Hi Good Wood Folk,

The last job I made before Christmas was this Television cabinet.

When I say the last job I mean it was finished and installed on the 22nd!

This was a very technically challenging project for me, but as always that is where the fun is.

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The Design

The customer had given me this design and asked me to make it.

Apparently a friend had designed it for them.

I used the design but made some changes in proportion and I also added top and bottom rails in tiger oak.

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Materials.

The materials were quite specialised.

The top, skirting and uprights were to be made from solid tiger brown Oak.

The brown colour is cause by a fungus.

A really lovely timber to work with, It is generally denser than standard oak, but also rare in any reasonable quantity, especially where I am.

Sawmills tend not to stock it so I had to travel quite far to a small specialist yard that mill there own trees.

The old boy at the yard could even tell me the specific field it came from!

I had everything in stock and it was not really enough.

I had to be creative because I also needed some for a book case ( future post).

I sourced the solid maple easily enough.

The doors were to be made from flexi ply. Which is great stuff and I highly recommend it for curved work.

This was to be veneered with maple flexi veneer which was expensive.

The carcase was made from first quality 18mm birch ply.

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Making the cabinet.

I started with the top being as it was in scarce supply.

I marked out the boards and cut them minimising waste and keeping every last off cut.

The top was biscuited , glued up and shaped.

I used this as a template to reference the sizes of the other components.

I cut the birch ply to size and constructed the carcase.

The front edges would be lipped with 9mm oak but not before I had used it as my ply forming jig.

My workshop is quite humble really and I have limited veneering tools so I had to be inventive.

I literally screwed an over size section of flexi ply to the front of the curved carcase which formed the front layer of ply for the doors.

The ply was 8mm thick and I then glued ( with pva D3 glue) two more layers to the inside .

Once this was set I then very carefully marked out the position of the doors and removed the perfectly formed laminated ply.

The carcase was lipped and the uprights were added.

The skirting was made with two pieces of ply screwed directly to the base and then a 5mm slice of the oak was bent and glued into position.

I used every clamp and cramp I had for this, It was a sight to behold and I am kicking myself for not taking photos. (Lesson learned.)

The top edge was made from about 25 pieces of offcuts all spliced together, which took forever but like I say I had very limited materials.

Now I could cut the doors to the exact size minus the veneer thickness. No room for error because I would be unable to plane the edges after.

Veneering next and not my forte. I used a standard iron and pva for the convex sides and the edges which worked really well.

The concave sides were done using flexi ply cauls.

The whole cabinet was finely sanded to 240 grit and then , to a degree, dismantled for delivery.

I had to make sure I was very careful with the glue when I made it in order for it to be dismantled.

I used three coats of glaze to finish it.

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Installation

The customers house was about 6 hours away and with fitting that meant an overnight stay.

Normally this is fine and the accommodation I book is excellent , A slap up meal and a couple of beers is also acceptable.

But so close to Christmas with the worst traffic of the year I had to be very efficient.

I was actually getting a bit concerned on the way down as I was delayed on the roads.

I got there late at around 3pm and started immediately.

The walls were very wonky and there was a lot of scribing.

It was next to the fire place so dust gaps had to be at a minimum.

I was getting tired as the evening came but persevered.

When I got everything scribed in to place and fixed I could relax and go get some food and rest.(10 pm!!!)

Back onsite for 7am so I could discuss the cabinet and new commissions with the customer.

The job was done by 11:30 and I set off for home with a sense of victory and some Christmas spending power.

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If you have any questions about woodwork, furniture or being self employed as a craftsperson let me know.

I know my wood and I have spent years teaching myself furniture making , furniture history as well as living it as a self employed cabinet maker .

I am also in the process of writing a

'How to series: Setting up a Woodworking Business'

Which you can read here;
Part 1: Workshop
Part 2: Tools and machinery
Part 3: Finding a good timber yard
Part 4: Deciding what type of woodwork you are going to do.
Part 5: Advertising and getting Customers.
Still I am learning every day and the journey is the point.

Many thanks for reading,
Until next time,
@jist