(bright music) - Hello, welcome to "The American Woodshop".

I'm Scott Phillips.

And in the third show of season 28, we're digging into a tall display case.

It's all square cuts except for two curves on the base.

This is a fun project and one you can use anywhere in your home.

So stay with us today on "The American Woodshop".

- [Presenter] "The American Woodshop" with Scott Phillips is brought to you by.

- [Announcer] Woodcraft since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

Pro tools for tool pros, (dramatic music) RIKON tools.

- [Announcer] "Woodcraft Magazine", projects, plans and web links designed to help you make wood work.

PS Wood home of Timber Wolf Swedish Silicon Steel band saw blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

A bed to sleep on a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home.

The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio, providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- This season is all about having fun in the wood shop.

So in shows one and two, we turned this on the first show, these beautiful vases in the second show.

And now it's time to build the display tower, as I call this.

From the hardware I can tell this was built around 1940.

I like it in every way.

And so I'm going to duplicate this today.

That's a 16-inch wide door.

That's 48 inches long.

And so all other dimensions roll around that.

Now, today we're getting into square cuts.

And as long as you can make your cut square and do what's called S6S, square six surfaces, then putting that together is a breeze.

Now, whatever you do, read, understand and follow all the instructions that come with the tools and products you use in your wood shop, work safely.

Safety glasses these are and hearing protection.

And so the first thing I'll do is rough cut some boards and then we'll go mill them.

You cut them over long.

And I need some boards that are 12-inches wide to make this go well.

These cordless saws are amazing.

From here, it's over to the planer.

(Saw whirring) Where do I get these marvelous boards?

Why I always have an eye out for it.

And I pay twice as much as I should but the wide boards are worth it because we don't have to do glue ups.

Now S6S, I get so much stuff on Facebook that says, oh no, that's not the way you do it.

Sure it is, this is the way I do it.

You might do it slightly differently.

I don't care how you do it as long as all surfaces are square to each other.

And for me, I'm using the helical head planer to get the two wide flat parts of the board flat first.

And some people go, wait a minute, you can't get them flat.

You have to go to the jointer for that.

No, you sight the board, just like a rifle sight before you buy it.

And you get flat boards.

That way you can take them straight to the planer.

And then from the planer is to the table saw.

So we're going to make this surface and that surface square to each other.

Then we'll go to the table saw, get one true straight edge, right that we can then use to cut the board parallel.

And if there isn't a straight edge to begin with, then we would go to the jointer first to get what is called S3S, where this face, that edge, that face are square to each other.

And you go, where's the other 6S?

This side, once you rip it parallel to the other straight edge, that's S4S and then what you do is accurately cross cut it to the square cut finished length that you need for the project.

That's how I do it.

I'll get my hearing protection on.

Look at that grain and with a helical head planer, we'll plane this down.

The other thing that I have as a foot activated switch for the dust collector, it makes it nice.

(power tool humming with upbeat banjo music) When I buy good boards, I'm looking for no cups, no twists.

And I pay a premium for that but that's worth it.

And I want one good straight edge.

You can buy a S3S.

I normally don't because I have the tools to make sure everything will be perfect when I go to put it together.

Now that's the straight edge right there.

So I need to adjust the rip fence over.

And the key to this entire process is a good horsepower on that 50-tooth combination blade.

So this is actually five horsepower.

You go, holy crimeny that's expensive.

Well, the truth is the reason I bought it, that riving knife is fantastic.

It doesn't let the board pinch on the blade and that's key.

So the other thing I want to prove to you that is absolutely flat.

So from a good helical head planer, you can get the boards flat.

Now dust collector on.

I'll rip the material down and then we can cross cut it and finish the length.

(power tool humming) So this board right now is S4S.

This surface this surface are parallel.

These edges are square to each other.

They're all square to themselves so that's S4S.

Now we take this right over to the miter saw and some people say, you cannot get a true square cut on a miter saw.

Let's find out.

Okay, dust collection on, let's make that cut.

Oops, technical error.

There we go.

(power tool humming) Let it come to a stop.

If you don't, you can throw that cut out of square.

So that's S5S right there.

So square right up and on it.

No daylight whatsoever.

So that's square.

Now we can take this square end, up against the swing stop right here.

And that will cut it to the finished length that we need.

I love these hold downs.

Those really help to make it safe.

So that's S6S.

From here it's over to the work bench (talking over sawing) So that's how all the boards for this project are milled.

And now what I'm doing is using holdfasts to secure this board because if you look right over here, you can see this shoulder that's cut in just about five sixteenths of an inch and three quarters wide to accept a plywood back panel.

This was solid wood.

Okay, that's basswood and right here is the backer, which is architectural grade walnut, three quarters inches thick.

And we need to set that into that shoulder and to mill that shoulder, I'm using dust collection on what's called a router shroud.

And I'm using the shoulder cutting piloted bit.

And let's just go ahead and make that cut.

(power tool humming) Bringing the router up to speed.

Put the bearing to the wood and make the cut.

(Power tool humming) Now, where's the dust?

That's amazing!

So that's worth its weight in gold.

That's to a complete stop.

Now, I'll switch the bit out and you'll see another cut that we're going to use on the door assembly to hold the glass.

(power tool humming) Look at that and that's powering down, don't lift it till that completely stops.

That's good and it's unplugged now, so that's safe.

Set that out of the way, and what you can see here are the easiest way in the world to use that slot cutter, to cut the groove for the glass.

And you go, wait a minute, what glass?

Well, look at this, you see this?

This is part of the door assembly.

This is quarter sawn red oak.

This is walnut.

This is hard maple.

And if I spin this around, you'll see exactly what we're dealing with here.

The best way to make the door.

Now that's what this door's going to be.

I raised the bottom board up a bit for the lighting.

It's going to hide the lighting.

So, how do you make this door assembly?

Don't glue it, whatever you do, because if we put the glass in now it'd make finishing so much harder.

So I've pre-drilled everything.

I'll show you that technique in just a second.

And when everything's square cut, you can get it to behave like that.

And these are heavy duty star drive screws, interface, everything's flush.

And that's already been pre-drilled with a pilot hole.

And it's counterbored so I can plug these holes.

That's deep enough that it will take a plug.

So the same thing here, lines it up, just like that, best grain all the way around.

And now up on this end, with everything flush...and square, I use the counter sinking counter boring bit.

Because on hardwoods, if you don't pre-drill those pilot holes, it will split out.

That would be a bad thing.

No, no, (Drilling) no checks allowed.

Now, once I finish drawing this tight, we can start to assemble the case and it's all designed to go around that.

I'll get set up for that.

I have the pieces laid out, so you can kind of see what this cabinet is gonna be.

There's the back piece.

And here's the piece of plywood that goes on the very bottom.

Okay and then this shoulder hides the plywood edge here.

So you'll never see that that's plywood but this front edge right here needs to be veneered.

And to do that, we're gonna use the tail vice and lock it in place and bring up a piece of pressure or heat sensitive veneer tape.

It's what it's called.

Get it laid out right there.

And with an ordinary iron with no steam at full heat, I just make a nice, slow pass and you don't want to scorch it or burn it.

You want to go the full length of that.

And now, turn that off and watch what I do to get it to length.

I've worked with this enough to know that you can just break it right off like that.

Then with a utility knife or with a razor knife you can...trim off the excess left and right.

And then, you can just hit it with a little bit of sandpaper make it flush.

And that makes that a very stable piece of beautiful wood right there.

Now, the other thing that we need to do before we draw it all together is go to the band saw to cut out the foot.

So let's get set up for that.

I'm using the same blade, a 3/8-inch four tooth to cut out that curve for the foot left and right.

And this acrylic sheet, well, I need four sheets.

That's quarter-inch acrylic.

So on with the dust collection, we'll make those cuts.

(power tool humming with upbeat banjo music) I'm using the shoulder plane just to get a perfect fit along the back.

These are wonderful tools when you need to fine tune a joint.

So...just make sure you keep them sharp.

That's perfect.

That looks really good.

No shavings in the union.

So this is the back edge.

This is the back plywood.

This will be the plywood that is going on the top.

I want to make sure that veneered edge is out where the door will be.

And so now what we can do is bring up this back sheet of architectural plywood.

Beautiful veneer pattern right there.

That looks good.

And then, pivot up this piece use it to square up the back sheet like that.

Make sure everything's flush, I need to move that in ever so slightly.

And that's perfect right there.

And now what I can do is use square drivers to (Drilling) draw it home in the counterbored holes.

(Drilling) And I can show you how to do that...right here on this back edge.

I need to ease it up slightly, keeping all surfaces flush.

That looks good.

And since this is the back of the case, this won't be seen (Drilling) except by me.

So what that means is I'm going to drill these deeper so I could put wood plugs in them.

So it will look solid.

And then here I use inch and a half square drive to draw it tight (Drilling) like that.

One more down low.

And...that's really the backbone of this project right here.

That makes it nice and solid.

Some people would say you wouldn't need a three-quarter-inch thick piece, they're very heavy.

But you really do to balance the door.

Once that door swings all the way out, you need this as a counterweight.

And so what we can do now, is...ease this on over...like so and you can see how it's starting to shape up.

And on the very bottom here, swing that around like that, best grain out.

And I do the same thing on the bottom piece here.

Once I get that screwed in place, it's on to the other side.

It's shaping up.

I like this.

I'm going to bring up the square to make sure everything's exactly the way it needs to be.

Everything has to stay square.

That looks good right there.

Draw it tight.

(power tool humming) Now think of this as a big box.

Every box has six surfaces, right?

Well, the case is built, now the door is the sixth surface to come on and these are no mortise hinges.

The silver antique hinge that you just butt in, eight inches from the ends, like that.

And then what I can do and I've got those marked.

I have clearance so the door will swing.

That gives me a 16th-inch gap right there.

And it has to be dropped down at eighth of an inch so when I put on the live edge top like this, it's got clearance.

So, to set the hinges, I hold them in place.

And I use a vix bit, to drill that in create the pilot for the screws.

And then I hand drive the screws to both the case and to the door to set the door hinges properly.

So the live edge top trim is screwed in place five different zones but right in the middle of the board.

So that allows the board to expand and contract.

And there you can see we've got a nice tight fit on the door.

So here's how the rest of it works.

I'm going to do some sanding, safely with an N95 dust mask.

And I work through 100, 150 and 220 grit with good dust collection.

And then I tack it clean.

And from there it's outside to spray the finish.

(dust collector humming) (tapping) (sawing) (power tool humming) Now I brought in Suzy because she's a much better finisher than I am, I think you'll all agree to that.

So you're going to spray Arm-R-Seal, and let's make this shine -Semi-gloss - All right, I got it at a 45-degree angle to do the frame around here and the live edge.

And then I'll change it for the other.

- Ready?

- Yup.

(power tool humming) And you just move with it as you're doing it.

Just this little bit, I'll do that.

And then I'll start and go all the way up.

Let's get the live edge here.

Oh, beautiful.

-Moving with your body.

And I'll go straight up and down and start with the side.

Just turn a little bit.

You go.

And you just wanna do light coats and then you go back and even it out, if you missed any spaces..like that.

Get up under there.

Back and forth, that, is looking really good.

- Now, we'll get this done and this brush is in case she applies too much.

No drips, no runs.

And once it's dry, inside to set the shelves.

So onward.

- All right.

(power tool humming) - Well Suzy, you did a fantastic job on the finish of this.

- Thank you, thank you.

The sprayer makes it really easy.

- Okay and to set the acrylic shelves, we're using these quarter-inch shelf mounting brackets and this is a template, just one-inch peg board, one-inch patterned to the quarter-inch holes and mark the ones you want and use the drill bit with a stop and you're in business.

- I like the antique hardware, that's cool.

- Okay and so the red oak, the hard maple and the walnut.

Now, which one's the keeper, the painted or- you go with this, with the live edge, huh?

- Yeah, that's just beautiful.

I mean, the painted one is cool.

And I know you're gonna enjoy that with your tools and stuff but I got a good little place for this one.

- Okay and the lights make it, use LEDs.

Well, that's it for this week.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for tuning in.

- See ya.

- Alright and tune in next week.

- It's great, what do you think guys?

What do you think Pippi?

Look at that.

- [Announcer] Woodcraft since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood, work.

- [Announcer] Pro tools for tool pros.

(dramatic music) RIKON tools.

- [Announcer] "Woodcraft Magazine" projects, plans and web links.

Designed to help you make wood work.

PS Wood home of Timber Wolf Swedish Silicon Steel band saw blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home, the Furniture Bank of Central Ohio, providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- For more information on tips behind "The American Woodshop" and watch free episodes 24/7, check us out online and like us on Facebook.

(bright music)