wood-plans.com Blog

I like pine. Mostly. It has character, and is a good choice when making furniture reminiscent of farmhouse antiques.  It is easy to work, inexpensive, and readily available.  But it is soft – very soft – and sometimes no matter how careful you are, you end up with a dent that just doesn’t belong.  This is when I reach for one great tool for fixing dents: the clothes iron.  Heat it up, put a drop of water or wet cloth over the dent, press down with the tip of the iron and watch the dent disappear.  Usually one pass is enough to raise a small dent, but you can keep working at it to remove deep ones. Next time you put a dent where it doesn’t belong, give it a try!

Using rail & stile router bits is now one of the most common methods of making frame and panel doors, but there are many other methods that don’t require these expensive specialty bits.

Make it "shaker" style (A).  A plain door doesn’t mean it’s inferior.  If you don’t need a decorative profile on the door frame, you can simply make a groove for the panel and then use any convenient method to join the frame parts – dowels, bridle (slip) joints, stub tenon & groove, biscuits, etc.  When making doweled or biscuited joints, the panel groove in the stiles should stop short of the ends so that it doesn’t show.

Use applied moldings (B). You can make small moldings using inexpensive router bits, miter them, and then glue them to the frame (take care not to get glue on the panel).  Larger moldings can be rabbeted and then applied so that they sit "proud" of the frame (a Bolection molding.)

Make a mason’s miter (C). This is a trickier joint to make, but looks  great and allows you to use a wide variety of inexpensive router bits.  Mill a decorative profile on the inside edges of the frame parts.  Use a table saw to make  45 degree cuts through the decorative profile where the rails and stiles meet and then remove the profile on the stiles where the rails join. Join and groove as before.

This simple jig is made from shop scraps and basic hardware (carriage bolts, wing nuts, washers, and screws).  It attaches to your table saw’s miter gauge and can be adjusted to get a perfect fit.

Make two auxiliary fences about 6" tall x 15" long (flat plywood or MDF is perfect for this) and join them together with countersunk carriage bolts fitted through slightly oversized holes to allow about 1/8" of movement.  Make a 4" long x 1/2" x 1/2" alignment pin from solid wood.  Set up your table saw’s dado cutter to cut a 1/2" x 1/2" notch in the front fence and then glue the pin into the notch (it should make a snug fit.)  Screw the fence assembly to your miter gauge so that there is a 1/2" gap between the registration pin and the dado cutter (the pin is to the right of the cutter).  Tighten up the wing nuts on the carriage bolts and make some test cuts to ensure the jig is cutting accurately – if the joints are too tight, loosen the wing nuts and tap the front fence to the left to cut smaller fingers. Conversely, moving the fence to the right will make the joint tighter.

When using the jig, you will typically start cutting from the top edge of the drawer side as shown by the arrows in the diagram above.  The first cut will leave a full finger and the last cut may leave a partial finger or gap depending on the size of the sides and the precision of your jig and dado cutter – normally you cannot cut precisely 1/2" fingers so the last gap or finger will be smaller than the rest.  To cut the matching parts you must use the leading edge of the first piece you cut as a spacer for the leading edge of the matching piece – the first cut in the matching piece will then be a full size gap.  It is important to use a backer block to prevent tear-out, and to renew the block every few cuts.

Using a jointer and planer to flatten and thickness rough stock is the easiest way to get flat and square wood, but what do you do if you don’t own these machines?

Option 1 Buy planed stock. There is plenty of wood available that has already been planed smooth, but unfortunately not much of it is flat. Wood intended for house construction is often not the right species of wood and is not dry enough. Wood products sold as project wood or project panels (sometimes sold simply as shelves) in home centers can be quite good quality, and are suitable for making furniture (A). Take a straight edge with you and check that the boards are flat. Cupping or twisting of the board face is a much more serious defect than crook along the edge or a lengthwise bow because you can’t correct the cup or twist without reducing the thickness of the board. Long boards will often clamp flat or can be cut into smaller sections that are flat.

Option 2 Use a hand plane. Hand planes are a joy to use. They must be kept very sharp, and you need to have a solid, flat surface to work on. Use a good straight-edge to check your progress. Start by looking, not doing – put the board on your bench and look to see where the high spots are. Winding sticks (twin straight sticks perched on each end of the board) can help you to see if the board is twisted (B). Joint the first face of the board flat by scrubbing diagonally across the board to knock down the high spots (C), then smooth lengthwise (D). Check your progress frequently with a straight-edge or by flipping it over on your bench (assuming your bench is flat!) Use a marking gauge (or block of wood with a pencil) to mark the final thickness on the edges and ends of the board. Scrub diagonally to get the board flat and then smooth lengthwise down to your gauged thickness lines.

Option 3 Use a hand plane to joint the board and a planer to thickness it. For larger projects (or just to save a lot of time) flatten the first face of your board with a hand plane and then thickness it with a planer. You don’t need to get the jointed face smooth, just flat. The planer handles the rest (E).