OPJ
Established Member
Last Christmas saw the arrival of a brand-new widescreen TV in our living room. £110 from Somerfield (of all places!) and it's a vast improvement on the 15-year-old thing we had before with one duff, crackling speaker! 
With this new arrival came the means for a new cabinet or storage system. The old black, chipboard-inspired stand from the Toshiba wasn't up to the task - quite simply, it was too small. We had the stand holding most of the weight with the TV itself lent against the internal corner of the wall behind! After reading another article of Adam Leitch's work in Good Woodworking earlier this year, I was inspired. And so, back in to the workshop I went...
Chanes are, many of you will have already seen how Adam's WIP in the magazine, so I'm not gonna waste time going back over all of that again. Instead, I intend to highlight some of the main issues I came across during this project - namely, things I've learned; what I've done differently to Adam and any troubles along the way.
My Project
Okay then. Overall, I was very impressed with the cabinet Adam came up with - all in the space of 12 days! There were, however, a couple of things I chose to do a bit differently. Firstly, I thought the cove edge detail around the top of the cabinet looked superb, but couldn't decide why Adam chose to leave the arrises square on the base; so I repeated this detail below.
I then wanted something that I thought would 'complement' what I had done above. So, on the skirting (mine was Sapele, locally available) I decided to add a 'convex' detail in contrast. It was an ogee mould, if I remember rightly? (You'll see photo's further down the page.)
I now wish I'd taken some photo's of the mitres as these were absolutely perfect. Not bad considering I only had a Makita 'skill saw' and straight edge for accuracy also! 8)
A word on the final glue-up, I found it so much easier to fix the two sides to the middle shelf before adding the base and then adding the top, before flipping it right over again and working on the skirting (I did this a day later.
I noticed that when Adam came to fit his shelf he relied solely on the dowels for strength and suppot. Okay, I'd imagine the unit will be fine. But I still felt happier routing two grooves or "dadoes", one on each side, for even greater strength (and hey, it also hides an edge that's been cut out of square - no gaps! :wink: ).
...And if you opt for loose tongues over biscuits for attatching the the uprights to front and back of each side (I wasn't confident matching two thicknesses central), don't forget to CUT a small portion of the tongue out BEFORE the glue up! :shock:
One final point worth mentioning here. I decided to try and scribe the middle shelf around the two front uprights to rather good effect.
Things that made me shout and swear...
Like almost any other project I've attempted in my short time as a woodworker, there have been moments where things just don't go as well as you would like them to. This project was certainly no exception. And as much as I enjoyed using Miller Dowels, these guys were the main culprit.
One of the first things I learned about Miller Dowels is that my Clarke drill press doesn't like their drill bits. It'll cut most of the way through, but when it comes to the larger 19mm section of the bit, for whatever reason, despite lowering the rpm several times, it jammed and made a right old mess of the dowel holes in the top and bottom - as the photos below will show you:
Even with a hand-held drill, I got the same results. One important lesson for anyone wishing to use miller dowels in the future then: you cannot drill through the face alone; you HAVE to drill through the end grain as well, through both workpieces to be connected, for clean results.
I would've taken Adam' MDF squares idea for a dry assembly but I without a chop saw or accurate table saw I find cutting dead-square a problem. Plus, none of my 12 forstner bits were big enough for my clamps.
Like I said, you have to drill BOTH parts at the same time for accurate results. Otherwise, not only can you damage the surface as I've shown you above, but look below at what happens when your work isn't accurate enough and it seperates the glue joints! :x
I've also read how these kind of joints still require a certain degree of clamping pressure after the assembly. Clearly, I didn't apply quite enough at the time; though I think my cut was also a little off...
Here's my best example of the kind of nightmare in a project that comes back to haunt you, time and again. However, this time, I believe the cause was on my part for failing to clear the pilot hole of accumilated sawdust, unlike ever other one. :?
A man I used to work for had a real love for fillers. Personally, I hate them, except only when they can't be seen. I didn't know whether to trust an off-the-shelf 'ash' filler, so decided to mix my own... And all was looking fine until I'd applied three coats of Danish Oil!
It stares me in the face each time I sit down to try and relax! Thankfully, no-one else has commented on it (yet) though. :lol:
And this picture below demonstrates how clean a hole you can drill with these things when everything is in place correctly.
And finally, it is time...
It took me a lot longer than I had planned, seeing as Adam polished his off in only twelves days! But aside from my planer thicknesser cutting out halfway through preparing the timber and a lack of care on the table saw ripping a couple of lengths too narrow in length (another trip down the road!). I'm glad I got there in the end and it's another project of mine I'm very pleased with, as is the rest of the familly and friends.
One last tip before I leave you with some final snaps of the finished article: Even using Miller Dowels, I found it important to run a dry glue up. My main problem then was that because the dowels are ribbed they're a pain to remove. So, I tried a trick I've seen Tommy Walsh do with door wedges and inserted a screw in to the dowel, leaving enough of the screw and it's head free above the surface to provide sufficient leverage to remove it in one with a claw hammer.
And so, I leave you with some final photo's of the completed project. I actually finished this in late August, but due to some problems with my digital camera (on top of all else!!!) I've been unable to get this far.
I was at first concerned the cabinet was too big after modifying to suit my own TV, but now I think it looks about right. And the colour sheme against the background works well too.
I hope you've all learned something from my mistakes, as I do with your projects. Thanks for looking. Please be careful if and when you're introduced to miller dowels yourself.
Thanks again to Adam for the original inspiration.
With this new arrival came the means for a new cabinet or storage system. The old black, chipboard-inspired stand from the Toshiba wasn't up to the task - quite simply, it was too small. We had the stand holding most of the weight with the TV itself lent against the internal corner of the wall behind! After reading another article of Adam Leitch's work in Good Woodworking earlier this year, I was inspired. And so, back in to the workshop I went...
Chanes are, many of you will have already seen how Adam's WIP in the magazine, so I'm not gonna waste time going back over all of that again. Instead, I intend to highlight some of the main issues I came across during this project - namely, things I've learned; what I've done differently to Adam and any troubles along the way.
My Project
Okay then. Overall, I was very impressed with the cabinet Adam came up with - all in the space of 12 days! There were, however, a couple of things I chose to do a bit differently. Firstly, I thought the cove edge detail around the top of the cabinet looked superb, but couldn't decide why Adam chose to leave the arrises square on the base; so I repeated this detail below.
I then wanted something that I thought would 'complement' what I had done above. So, on the skirting (mine was Sapele, locally available) I decided to add a 'convex' detail in contrast. It was an ogee mould, if I remember rightly? (You'll see photo's further down the page.)
I now wish I'd taken some photo's of the mitres as these were absolutely perfect. Not bad considering I only had a Makita 'skill saw' and straight edge for accuracy also! 8)
A word on the final glue-up, I found it so much easier to fix the two sides to the middle shelf before adding the base and then adding the top, before flipping it right over again and working on the skirting (I did this a day later.
I noticed that when Adam came to fit his shelf he relied solely on the dowels for strength and suppot. Okay, I'd imagine the unit will be fine. But I still felt happier routing two grooves or "dadoes", one on each side, for even greater strength (and hey, it also hides an edge that's been cut out of square - no gaps! :wink: ).
...And if you opt for loose tongues over biscuits for attatching the the uprights to front and back of each side (I wasn't confident matching two thicknesses central), don't forget to CUT a small portion of the tongue out BEFORE the glue up! :shock:
One final point worth mentioning here. I decided to try and scribe the middle shelf around the two front uprights to rather good effect.
Things that made me shout and swear...
Like almost any other project I've attempted in my short time as a woodworker, there have been moments where things just don't go as well as you would like them to. This project was certainly no exception. And as much as I enjoyed using Miller Dowels, these guys were the main culprit.
One of the first things I learned about Miller Dowels is that my Clarke drill press doesn't like their drill bits. It'll cut most of the way through, but when it comes to the larger 19mm section of the bit, for whatever reason, despite lowering the rpm several times, it jammed and made a right old mess of the dowel holes in the top and bottom - as the photos below will show you:
Even with a hand-held drill, I got the same results. One important lesson for anyone wishing to use miller dowels in the future then: you cannot drill through the face alone; you HAVE to drill through the end grain as well, through both workpieces to be connected, for clean results.
I would've taken Adam' MDF squares idea for a dry assembly but I without a chop saw or accurate table saw I find cutting dead-square a problem. Plus, none of my 12 forstner bits were big enough for my clamps.
Like I said, you have to drill BOTH parts at the same time for accurate results. Otherwise, not only can you damage the surface as I've shown you above, but look below at what happens when your work isn't accurate enough and it seperates the glue joints! :x
I've also read how these kind of joints still require a certain degree of clamping pressure after the assembly. Clearly, I didn't apply quite enough at the time; though I think my cut was also a little off...
Here's my best example of the kind of nightmare in a project that comes back to haunt you, time and again. However, this time, I believe the cause was on my part for failing to clear the pilot hole of accumilated sawdust, unlike ever other one. :?
A man I used to work for had a real love for fillers. Personally, I hate them, except only when they can't be seen. I didn't know whether to trust an off-the-shelf 'ash' filler, so decided to mix my own... And all was looking fine until I'd applied three coats of Danish Oil!
It stares me in the face each time I sit down to try and relax! Thankfully, no-one else has commented on it (yet) though. :lol:
And this picture below demonstrates how clean a hole you can drill with these things when everything is in place correctly.
And finally, it is time...
It took me a lot longer than I had planned, seeing as Adam polished his off in only twelves days! But aside from my planer thicknesser cutting out halfway through preparing the timber and a lack of care on the table saw ripping a couple of lengths too narrow in length (another trip down the road!). I'm glad I got there in the end and it's another project of mine I'm very pleased with, as is the rest of the familly and friends.
One last tip before I leave you with some final snaps of the finished article: Even using Miller Dowels, I found it important to run a dry glue up. My main problem then was that because the dowels are ribbed they're a pain to remove. So, I tried a trick I've seen Tommy Walsh do with door wedges and inserted a screw in to the dowel, leaving enough of the screw and it's head free above the surface to provide sufficient leverage to remove it in one with a claw hammer.
And so, I leave you with some final photo's of the completed project. I actually finished this in late August, but due to some problems with my digital camera (on top of all else!!!) I've been unable to get this far.
I was at first concerned the cabinet was too big after modifying to suit my own TV, but now I think it looks about right. And the colour sheme against the background works well too.
I hope you've all learned something from my mistakes, as I do with your projects. Thanks for looking. Please be careful if and when you're introduced to miller dowels yourself.
Thanks again to Adam for the original inspiration.
