A Week's End... Sort of

This has been an interesting week.  Rather than go over the details of just yet another day in the life, I thought I'd write up a build instead.

One of several things that I do is little specialty jobs.  While the one that we'll be looking at isn't anything spectacular, I did enjoy it.  Doing something custom, for one customer, and earning their trust, confidence, and gratitude is what makes it worth it for me.  The emotional gratification is what's really important which is why my business always seems to fail.  I'm a people pleaser.  I always have been.

So, when my buddy Mike asked me to do a hood vent out of reclaimed wood to match a picture that a builder provided, I was absolutely up for it.  A large, sliding barn door was also on the schedule.  The hood went quickly, and the builder and his wife seems immensely pleased.  When it came time to work on the door (what we'll be discussing) I took the time to talk over the details of the construction with them.  I wanted to come to an understanding of what their priorities were, and what they expected the end result to look like.

The picture they provided is what you see to the right.  The idea is pretty simple.  We decided on a thick slab, tongue and groove matched field, and a standard height for the handle.  They were adamant about the cross-braces.  They liked to folksy, down-home feel of a traditional farm style door.

We had a plan.  The opening was not as large as what's pictured here.  At only 34" it was significantly narrower.  We planned for a 36" door so that it would overlap the opening by an inch in either direction.  From there it was simple, fast, and effective.

I planned for 3 inches showing, ripped my No. 2 pine down to 3 3/8 to allow for the tongue, 1/16" chamfered  the groove edge, and ran them through my router table setup.  I planed all my material down for two reasons: 1) No. 2 doesn't come in a consistent thickness (boards might be off by as much as 1/16, particularly in wet weather), and 2) No. 2 generally is pretty knotty and will shrink in clear areas as it dries.

My home-style featherboard, pictured to the left, I fashioned on site out of some scrap No. 1 I had left over from another project.  These are simple to make and absolutely necessary when running any kind of stile bit.  The placement of both the tongues and the center groove must be absolutely consistent.  Featherboards help maintain a specific placement and depth, and, as an added bonus, keep one's hands the hell away from a carbide bit rotating at over 18,000 rpm.  That wouldn't just ding your fingernail.  You'd be lucky to still have a finger!

Consistency is the watchword that drives quality.  It doesn't matter if you can accurately make one cut.  You have to make the same accurate cut over and over.  Stop-blocks, particularly at long lengths, or with heavy material, are not reliably consistent.  Small movements from one piece to the next, twists or cupping, can vary the overall dimensions of a board.  This is why, when doing anything that requires sameness, I make them the same.  One cut.  Not two or four or 10, or as close to one cut as I can manage.

This project required 12 separate pieces.  Three groups of four were cut at the same time, to the same exact length.  Cut left to square the edge (every time you work with wood you square the edge, and I do mean YOU square the edge) then drag the entire stack as one unit and cut the right to length.  Consistency in process is consistency in quality.  Without consistency in quality, your one-shot great project means absolutely nothing.  One might as well play roulette.

To describe this very step is why I took the picture to the left.  How do you chamfer the edge of a board that has a 1/4" tongue, 3/8" long, and whose total thickness does not exceed 5/8'?  The bearing on your chamfer bit is wider than the rebate!  With a block plane of course!  A well-tuned block plane is a fast, reliable, effective, and efficient tool.  I don't care who says what.  I can scribe a board faster and more accurately with a block plane than with any type of saw, and I don't have to ruin blades, and my saws, and risk my life to do it.  Even a dull, poorly tuned plane will do your professional work wonders until you figure out how you want it set up.  Buy one.  Now would be a good time.

As an aside, search youtube for Paul Sellers.  His videos are amazing, and he is an exceptionally admirable man, and an incredibly skilled carpenter.  His tutelage has made many a carpenter a better craftsman.

While I would love to make this door entirely with hand tools, the economic imperative is an ever-present taskmaster.  The Kreg Jig, or pocket hole jig, is one invention that just flat rocks.  I remember FF biscuits, tin nailers and stick building.  They all sucked for various reasons, one of which being having to carry around 12' pipe clamps.  I like pipe clamps in general.  I don't like 12' foot pipe clamps specifically.  They're big, bulky, too damned long, and unwieldly.  They also tend to put a crown in anything you clamp, so you don't need one clamp, but two, or four clamps, but eight.  Now find a place you can fit all those clamps into your truck.

Both the faceframe panels were glued together with Titebond type 2, which is my favorite glue for interior trim.  It tacks quickly, is water resistant, and cleans and sands up speedily.  The pocket hole jig, with the appropriate clamps, left the front flush enough to sand out quickly with 120 grit.  That's another reason why I like the Kreg jig and clamps.  With hardwoods it can reduce your faceframe build time by 5-6%, plus what you would have spent on twice as much 80 grit.  That's real money.

There's a reason I did a faceframe, core, faceframe.  It was easier, and much, much cheaper.  I could produce this without a shaper and specialty knives.  I could get it done rapidly and compete to a degree with custom door shops.  I say to a degree because this isn't of the same quality that a shop-built door is, but this door will never see hinges.  It doesn't need to be stile and rail coped, and the panel doesn't need to free-float.  This will have hardware that pins it all together, and it won't even have to fight gravity on the leading edge as it will be hung vertically from both top corners.  Because of that, this build was entirely ethical and I feel comfortable with the use and the outcome.

And, to the right we have our finished door with the result of my scrub, block and no.4 on the floor there at the foot of it from truing the edges after the glue-up.  Not a bad result, if I do say so myself.  I enjoyed this project.  It was fun and rewarding.  The builder's wife stopped by on my last day on site to tell me what a pleasure it's been to have me working with them as this is the first house I've worked on for them.  To be completely honest, that's the real reason behind what makes my job worth it.

I had originally intended to work on this post right away, but it took forever to get it completed.  I hope you didn't mind the wait, and have enjoyed reading along.

Thanks for stopping by.