Whew. Finished

[dm_gsxr]

http://www.schelin.org/jpgshow.php?DSCN1139.JPG

I spent the past three weeks or so building this. Finished it up Saturday. I wanted to have it done before I leave on my trip on Saturday. It was significantly easier to find all my bike gear.

I took a lot of pictures. Feel free to check out the progress from start to finish.

http://www.schelin.org/20090720/gallery.php

Carl

[Zach929rr]

Looks good! :up:

I've been thinking of doing some carpentry for my garage sooner or later. Love dabbling in stuff here and there, and some woodwork has been on the list.

[Sean]

Looks good :up: And that's a lot of f'ing pics!

Is it designed specificly for certain things? in certain drawers/areas?

[dm_gsxr]

I'm pretty pleased with it. I've been hacking stuff together for years. The best things I've built from hacks are:

http://shadowrun.us/20090705/dscn1061x800.jpg

The computer desk in the background. It works pretty well and supports the gigantic monitor without a whimper. And the gaming table in the foreground. I originally was just dinking around with gluing a bunch of boards together to see how it worked. When we moved, the wobbly top was straightened out. Then I converted the base from a 'X' to a square which stabilized the whole thing. I painted then covered the top with felt. It works great as a nice big table to play games on.

So this project was the first time I'd grabbed a plan from a woodworking book and followed it. It certainly reduced frustration to a very minimal level. Even when I made the inevitable mistakes, I simply bought another sheet of MDF (made 2 mistakes there) and did it over.

I learned a lot. Both about some woodworking techniques _and_ about my own abilities and limitations.

A good job all the way around.

Carl

[dm_gsxr]

Looks good :up: And that's a lot of f'ing pics!

I'm a touring rider so am used to taking a bunch of pictures :)


Is it designed specificly for certain things? in certain drawers/areas?

Rita was looking for cabinets on craigslist and freecycle but nothing was coming up as reasonably decent that didn't cost $600. Finally she checked out a couple of woodworking books from the library. I was browsing through them and found one I liked, but it was pretty specific (a sanding table). I went back a few pages and found this one. In the plans, it has a lift up router table in the left cabinet and scroll saw in the right cabinet. I just needed storage since I already have a router table (on the left of the bench).

The plans consisted of a complete materials list including a cutout diagram for the pieces of wood and an exploded view of the cabinets that even listed which screw to use where. So it was very much ready to go. I cut out all the pieces and set them aside until I was done, then used the dado to cut the rabbits. I had to do some carving with the chisel to make the shelf fit (it's not glued in but it won't be coming out any time soon). I narrowed the cabinets by 2" each, otherwise the top would fit the top of the workspace exactly (no place to clamp stuff then). Because of the hinges, I had to trim the cabinet doors by about 1/2", then the left door on each cabinet by about an eigth of an inch.

But I made only a few mistakes that didn't warrant redoing the work and one mistake that annoys me (a little crack in the laminate :( ).

To answer your question, no I didn't have a specific plan for any of the drawers. I unpacked a bunch of the boxes and put gear away. I want to get some shelf dividers for the second and third drawers so I can easily organize the little stuff.

Carl