My DIY closet project

[Pogo]

Originally Posted by buzgun

thank you sir

I worked on the cabinets for 7 hours today......i glued, wood biscuit and pocket screwed all the face frames on the cabinets and sanded 2 of them....what a fawking tedious pain in the ass sanding these huge cabinets is........i was sweating my ass off wearing a dusk mask and had a towel around my neck to absorb the sweat.......I sand them first with 80 grit, then 150 and finally with 220....gives a very smooth finish.
I use a quarter sheet and half sheet makita electric sander.......random orbital sanders gouge the work piece for me and i don't use them except to remove blobs of glue and take down high spots..

i have another 8 hour day of this for tomorrow....ill post pics.

I used to use a lot of wood biscuits. Not so much anymore. I learned that if you planed the boards flat and joined the edges and used plenty of pipe clamps you could make a joint stronger than the rest of the board.

Now I love pocket screws. It's a lot quicker to assemble a cabinet that way instead of making a rabbit joint on the face and gluing it together. And it's plenty strong.

[buzgun]

Originally Posted by Pogo

I used to use a lot of wood biscuits. Not so much anymore. I learned that if you planed the boards flat and joined the edges and used plenty of pipe clamps you could make a joint stronger than the rest of the board.

Now I love pocket screws. It's a lot quicker to assemble a cabinet that way instead of making a rabbit joint on the face and gluing it together. And it's plenty strong.

Pogo, the biscuits are mostly for alignment....these face frames i make are square but the wood moves and isn't straight and the biscuits help square everything up when i do the glue-up..... the biscuits reliably give me about a 3/32" margin ..........I have about 20ea pipe clamps and this isn't nearly enough for these big, wide cabinets.....I have used over 300 pocket screws on just the 5 cabinets i have assembled so far.......the cabinets in the photo are just for the mens side of my closet......the woman's side is considerably larger....but i don't have enough room in my garage to build both the mens and woman's cabinets at the same time so im building the mens...and im going to finish and install them and then move on to the woman's closet cabinets.

[aviator]

If you're building it it's going to be another beauty. I've got faith in you.

[buzgun]

Originally Posted by RTO

There you go again buzgun creating wooden works of art.

Alder of any sort isn't available here, wish that it were. Poplar, red oak, birch and pine are the only woods available at the big box stores here. I don't want to afford the specialty lumber yards here.

Pocket screws are a big part of my woodworking endeavors. I am so glad that God blessed Mr. Pocket with that idea.

Yea RTO, alder wasn't commonly used in chicago either....it is pretty common out here extensively used for cabinets and entry doors out here......it has a old world look to it and isn't that expensive.

I buy it surfaced and straight edged on one side and it is about $2 per board foot.
Its very easy and user friendly to work with.

[buzgun]

Originally Posted by aviator

If you're building it it's going to be another beauty. I've got faith in you.

Thank you Aviator

[Pogo]

Originally Posted by buzgun

Yea RTO, alder wasn't commonly used in chicago either....it is pretty common out here extensively used for cabinets and entry doors out here......it has a old world look to it and isn't that expensive.

I buy it surfaced and straight edged on one side and it is about $2 per board foot.
Its very easy and user friendly to work with.

$2.00 BF is a good price. No Alder around this area. So I mostly used Oak, Maple, or Cherry. Sometimes I would work with Hickory. Hickory makes a very different look.

[Sanders]

I did some work for Ollie Hammond, the Hollywood steakhouse magnate, several years back. His "guest" house on his Sonoita, Arizona ranch had cedar paneling in all the bedroom closets. I'd walk into them and just breathe deep the cedar aroma.

[buzgun]

[buzgun]

[buzgun]

Heres the latest......there are 2 sides of my master closet a mens side and a woman's side......i have been working hard on these and im almost finished..these are over 9' tall...the upper sections have wardrobe lifts and the lower sections have normal clothing rods to make the most use of the space....the specs of these are knotty alder door frames with knotty alder 1/4" MDF core panels with applied molding around the cabinet doors..I used over 300 board feet of knotty alder, 25 + sheets of various knotty alder plywood , 4 sheets of baltic birch 1/2" plywood and 3 sheets of 3/8" baltic birch plywood for the drawer boxes, 5 gallons of pre cat vinyl sealer, 5 gallons of pre cat lacquer and about 3 gallons of stain..all the doors and face frames i gave a medium distressing to which means i took a chisel to then and gouged out spots, hewened out spots, whacked them with a square nail i have in spots, beat in faux worm holes and rat claw marks...then i stained them with a walnut color stain, shot them with a HVLP gun with quick dry commercial vinyl sealer, sanded them , glazed them with black glaze then shot on the top coat which was commercial quick dry pre-catalized lacquer...a lot of work for sure....i have a little base molding trim to complete , vacuum up all the dust from drilling holes and im done.

Lots of hand work here and i needed to hire 2 high school kids to help me carry these from my garage up to my closet.

[44044]

Nice, real nice...

That looks like a lot more fun than

what I've been doing...lol...

[10 Bears]

Awesome Buz !!!!!
Your stain consistency is also impressive.
Your description of distressing your work is commendable.

When I get something finished it doesn't NEED any more distress.
I've given up on building something for looks, now it's all just utility.

Keep those project pics coming, I know a bunch of us appreciate your skills.

[JD Miller]

Very nice work.

Motivating

Seems all I do anymore is cut trees, and shovel tree debris with a big 10-Tine Ensilage fork.

I need to move

[Pogo]

Nice. Are fluting the upright face yourself?

[10 Bears]

Originally Posted by JD Miller

Very nice work.

Motivating

Seems all I do anymore is cut trees, and shovel tree debris with a big 10-Tine Ensilage fork.

I need to move

I have a couple more of those 'many tines' forks you can use.