Furniture project part 3.5: Still carving, still sucks.

I spent the weekend carving away at the circles I’d made last week and griping about the lack of appearance of my sharpening stones (which unfortunately may be in New Jersey, a problem that is big for all kinds of reasons.) But as of right now there’s only two sections left to carve out- the big drawer front on the bottom of the case, and the top. I’m looking well forward to being able to *not* be carving away at this anymore. The difference between doing this by hand and doing it with a power tool is really obvious when you work on the door fronts, since the recessed areas for their hardware were done with power tools.

So here’s photos of the past few days’ work. It should take another two days for me to finish this task (and I *REALLY* hope I can sharpen my chisels), and then, finally, I can move on to the next step, which is still boring prep work, but it won’t bust my knuckles and cause blisters, either.

This shows about how much material comes off the first pass of one of those small circles.

This is the left side of the unit. I put it on its side because it was a LOT easier to work with that way.

This is the same side, once it was completed.

The first door- note the small circle on the left. That’s for the hardware, and it was done with a power tool. One I wish I had. Really.

The first door, once completed.

Beginning work on the second door. You can see the circles have been cut out around their perimeters.

And finally, the second door is done. Look at that mountain of material in the background!

I’m really looking forward to getting on with the next step of this- it gets easier (if no less time consuming) from here.

Furniture project part 3: A flexible shaft is not a sex toy.

So, we have a clean piece of sanded furniture that has a design traced on it. Now what?

Now is when the really tedious, fussy, messy part begins. Some people may call it fun. I don’t, because I truly dislike working with wood. This is the one part of the job that for me, is just a right pain in the ass.

I went around the piece and determined which circles, or parts of circles I wanted to recess. In those recessed spaces is going to be mosaic tile. Some of the circles will remain flush with the surface, and only get a different finish treatment. I know this sounds very confusing right now, so let’s just take one step at a time: some of the circles are going to be carved out to make room for tile. We can discuss the rest of it later.

I marked all the parts of the circles that I wanted to carve out with a big X.

But how are we going to carve all this material out?

If you have a plunge router, this becomes a lot easier and far, far less time consuming. Then again, if you have a plunge router you don’t need me to tell you how to do this project, either.

I do not have a plunge router. I don’t do enough woodworking to really need one. (Metal and ceramics tools? Those, I got.) But what I *do* have (I actually have two) are flexible shaft machines.

No, they aren’t sex toys.

Flexible shaft machines are usually thought of as tools for jewelers, and in fact that’s who uses them most often. However they’re invaluable for restorers as well, which is why I own two. (I used to have three, actually.) They are operated by use of a foot pedal, allowing you to control the speed at which the motor spins while being able to use both your hands. They are perfect for delicate fragile work (I should take photos of the box of micro drill bits I have. Most people have never seen bits that tiny before.) but also can do larger jobs as well.

For larger jobs and general household use, most people don’t bother with a flex shaft, since there’s a tool that will do many of the same jobs, just not as delicately or finely controlled.

A Dremel. While I find them to be more convenient than flex shafts, they aren’t nearly as controllable, and if your hands are small, they can be awkward to use.

I don’t own a Dremel, cool as they are. I also am having problems finding the chuck keys to my flex shaft machines, but fortunately, I can fix that for $4. But anyway, I busted out the flex shaft and some separating disks and got working.

I tapped a temporary nail into the wall and hung the machine up (I’ll fix it later.) , and got the machine going.

While you probably *could* remove all the material you’re looking to be rid of with a flex/dremel, That’s seriously a long time wasting electricity making noise. All I was interested in doing was defining the perimeter of the area that needed to be carved out. I carefully defined the area I wanted to remove with the tool and then set it aside. I then used a *sharp* 1/4″ chisel to carve out the hollow inside.

Why did I bother with the flexi? Because this would make it easier for the chisel to stop at the border of the area I wanted to carve. It minimized the possibility of going too far and ruining the shape of the circle.

Here’s an example of how it looked after I used the flexi to define the perimeter of an area:

So as you can see, all I’m doing is following the lines I drew, cutting into the surface of the case in order to define the shape of the area I am going to carve out. On the one side of the case I did today, that was three areas total. You could get this all done in one day if you pushed it, but it’s important to take your time and be patient. Also? Wear eye protection, always. Sometimes the disks shatter and fling themselves pointedly (pun intended) at very high velocities. Yeah it stings if you catch it in the arm, but you don’t want one of these little projectiles hitting you in the eye.

Once all the circles on this side of the case were completed, I began carving out the material that needed to go away. You have to be careful here not to go too far, or you’ll punch through to the other side and then there will be no base on which to lay your glue later. Use a sharp chisel(I need to find all my whetstones…) and take your time.

I wish I could say this were the fun part. It’s not. It sucks. But if you rush you’ll screw up. Here’s what the first circle looked like when it was finished:

You can see, there’s another circle to the right of that with a big X on it also. I began working on that one next. I just repeated the same process- define the perimeter with the flex shaft, and then carve out the middle with a sharp chisel:

Eventually, all three areas designated for removal were carved out. Now, I have the other side of the case, and the three door/drawer fronts that I removed earlier, and the top. I decided to do the sides first since those would be seen the least, in case of an error. So far, it’s okay. Any imperfections will be fixed up in the next few steps. I’ll keep updating this process as it goes on, but basically, it’s just the same thing over and over. I may reattach the drawer and door fronts for the sake of stability while I’m working on them, since it’s convenient, and remove them again before the next step.

So be on the lookout for more carved out circles, me trying to find the damned chuck key, and me wondering where the hell all my whetstones have fucked off to, so I can keep my chisels sharp.

Furniture project part 2- Sanding and drawing.

Okay, so the case is as taken apart as it’s going to be, and all the spray painting save the clear coating is done. What’s next? Sanding.

Here’s where I tell you I own both a palm and a detail sander and yet, I sanded this piece by hand. Why?

Because wood veneer is very thin. How thin? Try about 1/42 of an inch. No, seriously. Now, if this were a solid wood piece, then screw it- you can afford to pull out power tools. But not a veneered piece, because once you break through the veneer, the only thing behind it is MDF.

Okay, so why are we sanding at all? Why not just clean it and leave it alone? Because the veneer has a clear coat and once again, we are trying to remove the clear coat in order to work directly with the wood surface itself. So we’re back to hand sanding.

I’ll state up front I hate working with wood. It’s my single least favorite material to work with, period. But I was taught by the best how to do it. Here’s some tips-

• For this kind of job, I wouldn’t use any grit more aggressive than 220. If you’re not experienced, I’d even go with a 320 or a 400(but make sure it’s dry- don’t use water soaked sandpaper on wood. It’s entirely counterproductive as it will raise the grain, which is what you’re trying to avoid). Remember, all you’re trying to do is remove the clear coat, not the wood veneer under it.

• Sand with the grain only (it’s really tempting in corners and on upper and lower edges to not do this. Don’t give in to that temptation- you’ll regret it later.)

• Be gentle. Go slowly. Unfortunately, if you go too fast you will go through the veneer and then you really have problems.

• If you don’t know how to sand evenly by hand, use a sanding block.

• Change your paper often. It’s not gold, it’s just sandpaper. You can use a new piece, I promise. But clogged paper gets you nowhere.

This takes a little time but creates not as much dust as you’d think (it does create a little), because again, you’re not trying to remove wood- just the clear coat sitting on top of it. You will notice a difference in sheen between sanded and unsanded parts, like this:

See how the bottom square has a matte finish and the top is still shiny? The bottom has been sanded and the top hasn’t. What you want to do is sand the whole piece. Now, I didn’t bother sanding the inside because frankly, I’m not going to alter the inside. If i were doing this piece for a commission, I would- but my apartment is so dark that having a light inside makes the things in there easier for me to see in the long run, so I’m leaving the interior alone. YMMV. You decide what you want to mess with.

Once the piece has been totally sanded, it’s time to clean it off. You can do this with a tack rag, which will remove the dust, but it won’t clean the surface. No, for that you want to use alcohol. Denatured is cheap, isopropyl (the kind you keep in your bathroom) works just as well, but it’s more pricy(this piece was cleaned with isopropyl because i seem to be out of denatured.). Frankly, you can do it with vodka if you really wanted to but I can’t imagine why you’d waste the vodka that way. But what’s really important here is this: DO NOT USE WATER. WATER IS BAD.

Water causes wood to swell and raises the grain above the surface. Since we just spent however long sanding this thing, this is the last thing you want, especially when the wood is only 1/42 of an inch thick to start with. Alcohol will not raise the grain and it dries almost instantly. It will clean any surface dirt off your newly sanded wood just fine. But you *have to* clean the wood. First of all you want to get all the dust off the piece that remains from the sanding, and second you want to make sure all the surface dirt is gone from the piece because stain doesn’t have any more intelligence than paint does. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves by a few steps. Clean all the parts of your piece thoroughly.

Now comes the first bit of actual creativity- you have to decide what kind of design you want to put on your furniture. You can draw it out on paper first if you want to, or use a CAD program to design it or do whatever you want. In the end, all you’re going to need is a sharp pencil (I use a .5 mechanical) and whatever guides you’ll be using to create your design.

In my case, I am using circles. Sure, there’s compasses (I have at least two), and you can make a compass out of a thumbtack and string (but why would we push a thumbtack in this thing now?). Me? I wandered around my living room and collected circular items of various diameters and traced them on my piece. I didn’t put any on the back of the case since who the hell will ever see them? (Don’t bother with shit you can’t see- it’s a waste of your time and energy.), but I drew circles all over the sides, the top, and all the door/drawer fronts. Here’s an example, along with some of the things I used to trace them:

I also used spray paint caps and some other stuff. As you can see, some of the circles overlap and some don’t. That’s true all over the case. It will become an important design element in the next step, which is mapping out the design itself and busting out (dum dum DUM….) power tools and chisels.