the credenza part 9 - finishing and moving

after a smooth recovery from the shelf cutting fiasco, it was time for me to pack my bags and head back home. up to this point, i had spent a total of 3 weeks working on the credenza in the shop. this is where mom picked up the project, as she is the resident finishing expert.

throughout this process i found myself being constantly corrected by my mom. i would ask her a question about what state the credenza needed to be at in order for her to start staining. she would say that she is not "staining" the credenza, she is simply finishing. this was her nice way of saying that staining is when you take cheap wood and make it look like expensive wood.  she would be finishing, which is sealing and protecting my beautiful wood with no alteration of color.

here we have a picture of the shelves with the first of five coats of finish. all of these pictures are compliments of my parents, as i was not around during these steps.

we decided to go with a satin finish as the granite had been finished with a satin finish, and this would match well.

here is the base being finished.

the top and granite came back from the stone cutter's shop while i was back home. my parents sent me this picture of the top frame and the granite remnant in the back of the truck.

and shortly after, i received this picture of the granite top fitted to the mulberry top frame.

receiving these pics really got me excited.

mom and dad slated a few days to drive the credenza up in the truck when it was all done. i felt bad not being able to help them load the credenza since it's so heavy. but they got it done, and did a great job!

the cooler in the back is full of a wheat beer that my brother and dad brewed when he flew home for a visit. it was christmas in july for me and my brother.

a few shots of the shipment.

the tape has N S E W labeled on the tape so that we knew which way to orient the stone slab when installing

the top was secured between a few boards and saran wrapped

under the slab of stone were the doors and shelves

proof that we used the best of the best, walnut a-1.

there is still a few hours of work to be done. shelves need to be hung and the top needs to be attached to the base. these are the shelf hangers that have predrilled holes and edge banded on the visible surfaces. they are ready to be measured and secured.

my parents also brought me a little gift, a rechargeable drill for drilling and screw-driving.

here the top, shelves, and doors are stacked in the corner.

and the base, sitting approximately where it will be when all completed.

we left things at this point because my parents had been driving all day and needed a good meal and a drink. we had the next day off and allocated the daytime to assemble the credenza and get everything all set up.

link to part 10 - project complete

the credenza part 8 - shelving

after the doors were made it was time to get to work on the shelves.  when taking pictures in the shop, be sure to take a few self portraits so that the end user of your fine furniture knows what true craftsmen look like.

the design has three shelves, with 13" of clearance for the lower and middle shelf, and about 6" clearance for the top shelf. the 13"gap will allow records to be stored on the bottom and middle shelf.

the first step to making shelves was to measure and calculate what portion of our remaining ply could be used for shelving. the ply sheets are 4 feet wide and 8 feet long, so we have to cut them using saw horses and a circular saw with a guide that my dad built. here is the setup outside where there's room to cut these big pieces.

i measured 37" but somehow transformed the 7 into a 1 in my head, and ended up cutting 31". this happened during the euro cup soccer tournament, and we were paying more attention to the tv than the tape measure. 

this was my first mistake!!!! the night before, while drinking some wine with my mom and watching tv she asked me how the credenza was coming along, and if everything was going as i planned. she asked if we've made any big mistakes or had any hangups. perplexed as to why she would ask me this, i said that everything to date had gone smoothly and we were following the plans exactly. i then knocked on wood.

i took the time to photograph the cutting of this sheet in order to make two shelves, but didn't double check that i was cutting the right length. here it is set up to cut 31" of ply, when i needed to cut 37" of ply.  shortly after i will realize that after this cut, i will no longer have any pieces of ply that are big enough to make the 37" wide shelves that are part of my design. the plan was to cut this one piece, then cut that in 1/2 to make two shelves.

but that's woodworking. dad says that you have to improvise when woodworking. you turn lemons into lemonade, you use your screw ups to your advantage. in this case, we decided to cut two 3" strips, and glue them to the short sides of each shelf using the same biscuit technique used for the door edge bands. this way the shelves look to have more detail, and would be seen as an intentional addition as opposed to a way of fixing a careless error.

while we were adding the two strips of ply to make the shelf whole again, we edge banded the top and middle shelf, as their face would be exposed. the bottom shelf will lie flush with the front face bottom support, which you'll see later when we hang the shelves.

here's the edge band being clamped.

that one incorrect cut cost me about 4 hours of extra shop time. it also required me to glue 4 more pieces than i would have had to glue, and you know how i feel about gluing! but that is life in the shop, my mom knew this better than me, which is why she asked me about making mistakes the night before.

to make myself feel better, the next day when the glue was dry, i put the top shelf where the granite slab will eventually go. this gave me a view of the credenza that i had never seen before! the doors, the top frame, and now a top. i stood at the credenza, walked around it, set things on top of it all the while envisioning how it would be when everything is complete.

things are really coming together now!

link to part 9 - finishing and moving

the credenza part 7 - tha doors

things are really starting to come together. the credenza is taking shape, and our efforts are starting to visually pay off.

the next step is to make and mount the doors. we do this before hanging the shelves since the hinge of the door may interfere with the shelves at mounting points, so with the doors hung first the shelves will be safely installed minimizing chances for screw ups.

first we need to add a piece of solid mulberry for the doors to be mounted to. attaching the doors to the leg was an option, but proved to not look or function as we desired. notice  the inside of the right leg in this photo below.

and now notice the piece of thin mulberry that will be mounted to the inside of the front leg. the piece is not sitting in its final resting place on this pic.

here the piece is where it will be forever, do you see it?

we drilled some holes, mounted it, and plugged it up. the doors are mounted on this piece so we made sure it was securely fastened to the leg. some glue and three screws did the job for each piece.

a close up of some freshly cut mulberry plugs. that dark spot is a burn mark from the table saw due to an earlier cut, don't worry that'll be screw facing.

plugged, waiting for the glue to dry then i'll chisel off the protruding plug.

we used solid pieces of mulberry and solid pieces of walnut to edge band the ply pieces for our doors. we got a little fancy here, using mulberry for the edges of the doors that would be adjacent to mulberry pieces of the front face frame, and the walnut for the edges of the doors that would be touching each other. we used a piece of walnut ripped (aka cut in half) so that when the doors are closed you can tell that the two pieces used to be one. this technique is called bookmatching, and is very popular in fine furniture.

here are all the mulberry, walnut, and ply pieces that will make up the doors.

the long pieces are wider, giving the doors a strong look. the edge bands along with the ply will also create a very strong and rigid door.

here's a brief preview of how the doors will look. against the credenza.

the solid piece of walnut we used has a bit of sapwood at the top, which will make the fact that we used one piece for the doors very easy to spot.

i used a biscuit cutter to cut 1.5" deep half moon shaped grooves in the ply and the edge bands. then before glue time, put a thin football shaped piece of wood called a biscuit in the slots of the ply and corresponding edge bands.  this helps line up the edge band and the ply so that when you glue them together they are in line with each other. it also gives a stronger bond. i put two biscuits on the short edge bands and three on the long ones, so twenty in total for both doors.

and we glued them up.

when gluing it's important to have a good squeezeout. that is when the glue squeezes out of the surfaces that are being glued together. this way you know for sure that there is glue on the entire surface that is being glued. i hate cleaning the squeezeout. but cleaning it is a very important job, if not done timely the glue will set and ruin your finish. nobody wants glue dots peering out from under a beautiful finish!

all clean! ready to cure overnight.

over night the glue dried, and the next day we took the clamps off. first step is obviously see how the doors will look next to the credenza.

notice that the doors are made from the same waterfall pattern of walnut ply that i used on the side panels. i'm hoping that this will give the credenza a more uniform look from the side angles. i love the figure of the walnut on these sheets.

they look like doors to me. let's hang em!

i drilled a hole in the back of the door for the hinge to mount.

each door gets two hinges. these are fancy hinges with the soft close feature, i do love a soft close.

left door is up.

and now the right door is up!

a bit of adjustment and the doors fit beautifully.

when cutting wood, internal stresses of the wood piece are often relieved. the result is bent or warped wood. getting things to fit perfectly takes a lot of expertise, a lot of luck, and a bit of wiggle room. with my dad and me, we were able to have all three.

link to part 8 - shelving

the credenza part 6 - top to bottom

it took me a bit of elbow grease to get that mulberry juice off of my finger tips, but it was worth it as those little berries are delicious!

the glue part of the job is the most stressful and my least favorite, however it yields one of the biggest payoffs.  there's nothing like walking into the shop the next day, unclamping everything and watching pieces that were before separate, now connected as one. it is beautiful.

here's the credenza unclamped.

we set the top on to get a better feel for how the finished piece would look.

dad had to inspect something important.

up to this point we had brainstormed some ideas about how to attach the top to the base, but these were just our options and ideas.  now was the time to actually do it!

with some careful measurements, assessments of final aesthetics, and a bit of luck we made our decision. four contact points at the front, and four at the back.  the front pieces will be mounted on the inside, made from pieces of mulberry and the back would be mounted on the exterior of the back from pieces of solid walnut.

here is a front mount, we made sure to countersink the hole so that the head of the screw will not protrude from the face of the mulberry where the hole was drilled.

there are four, evenly spaced and mounted to the front face top crossbeam.

and this is how it fits with the top.

notice that the granite will sit inside of the top covering the four mounting blocks. since the granite will just sit there, when the credenza gets moved we'll push the granite up from the bottom and lift it out of the top frame.

the back mounts were completely different, being made of walnut and using two pieces instead of four for a simpler and more elegant look. again, this is the back which normally is up against a wall but we want it to look good from all angles.

the front screws sit parallel to the floor, the screws for the rear are both parallel and perpendicular. the screws that attach to the top will go from the bottom of this walnut piece into the top which will sit on top of it.

both mounts in all their glory, and the top sitting where it will be attached.

again, that hole in the back panel is for cables and power cords. i appreciate organized cabling, so i made sure to incorporate the ability to do so.

there may be a time where the credenza needs to be moved, and someone will grab hold of the top and try to lift it enough to scoot it to wherever.  we want to make sure that when that happens, the top doesn't rip off into their hands. granted, this thing is going to be pretty heavy so hopefully their back doesn't go out first!

notice those unsightly holes and shiny silver screws glaring out at you? well we like to plug them up!

there's a special drill bit we used to cut small cylinders of walnut, in order to dab a bit of glue on them and put them in the hole covering the shiny screw heads.  there will be no metal visible on the finished credenza (when the doors are closed).

the top won't be officially mounted until it gets to where it is going (my apt), so as of now we did not drill pilot holes in the top.

link to part 7 - tha doors.