For my first project at College of the Redwoods’ Fine Woodworking Program, I decided to make a small wall cabinet. Working drawings are rarely used; rather, full-scale mockups are made from sketches. Cardboard and hot-glue guns can be a maker’s best friend at this stage in a piece’s development.

The design parameters for the first project are simultaneously strict and open-ended. Each piece must follow the “4 S’s”: Simple, Solid, Small, and Sweet. No glass, veneer, or bent laminations may be used. In the above picture, the mockup of my cabinet-to-be is sitting next to a large plank of Western Hemlock, a beautiful yet extremely soft wood that is native to the Pacific Northwest. I’ve never worked this wood before, and I can’t wait to dive in.

With the last coat of finish dry and the last little peg installed, all that remains is to photograph the bed…

Here at Kellogg Photo Studios, we take pride in using only the latest and greatest in photographic innovations. For example, a large sheet of paper taped to the front door of the shop.

After shooting everything, the bed is taken apart, buffed with one last thin coat of wax, and carefully wrapped up for delivery.

All told, this project required a little over 150 hours to complete. (153 to be exact.) Now for a quick Shiner, and then it’s on to the next project…

Someone once asked me why I like boxes so much. I think I answered with this little zinger: “I don’t know.” Anyway, I like making them, and I try to incorporate them in my other, “non-box” work whenever I can. Maybe I just think little boxes are friendly, somehow. More to the point (if there ever was one in the first place), here is how I make the little pegs on the Mandell Bed and the Double-Trestle Desk.

I begin by laying out and cutting a shallow, square mortise when the peg will go. This is done before the piece is cut out or shaped in any way, so I don’t lose my reference edges. I then shape, sand, glue, and finish the piece as necessary. (Pre-finishing the piece will help later on. )

Once the finish has dried and cured, I can start work on the pegs themselves. I drill out the remainder of the mortise (through the tenon in the mating piece), being careful not to disturb the walls of the square mortise. Drilling all the way through the piece would be bad. Very Bad.

The next step is to finish squaring up the mortise so it can accept the square peg. Some people just drill a hole, then square up the “face” of the hole to make the mortise. I think it is actually easier to square up the entire mortise, so you don’t have to taper the peg.

Detail of mortises. The mortise on the right has been fully chopped and cleaned out, while the one on the left has only been drilled.

After carefully test-fitting the peg, drop in a little dab of yellow glue…

…and tap it home. Having pre-finished the piece helps here because any glue squeeze-out can simply be wiped up, rather than trying to sand and make a mess of the whole thing.

Next, I use a flush-cut saw on a little scrap of plywood to cut the peg about an 1/8″ proud of the surface of the workpiece.

a couple of rough-cut pegs.

Once all the pegs are fit, glued in, and cut to length, I mask off the areas around the pegs with several layers of blue painters tape. This protect the workpiece from getting scratched during shaping and sanding.

With plenty of masking tape in place to protect the piece, I begin shaping each peg. I do the initial rough-shaping with a rasp…

Pegs after rough-shaping.

…then refine the shape with a small file.

Pegs “post-filing.”

Once the pegs are filed, I further shape them with 220-grit sandpaper, then polish them with 400-, 600-, 800-, 1200-, 1500-, 1800-, and 2400-grit paper. A final buffing is done with a white abrasive pad.

Finally, the tape is removed, a thin coat of wax is applied and buffed out, and the piece is ready to go. All together, each peg requires about 45 minutes to mortise, fit, glue, and shape. (There were twenty-four pegs total for this particular project. The Double-Trestle Desk has sixty-four. 64 x .75 = 48 hours of labor)

The reason for doing all this is not strictly for decoration. Rather, each peg serves as a physical “lock” to the joint, adding plenty of mechanical strength to the already-strong chemical strength of the glue in the joint.

At last! Here is the bed, glued up, finished, and awaiting one more coat of wax. The bed slats fit over locating pins in the side rails, and eliminate the need for a box spring. Next up, fitting the ebony pegs into the headboard, then (finally) delivery…

Any suggestions for a name besides “Bed?”

Rather than using a large box spring for the bed, the clients and I agreed that slats would work just as well to support the mattress. The slats themselves were easy enough to fabricate, but the pins that hold the slats in place required a little more work. Above, my high-tech setup for cutting the 1/4″ brass rod stock into 32 1-inch “slugs.”

Next, I chuck the 1″ slugs into the drill press, then use a metal file and 400-grit sandpaper to chamfer and polish each pin.

The finished pins, ready for installation into the side rails.

Installing the pins into the bed rails. I use 5-minute epoxy, or as my teacher David used to call it, ” ‘toxy.” Anyway, this job is best done after the finish has dried, as it makes finishing easier, and any squeezed-out epoxy can simply be wiped off. Also, it it looks as though the shop A/C unit seems to have pretty much given up for the day.

Although I generally prefer to finish pieces with oil (which looks and feels great, and frankly, is almost impossible to screw up), Birds-Eye Maple really requires a high polish to give it the depth and glow that it is known for. Therefore, for this piece I am going to apply about a half-dozen thin layers of shellac to build up a high-gloss finish. The first step is to hand-sand the piece down to 400-grit.

With the piece completely sanded, I can apply the first coat of shellac. For this particular application I am using Zinsser SealCoat Shellac, cut to 50% with denatured alcohol, with a couple of drops of TransTint “Vintage Maple” dye added in to give the grain some contrast. It took me years to realize what a difference having a quality brush made. If you plan on shellacing (shellac-ing? shellacking? boom-shacka-lacka? who knows?) any sort of showpiece, I would highly recommend investing in one.

After applying three coats of shellac, I will apply a light coat of glaze, in this case General Finish’s “Burnt Umber.” As I learned the hard way, you need to work quickly when brushing this stuff on, because it dries almost as soon as it is applied. I used a foam brush to really glop the glaze on, then immediately rubbed it out with a series of rags. That way, only the glaze that penetrated into the open grain of the wood will remain, and will add a further level of contrast to the wood.

Once the glaze has dried, I applied two more coats of shellac, and sanded between each coat. The grain should now be sufficiently filled to take a nice polish. In this picture, I am sanding with a cork block, which is my preferred method of applying a light, even sanding. Before I move on to applying the polish, I will sand up to 2,400-grit.

After the piece has been sealed, stained, re-sealed, and sanded, I can apply the polish. I like using Zinsser’s “French Polish” solution, because it possesses three of the things I look for in any finishing product: it works like it says it will on the can, it is easy to apply, and (best of all) it is hard to mess up. Best of all, the entire process takes no more than two days (as opposed to weeks for some oils.) Purists will say that using a pre-made French Polish is cheating. They are probably right, just like using a table saw is cheating. Anyway, after three or four coats of polish (each one dries almost instantly), the piece is finished being finished, and is ready for installation…

With the four other sides of the box veneered and trimmed flush, the top is ready for glue-up. Shown here is the box, prepped for the vacuum bag, with a large panel on top to distribute the clamping pressure evenly.

Once all five sides are veneered, the box is ready for final sanding. Since the veneer is so thin, I prefer to sand each surface by hand, rather than with a sander. This gives me greater control, and decreases the chance of sanding through the veneer. (Sanding through = start the project over. While you can never really have a truly bad day at the shop, this would be about as close as you could get.)

Sanding a very small chamfer on the edges of the box. This should give the piece a slightly softer “feel.”

Burnishing the edges. This will further round over the edges, but will do so by compressing the fibers of the wood, rather than actually removing more material. Burnishing will also help prevent the edges of the veneer from catching on something and pulling up.

The completed box, ready for finishing.

In this flattering picture, I am masking off the edges of the veneered end pieces. This way, if there is any glue squeezed out from the next round of veneering, I can simply peel it off, rather than sanding and scraping.

Preparing the box for the vacuum bag. This was a tricky glue-up, since both the top and bottom of the box had to be glued up in one shot, and the entire thing had to somehow fit into the bag. Glue-up is usually a good exercise in emergency preparation and disaster management. Crossed fingers help, too.

Mantel Box, post-glue up.

I cut each piece of veneer about 1/8″ oversize in each direction. Too much overhang, and the veneer will snap off inside the vacuum bag; too little, and you run the risk of the veneer stopping short of the end of the piece. This would officially qualify as a “disaster.”

Trimming up the edges with a flush-trim bit. The masking tape also prevents the bit from scraping off the delicate layer of veneer.

Now that the box itself is glued up, the next step is to veneer the outside. To create a “seamless” look for the box, I am going to lay on the veneer in a very particular sequence: first the ends, then the long sides, then the top. Before I can do that, however, I need to make sure the end pieces are completely flush across their widths. Since the veneer is so thin, any discrepancy in the substrate will translate through to the surface. In this picture I am sanding the edges of the long pieces flush with the end pieces.

Sealing the edges with watered-down yellow glue. Sealing the edges will help with glue adhesion, and should prevent the veneer from peeling up around the edges later down the road.

Because the ends of the box have both end grain and face grain, I am using poplar veneer as a backer underneath the Birds’ Eye Maple. The backer will also even out any remaining discrepancies in the surface of the MDF.

Gluing up the ends. In this case I used eight pipe clamps, four pairs of bowed cauls, and two MDF “pads” to ensure even clamping pressure.

Once the backer veneer is glued up, the Birds Eye Maple is laid on and glued up.

Trimming the veneer flush with the edges. Once the edges are completely flush, I can overhang the veneer for the other three sides of the box. Don’t worry, I swear this will all make sense in the end…

The first step after pressing up the panels is to trim the veneer down with a knife in preparation for trimming the panels flush using a router bit. I try to leave about 1/16″ overhang on each edge. This will prevent the thin, overhanging veneer from “flapping” against the router bit, which is hazardous both to the operator, and more importantly, the piece.

Trimming the panels with a top-bearing flush-trim bit. This is where using just the right amount of glue pays off - since there is almost no squeeze out, you can use the original panel edge as a bearing surface, rather than planing a new edge by hand.

Cutting the miters on the long edges of the panels. I use an 80-tooth blade made especially for cutting veneered panels. I’d highly recommend one if you do any sort of veneer work - the make accurate cuts, and leave a tearout-free edge.

Ripping the panels down to exact width.

All five sides of the box, laid out and ready for finishing. The three long sides will be joined with miters, and the two smaller end pieces will be attached with butt joints.

Pre-finishing the insides of the box with shellac. Whenever possible, I prefer to finish a piece before it is glued up. This way I have greater access to each surface, and ultimately greater control over the final finish, as there are no nooks or crannies for finish to hide in.

Sealing the edges of the MDF. Because the edges of MDF are so porous, any glue that is applied is sucked up like a sponge. For this reason, I am applying two coats of glue (in this case, extra-slow setting West System epoxy): one coat as a sealer, the second as the actual adhesive.

Gluing up. The trick is to apply even pressure, but not over-tighten the clamps, as this could cause the joints to blow-out.

Checking for square during glue-up.

Assembled Mantel. Next up: Veneering the outside of the box…