Weekend #3 was actually about 5 hours - with about an hour for for lunch.
The To Do List:
- place the hingeson the front frame, butt the hinge side stiles against their hinges,
butt the "other" stiles together and center on the door opening and see how the
Cut To Approximate Lenght rails fit - trim if necessary
- cut rails to final length, sneaking up on the fit ("credit card trick" for fine adjustmet
details later)
details later)
- cut FORTY mortises for loose tenons in the two doors' rails and stiles
- dry fit the doors
- dry fit both sets of door to their hinges to check how they close.
- measure the needed door panel widths and lengths
- decide on where the two 1x10 x 8' boards should be cut to get the nicest looking
panels out of the two boards on hand.
- cut the doors' panels to length
- figure out how many and what size boards are needed to do the side panels
Were it not for the DOMINO the forty mortises would have taken up most, if not all, of the 5 hours we actually worked on the piece and there would probably been a few unrecoverable mishaps. As it happens, one of the 40 mortises was cut wrong - operator error. Fortunately, a little glue, a domino in the hole, some time for the glue to dry, a little handsawing, some chisel paring and the correct mortise cpuld be cut. Not quite an UNDO button, but close.
Now consider that, with the completion of the forty mortises in the door parts, Paula had cut 68 mortises, with two minor and recoverable mistakes. That's just under a 3% error rate - for someone who'd never cut ANY mortises - with the DOMINO or any other method. And 14 of those mortises were in the edges of parts that are almost eight feet long.
So here's what we had at the end of the day - the door frames done and dry fit and the boards for the door panels selected and cut to size. Note the two sets of Slip Sticks in this photo (the things with the pair of black spring clamps).
Doesn't seem like a whole lot got done - in five hours - elapsed time. But remember, there were FORTY mortises to cut for the FOUR doors, the doors have to fit snug when closed - and six door panels were selected from two "1x10s" each 8' long - with some greenish areas along with some grayish brown areas (we're working with poplar). And naturally, the two "1x10s" weren't a book matched pair so there was a fair amount of time using the door frames as "Picture Frames" to find the best areas of each board. This door panels will be a focus of the cabinet so spending time to get the best Show Face Look was pretty important. Since the piece will be stained, the hope is that the "green" and "gray" areas will get blended in. Fingers crossed on that one.