Monday, May 16, 2011

To assemble then stain, or the other way around.

I've been back into the woodshop a bit more in the last few days. Getting the house ready to go on the market turns out to be a major drain upfront and every time that there is a showing scheduled. If only someone would buy it and I could move on to my new, 700 sq. ft. woodshop (with a house built around it).

Let's recapitulate, here is the design.

The project seems straightforward when shown like this.

and the final look:

Front view. The dark colour wood is stained sugar maple while the light coloured wood will be figured Pimento veneer.

The design changed a bit since the time I made it up in sketchup: the doors are shorter and there will be a drawer in the lower part of the middle section (it is a hinge clearance issue). All parts are made, except for the top, the drawer, the doors and the back slats. I think that it is better to stain before assembly, but I'm afraid that I'll seal the pores and prevent the glue to work as well as it should. Taping the glue-up area is an option, but I see this as a tricky thing, especially around the dowels, etc.

In the end, I think that I'll stain first as it will be easier to control the wiping process of the gel stain. however, I'll probably keep the wipe-on poly for after the piece is assembled.
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

5 comments:

  1. yaakovMay 17, 2011 at 2:08 AM

    Why are you moving? I hope you are upgrading to a larger shop!
    Most important things first.

    yaakov....

    ReplyDelete
  2. bongotasticMay 17, 2011 at 2:46 AM

    Yaakov, I'm moving to a house that will be large enough for my wife's parents as well as our family. By sheer luck, the previous owner is a cabinet maker with a 21X24 shop in the basement; fully rigged with dust management ducts and relays to trigger the vacuum when a power tool turns on. I'm more than excited to move there... since right now I've got half a single garage to work with. This will give me more than the space that I need to get the machinery that I can't fit in my current abode (namely a lathe), and have a dedicated space for milling, joinery and finishing. The jackpot!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Olly Parry-JonesMay 17, 2011 at 9:34 AM

    I agree that it's always best to stain or pre-finish your components (particularly internal faces) before assembly. If you can maintain your sanity ;-) long enough to put masking tape over the important joint areas then, it's usually worth it. But, for any joints involving end-grain to long or side grain, I probably wouldn't bother as there's barely any gluing strength in the end-grain fibres, anyway. Just try not to flood your dowel holes - that's where the real strength of the joints should lie.

    Best of luck with the project and it sounds like you're moving on to much bigger and better things in your new home, too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMay 17, 2011 at 12:09 PM

    Thanks! The thought of wiping stain in between the shelves seems worst than my desire to fine tune the fit after assembly. I just need to get things right when dry fitting.

    Thanks for the pointer on end-grain. I won't lose sleep over covering a bit in side these joints, at least enough to make sure that no unfinished surface shows. It is my first stained project that isn't completely trivial. Most of my previous project used wipe-on oil and poly.

    ReplyDelete
  5. bongotasticMay 17, 2011 at 12:13 PM

    Thanks! The thought of wiping stain in between the shelves seems worst than my desire to fine tune the fit after assembly. I just need to get things right when dry fitting.

    Thanks for the pointer on end-grain. I won't lose sleep over covering a bit in side these joints, at least enough to make sure that no unfinished surface shows. It is my first stained project that isn't completely trivial. Most of my previous project used wipe-on oil and poly.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)