Woodworker's Journal fall-2009, страница 58

Stock selection is the easiest single step you can take to move any project you build from boring to beautiful.

The center stiles of this cabinet's full-overlay doors add shape and style to an otherwise uninteresting and utilitarian project.

With the aid of a template, I marked out the chevron detail for the center stiles. Note that both stiles are made from one piece of stock. The kerf in the center of this piece is essential for accurate layout.

Form the groove for the 1/4" plywood door panels in the stiles before cutting them apart. Then you can rip the resulting pieces apart. All this machining can take place on your table saw.

repeated in the built-up crown. And the crown was formed by slicing a single piece of superbly figured quartersawn red oak into strips. I marked them so as to keep their orientation consistent with the order in which I ripped them from the board. When I assembled the crown I kept that orientation — and, if you look closely — once again the figure flows smoothly from one strip to the next. By building it in segments, I was able to "remove" horizontal sections of the crown and, in turn, build in the center chevron. None of these details are visually overwhelming or even difficult to make, but they add up to help an ultra-simple cabinet look very stylish (if I do say so myself).

Starting with a Simple Case

The case of this cabinet could hardly be more straightforward: two sides, a top and bottom, and a shelf (pieces 1 to 3). I formed 1/8"-deep dadoes (see Elevation Drawings, facing page) to locate and hold the cross members while I glued and brad-nailed them together. The shelf, piece 3, was made from red-oak veneered plywood with a strip of solid oak glued to the front edge; its 12³/4" depth made this the practical way to move forward.

One comment here about stock selection: Before I made a single piece of this cabinet, I spent a good long while sorting through piles of lumber in order to select great-looking quartersawn red oak with pronounced rays or flecks. Stock selection is the easiest single step you can take to move a project from boring to beautiful. In this case, the time invested paid big dividends.

Creating Detail-rich Doors

The entire cabinet front is covered by matching full-overlay doors. Because I was attaching the case of the cabinet to an existing shelf assembly, a face frame was not only not required, but would in fact add unneeded complications. For this reason, I used European style hinges to mount the doors (see the sidebar on pages 60 and 61). The prospect of mounting these hinges either brings tears of joy or fear to the eyes of woodworkers, depending on whether they have installed them before.

58 Cabinet Shell Game