Corner Cabinet

- Corner Cabinet - Jeff Greef Woodworking

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This small, wall-mounted corner cabinet is very handy for storing cups, glasses or other items in a room where space is at a premium. The basic construction is not very complex or time consuming which frees you to do the fun part of the project, the carving. The vertical "S" curve pattern on either side of the door is a kind of running carving which is done very systematically, whereas the outline of the vine in the door, and the grooves around it, are done with a V-parting tool following a sketched design.

Parts List- Corner Cabinet

1- 1/2 x 10-3/8 x 32 back

1- 1/2 x 9-7/8 x 32 back

2- 1/2 x 2 x 32 front sides

1- 1/2 x 5 x 12-1/2 top plate

2- 1/2 x 1-3/4 x 27 door stiles

2- 1/2 x 1-3/4 x 9-3/4 door top and bottom rails

2- 1/2 x 1-1/4 x 9-3/4 door mid rails

2- 1/2 x 1-1/4 x 9-3/4 door mullions

4- 1/2 x 4-3/8 x 9-1/2 panels

1- 1/2 x 3-1/2 x 9-1/2 bottom panel

1- 1/2 x 12-1/2 x 36 top, bottom and two shelves, nested along their angles.

1- 3/4 x 2-1/2 x 18 top mould

16- 1/2 x 1/2 x 2 screw blocks

Tools and Hardware Resources

Pipe Clamps
One of the most versatile clamps, because you can use them with pipe of any length.

Porter Cable Deluxe Biscuit Joiner
Biscuit joiners are useful for many joinery tasks.

Photo 1- Edge-glue boards together to get the widths required. I use a biscuit joiner to put biscuit splines between the boards to keep them lined up at the glue up. Dowels can serve the same function, or run a groove down each edge at the table saw and fit in a spline. Aligning the boards flush to each other without anything to keep them there is not too difficult, but generally just a pain in the neck. When you adjust one it throws the other out of whack. Refer to Murphy's Law.

If you need clamps, click here.
If you are considering buying a biscuit joiner, click here.

GETTING STARTED

Begin by edge gluing boards to get the wide parts (photo 1); the backs, the top and bottom, and the two shelves. The latter four are all triangles and can be nested on one piece to save stock. If you don't have a planer to make the 1/2" stock required, try visiting a local cabinet shop and offer to pay them to do it. For a lengthy treatment on making thin stock on this site click here.

DOOR

Photo 2- These grooves serve both as mortises for rails and grooves for panels. If your stock is not uniform in thickness, don't flip faces as the text says, because the groove will vary as the thickness does. In this case, always keep the same part face against the fence in all passes and make careful adjustments of the fence location using test pieces to ensure that the groove is as close to centered as possible.

If you are considering buying a table saw or blade, click here.

Make and assemble the door before carving it. This is a frame and panel door, with solid panels held in grooves in the surrounding frame parts. The frame joinery is a form of mortise and tenon which can be done entirely on the table saw. First get out your stock, all of which is 1/2" thick. Cut grooves at 3/8" deep by 3/16" wide on the saw as in photo 2. Do so on the inside edges of both stiles and the top and bottom rails, as well as both edges on the midrails and mullions (the vertical separators between panels).

Your table saw's dado set probably won't go as small as 3/16", so cut the grooves with your regular blade, making two passes. Set the blade at 5/32" from the fence, make one cut, then reverse the part so the opposite face is against the fence and cut again. The result is a 3/16" groove that is well centered. But note that this technique works best when the stock is very uniform in thickness (see photo 2 caption).

Sure Lock Miter Gauge
With fence and flip stop.

6" Carbide Dado Set
Economical Freud dado set.

Photo 3- Cutting these tenons will go faster if you have a dado cutter for your table saw, but you can do just fine with a regular combination blade. If your stock varies in thickness you must use a different setup for your thinner and thicker parts. Try this- run all parts at a setup that works for the thinnest rails, then customise the tenons on the thicker ones until they fit.

If you are looking for a dado set, click here.
If you are looking for a miter gauge, click here.

Now set the fence at 3/8" from the outside of the blade, and lower the blade to less than 1/8" above the table. Put your miter fence on the saw, and screw a backup piece onto the fence as in photo 3. Cut the tenons on the rails and mullions as shown in the photo. First make a test cut, and make multiple passes to cut out the waste. With the blade at less than 1/8" high above the table, the resulting tenon will be too thick. Raise the blade a hair and cut again, and fit again, and continue until the tenon is brought to a snug fit with the grooves. The resulting joints will appear as in photo 4.

Photo 4- The finished joints will appear as shown. This is a small joint, but then it's a small door. Still, it's important to get a good fit between the tenons and the mortise grooves for a good glue bond.

To guarantee a good glue bond with these joints, its best to clamp the groove walls onto the tenons with C-clamps and glue blocks. But you can't do this on the center joints if you glue up the door all at once because the panels are in the way, so do the glue up in two stages. Before you put the panels in the frame, indeed before you make them, glue together the mullions to the rails (except the bottom rail) as in photo 5. Carefully center the mullions in the grooves on the rails. Note in the photo that one of the stiles is located on the ends of the rails. It is dry fitted there during this primary glue up for the sole purpose of aligning the parts.

C-Clamps
Various different sizes.

Photo 5- Glue the central dividers (mullions) to the rails before making the panels and gluing up the whole door. Carefully center them on the rails. The long stile is not glued to the rails in this photo, it's just there for alignment. The C-clamps squeeze the mortise walls onto the tenons for a good glue bond. They don't need to be very tight, just light pressure.

If you are looking for C-clamps, click here.

Once these parts are out of clamps, dry assemble the door with all the frame parts and carefully measure the sizes of the openings for the panels. On the one hand you want the panels to fit perfectly in the openings so the door appears as one flat surface with a minimum of gaps, on the other hand you have to leave some room for the panels to expand and contract in the openings. Subtract a fat 32nd from the opening sizes for the panel sizes along the panel widths, and 1/64th along their lengths.

The actual panel sizes, however, are larger than these openings by the width of the tongues you put on the panels. Add 1/2" to all the dimensions you came up with from the openings to make 1/4" tongues all around. Get out your panels according to this list.

Photo 6- Cutting the panel tongues on the panels. The height of the cutter is going to determine the exact fit of the panels in the door frame parts. Test fit them while you have the setup going so you can make adjustments if necessary. Leave some room along the panel width for moisture related expansion.

Cut the tongues on the panels with a table saw setup much like the one you used for the grooves, except this time you cut to the outside rather than to the inside, and you can set up a dado to do it as in photo 6. The 2x4 clamped to the table in that photo is strictly a safety device. Since on this cut the blade is to the outside of the work, and since the parts are small and you must apply firm pressure against the fence for accuracy, this fence is a good idea to prevent your fingers from slipping into the blade.

First use a test piece the same thickness as your panels and cut the tongue too thick to start, then move the fence a hair for a thinner tongue until you get a tongue that is an easy- but not loose- fit in the groove.

Adjust the height of the blade to 1/4". This adjustment determines the final fit of the panel shoulders in the door frame, and this is what you see on the finished door. So start with the height at just less than 1/4", then dry fit the panel to see how it lines up. Raise the blade and take off more if necessary.

Photo 7- Gluing up the door. Wet out the parts, put on the bar clamps, then the C-clamps, then remove the bar clamps. Before you put on the C-clamps, be sure the door is flat.

Put the panels in their grooves and glue the rails onto the stiles. Pull the stiles together with bar clamps (no need to clamp very hard) and then apply C-clamps as before with blocks to bring the groove walls solidly onto the tenons (photo 7). Once the C-clamps are on you can remove the bar clamps.

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