point out things that she liked or disliked.  For this, I turned to my trusty image browser, Cooliris.  If you haven’t tried this free program or its Firefox plugin, I can’t recommend it highly enough.  It allows you to rapidly scan through related images based on your search parameters.  After scanning several hundred pictures, I had enough to get the ball rolling.

My drawing skills are poor, but hopefully they get the point across.  I haven’t troubled myself to learn Sketchup yet, but can at least transmit the general idea through sketches.  This is my starting point:  a basic three-panel chest with an overhanging top and a partial rail to retain the cushion.  For simplicity’s sake, I left off the basic shape of the plinth until the design gets more refined.

I’ll keep you updated as the design process goes forward.  There are a lot of design elements to be established, and no doubt the basic framework will be altered significantly before we’re ready to build.  The devil, as they say, is in the details.  Stay tuned!

What I Screwed Up This Week – October 13, 2010

As I mentioned last time, there were two errors that I made during the construction of the sauce packet bin.  The first had to do with planning for installation.  If you missed that one, look back at my post on October 7.

The Problem:

The one covered in this episode was also the result of a failure to plan.  (I think I’m starting to see a pattern here.) In this case, it had to so with trimming out the pivot blocks.  When I cut them out, I made them the same height as the bin ends.  Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, as I usually cover plywood edges with edge banding.  However, this time I was planning on using 1/4″ stain-grade birch plywood.  As you can see from the trim strip perched on top of the pivot block in the photo, this presented a problem.

The Solution:

This was a simple enough fix.  I removed the bin from the shelf and trimmed 1/4″ from the top of the pivot blocks.  This allowed the trim to nestle into place quite nicely.  Why not the front as well?  If you remember from the first installment, I had planned for the front panel of to overlap the pivot blocks, and it was made from the same plywood.

Luckily, the entire assembly was secured with some screws, so re-installation was not a problem.  The trim was then cut to fit and glued in place and we were ready to paint.

Lesson Learned:

Never forget that components have thickness.  This may seem obvious, but can be easy to overlook.  I’ve caught myself almost making this mistake on bookshelves – calculate the space between the shelves, but forget to allow for the thickness of the shelves themselves.  Small things like veneer, edge banding, and even film finishes like varnish or paint all add a thickness that can be at least felt with the fingers, and can influence the fit of components.  As a last step in any design, at least do a layout of certain key components as a crude sketch and make sure that all your measurements add up.

Later this week I’ll be starting on the outfeed table for my tablesaw, and I’m sure this project will yield more grist for our error mill.  Stay tuned!

Sauce Packet Bin – Part 2

When we left our bin, it was being overrun by a horde of shop cats (well, two anyway).  Since that time, I added three dividers placed to give four pockets of varying sizes.  The unit was then spackled, primed, and painted (yes, white).

The bin, together with its pivot blocks, was worked into position. The gap was a little wider than I wanted, so I added a piece of 1/4″ plywood as a shim on the left-hand side.  This allowed just enough room for free movement of the bin without binding.  After a couple of adjustments, the plywood pivot blocks were  attached to the sides of the cabinet with screws from the outside.  This “outside” is actually the inside of adjoining cabinets, so nothing shows.

To make for a smooth surface, the pivot blocks and shim were covered with strips of 1/4″ stain-grade birch plywood (at left).  To insure a smooth surface, no brads were used.  Rather, the trim was attached with dabs of hot glue.  In hindsight, considering the tight quarters where I was working, it would probably have been better to pre-prime and paint the trim.  However, everything worked out in the end.

And here we have the finished product, already busy carrying out its assigned task in the kitchen.  It was a simple project, but one that performs its allotted task as planned.  If it had been in the front of the cabinet rather than behind swing-out shelves, I would have designed it differently.  I would have made the piece out of solid wood, and given the top a graceful curve of some sort, or maybe even some scroll piercings for decoration.  However, in its actual location, a simple box is more than sufficient for the task.

Granted, this project doesn’t have the complexity or glamor of a Colonial secretary or a Federal demilune table, but it serves two very important functions:  it helps make the kitchen a more organized place, and it makes momma happy.

And when momma’s happy, daddy gets brownie points!

What I Screwed Up this Week – October 7, 2010

This is the first article in the “What I Screwed Up This Week” series, and my in-progess sauce packet bin provides a couple of good first example.  For full details of construction, please refer to the related posts blog posts on the bin itself.

What constitutes a “good” screw-up?  For the purposes of this series, a good screwup:

1. Is not safety related.
2. Is not terribly difficult to fix, just enough so to make it memorable and,
3. Provides a good lesson for our readers.

The Problem:

This week’s  problem actually began during the design phase.  I designed the bin as a rectangular box sandwiched between two pivot blocks.  The front panel was designed wider so that would overlap and hide the pivot mechanism.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take one thing into consideration – getting the assembly into place.

The cabinet side had an oversized face-frame that prevented sliding the bin assembly straight in – it had to be angled.  Unfortunately, the total assembly was too wide to slide in at an angle with the pivot blocks in place, and they HAD to be in place.  Hmm…  The only way to do it was if the right pivot block was rotated 180 degrees outwards to angle into place, then rotated back into position.  The only way to rotate this way was to (yep, you guessed it) cut the “ears” off the front.  So, out came the router and off came the ears. Now, I’ve got to work out a different trim scheme.

I realize pictures of this would make everything clearer, but there was no way to get the photographs I needed in the space where I was working.

Lesson Learned:

It’s not enough to make sure a component will fit a space – you have to plan for how you’ll get the item INTO that space.

The classic example of this is the entertainment center that, when completed, won’t fit out the shop door.  In my case, I neglected an obvious restriction in the form of a face frame that should have indicated a different approach to the problem.  Perhaps something like attaching the front after the rest of the frame was in place.

Working in cramped quarters is never easy.  Narrow-focus consciousness tends to cause us to “not see the forest for the trees”, and important details are easily overlooked.  Whenever possible, make a mockup of your design to allow you to test for various problems that might occur during installation.  In my case, taking a measure of the width of the area overlooked the face frame, and caused a major revision.  If I had simply held the measurement and come straight out with the measuring sticks, I would have run into the face frame and been alerted to the problem.

This revision and installation revealed another problem, one that required the bin assemly to be pulled back out.  However, we’ll save that one for next time

Do you have thoughts on the subject?  If so, please leave a comment below.  They say that two heads is better than one, and I hope we’ve got more than that out there.

Principles Rather Than Plans

Principles Rather Than Plans

I built a bookcase last month – nothing special, not even worth posting as a Lumberjocks project – just plywood, edge banding, and paint. White paint.

Why even mention it? Because it wasn’t really a bookcase, it was a shoecase. It was sized specifically to hold 24 aftermarket plastic shoe storage boxes for my wife, and it fulfilled this role perfectly. However, if you take away the shoes, it looks like a bookcase.

Basic bookcase construction is relatively simple – Sides and top the same width, shelves to fit within this framework, a back (optional), and some sort of base structure to raise the bottom shelf off the floor. Shelves are commonly set in dadoes, though simple cleats or shelf pins will serve. A back adds much-needed stiffness to prevent racking.

I built the shoecase using these principles and the dimensions of one of the plastic boxes. No plans were used, because none were needed. I decided how many boxes would fit in the allotted space in the closet, added a little clearance space to the top and sides, and decided how far I wanted the bottom shelf off the floor. The thickness of my chosen material (3/4″ plywood) and the aforementioned bookcase construction principles determined the rest.

Granted, I’m more experienced than many of you. Additionally, some may find it hard to visualize a project completely in their head. Don’t worry, I’m not advocating paperless woodworking. What I AM doing is urging that you not to be a slave to plans. Don’t misunderstand me – there’s nothing wrong with plans per se. It’s just that many people, especially beginners, feel as though a project can’t be built without a plan provided by someone else.

Plans aren’t sacred – not even Carlyle Lynch’s masterpieces. They are simply a record of the process of creating a framework to enclose a space or support an object, and then embellishing it in a way that pleases the designer. They are the road map of a journey taken by another. Never forget that you can follow a map and still take side trips and detours. A napkin full of notes is just as valid as any plan in a magazine.

The important thing to learn from plans is the PRINCIPLES that go into constructing a certain type of structure. Study plans to learn how different joinery is commonly used, and WHY something is designed the way it is. If you understand wood movement, proportion, and joinery, you become free to employ them however you wish, and plans become simply inspiration rather than dogma. Like a musician – learn to play music, then throw the music books away.

How to begin? Take the plan for your next project and change ONE thing to suit your taste. Anything will do. Maybe it’s the type of edge treatment on a tabletop, or the profile of the skirt on a chest- it doesn’t matter. Just look at the plans and say, “Yeah, it’s cool, but it’d be better if…”, then fill in the blank. It’s like peanuts- once you start, you won’t be able to stop.

Maybe I’ll post that project after all.