I love my “new” drum sander.
I purchased the used machine for the purpose of sanding shop-cut veneers and inlay woods. However, with a 23-1/2″ capacity, it is capable of so much more. I first cut my teeth with this thing on the side panels. Now it was time to glue up the top — and I was really looking forward to seeing what it could do with the 21″ x 64″ x 1″ thick part.
Joining the top
I started by rough cutting and gluing up two 5/4 boards. Jointing an edge on these long, tall boards was a challenge on my 6-1/8″ Ridgid jointer’s 45″ table. One of the boards had a 1/4″ bow that simply couldn’t be removed on the short table, so I pin nailed it to a sacrificial scrap of 3/8″ plywood and ran it through the table saw.
It’s a “feature”
I had hand-selected three 5/4 cherry boards, nearly 80″ long for the top from Owl Hardwoods. The first one I chose was beautiful and featured numerous streaks/pitch pockets that I just love the look of in cherry furniture. Unfortunately I was unable to find a similarly figured board in the pile. The other two I selected were nice, but didn’t match the beauty of the first…I figured I’d sort it all out in the shop. Well…the time had come and my dilemma was that the beautiful piece was a poor match for either of the others, and the other two, while a better match for each other didn’t match the beauty of the first. After much consternation, and a determination that I simply couldn’t afford to go back to the lot to find its perfect mate, borrowing a term from software development, I decided that the mismatch should be a feature, not a bug.
I recall reading somewhere (maybe from David Marks?) that in a situation like this you should highlight the flaw…which has me now considering doing a simple inlay along the length of the joint. Perhaps in walnut and echoing the “cloud lift” (double, mirrored) from the front and side bottom apron? Or even something more “organic” (a river runs through it?).
Any opinions on that?
Dead Flat
Once the glue dried, I scraped and then planed the joint relatively flat and prepared to see how well the old Grizzly would handle the large piece. It took a bit of work just to place the machine in the room with >6′ of clearance on either side in my small shop…but in the end, I found the space. Since I was using nearly the full capacity of the sander, I was very nervous that it’d track a bit too far to either side and somehow ruin either the piece or the machine or both. While I did manage to brush up against the duct tape on one pass — resulting in the need to stop and re-secure the paper, I didn’t experience any significant issues. The front roller’s 100 grit paper loaded up enough to require replacement part way through the process, and I did notice some loading that I was unable to completely clean up on the edges, but overall this was an extremely satisfying experience with no burns or noticeable snipe and resulted in an absolutely dead flat top! Awesome!
My only issue was with the dust collection — for smaller pieces like the side panels, the collection was absolutely sufficient. However, with this piece, while there weren’t great clouds of dust or anything like that, I did wind up with a thin film of dust covering all of the shop surfaces. Prior to this, per a fellow LumberJock’s recommendation, I had replaced the flexible hose that came with the sander with rigid PVC. I’m sure this helped, but it still couldn’t quite keep up.
After sanding, I routed a bevel around the bottom edge with a plunge router.
Winding down the build phase
Finally, I installed some small stop blocks on the dust panels behind the drawer fronts to prevent them from recessing too far into the carcass and some “tip blocks” at the top corners so the drawers won’t dip significantly when fully extended.
Next up: Inlaying the top(?) and then sanding, sanding, sanding and more sanding!
OK, so I “cheated.”
I typically assemble face frames with pocket screws. It’s simple, fast and strong enough. Since this face frame is composed of 1″ x 3/4″ members, pocket screws seemed a bit weak to me — I’d only be able to use a single screw in each member, which would allow it to “spin” somewhat. While this would be minimized greatly after gluing to the carcass, some “twist” could still occur over time. Since the drawers will feature prominently displayed through dovetails, I figured dovetailing the face frame would be both practical and design appropriate. I briefly considered bandsawing and chiseling the joinery, but with a dozen to do and the drawers looming, I couldn’t see spending the amount of time it would take me to do this entirely “by hand.” Opening up my router bit drawer, I discovered a 3/4″ dovetailing bit I seem to recall buying to produce sliding dovertails for another job. So, I “cheated” and built a quick fixture to help me knock off this part of the process.
Test Fit
Without too much fuss, the bit and fixture process yielded some very nice, tight and clean joints.
Completed and Sanded
Once the glue dried, I sanded it from 120 through 220 and propped it up for this picture. Not only do dovetails create very strong, tight joints, they’re also “self squaring” which meant I didn’t have to make any adjustments to square it up during the glue up process.
Not too tight, not too loose…
I’m not certain, but there was likely an audible sigh when I first test-fit the frame to the carcass. It fit snuggly, without any gaps on the sides and aligned flush with the dust panels. Just the “right amount” of persuasion was required to complete the pairing. The trickiest part of the whole process was the glue up. I had previously cut a continuous slot along the front of each dust panel. I referenced my plate joiner’s fence off of this slot and proceeded to cut, more or less randomly, matching biscuit slots along the back side of the horizontal members of the face frame. Even with the A/C running, it was in the mid 70’s in the shop and there wasn’t much open time on the glue — and with around 36 biscuits to glue and set in place, this was gonna be tricky and hectic. Also, since the middle dust panels weren’t open, it was a bit tricky for the clamp to find purchase on the 1/4″ ledge around the panel. In my haste I was a bit overly-generous with my glue application to a few spots resulting in greater than typical squeeze out…and a longer than typical amount of time spent wiping up the excess. There are a couple spots that will require some additional sanding, but otherwise…success.
Fresh from the clamps
A few hours later the clamps were removed and the completed case is just awaiting its drawers and top.
The Day Begins
I started the day by marking out and cutting the slots for the biscuits into the inside faces of the sides and back. Following this, I decided to “rehearse” the glue up of the main carcass — the sides, back and bottom front apron. After yesterday’s “flip” I have to admit to being a bit apprehensive about this step, but, lessons learned, I was watchful of the sides and never came close to dropping one this time. The green tape you see is there to protect the legs - I had preserved the offcuts from shaping the legs and I taped them back in place during clamping operations.
Dust Frames
My daughter has a lot of clothes. For the dressers I built for our first two children, I used simple open dust frames. I never truly understood the purpose of solid dust panels until one day, while trying to remove a sweater from my daughter’s dresser, I wound up in a tug-o-war with the dresser drawer. It seems that some clothes in the overflowing drawer had wedged themselves in the opening of the dust panel, effectively preventing the drawer from opening fully. I decided that closed panels were the way to go from now on! Since there’s no drawer below the bottom frame, I figured I could leave that one open. To build the panels, I purchased S4S dimensional poplar from HD — at $1/lf, it seemed worth it to avoid the prep time and wear on my planer knives. To simplify the assembly, I used butt joints and pocket screws to hold them together. Since I had dadoed the full length of the frame members to accept the panels, I had to go back and fill them where the pocket screws would “bite,” but I think this was a fair trade vs. doing stopped dadoes or tenons. I also ran a thinner dado/slot on the outside of the frames to accept the biscuits from both the inside of the carcass and the face frames when they’re installed. The happiest moment was when the first (and then the second, and third) frames slid in cleanly and tightly onto the waiting biscuits.
Thankfully the corners were tight since I didn’t really have a good clamping solution for the middle one!
The completed carcass…
Next up: Walnut face frames!
