I haven’t had a lot of time to spend in my shop over the past few months, but there’s nothing like a deadline to force you to get something done. I needed a present for a friend’s upcoming nuptials (I doubt he reads this blog), and decided a little wall hanging cabinet would be pretty neat. I’m calling it a whiskey cabinet, but I suppose you could put anything in it. It came together pretty quickly, without too many mistakes (surprisingly). Of course there were some, but I’m not going to point those out.
Walnut body, doors, and drawer front. Maple back, and basswood drawer sides and bottom. The hinges were somewhat of a disappointment; I got everything aligned just right, but there was so much slop in the hinges I had to trim the door bottom afterwards. You get what you pay for, I guess. Brusso hardware from here on out.
The drawer knob is probably my favorite part, although I didn’t get a very good picture of it. I took a 3/8 lag bolt and cut it to the appropriate length.. I used a blowtorch to burn off any coating it had on it, then buffed it with some steel wool. I tapped the drawer front almost the whole way though, but left the last 1/16 untapped so that the bolt would be held very tightly. I also cut the drawer front out around a knot in the board, and put the bold right into that knot, so the grain appears to flow right around the handle. Pretty neat, I think.
I put a french cleat on the back, and a spacer on the bottom as well so it would be held out evenly from the wall. This should hold the whole box out about 1/4”, which looks pretty cool.
Dovetails for the carcasse, bridle joints for the door. I cut my bridle joints on the tablesaw. Cheating, I guess, but I only have a 50% success rate with them using a handsaw.
Some wild grain in the door.. That’s one board across both panels. I’m not sure if that light spot on the left side of the bottom panel is natural, or more due to the direction I planed the wood. Walnut can change color pretty dramatically based on light direction, and based on the direction of the grain. I planed the left side of the door in the opposite direction than the right side to avoid tearout, and I think this contributed to the color difference. I try to avoid sandpaper, but I think I probably should have just sanded this panel in order to have a little more uniform color. I dunno, it just seems a little distracting to my eye.
Rare-earth magnets hold the door shut (magnets in the carcase, little screws in the door). You can see them in the second picture. I finished the whole thing with original waterlox. I’m pretty pleased with how the finish came out, although I haven’t really settled on a technique. I’ve put a coat of paste wax on top of the waterlox before, but didn’t this time. Not sure it made a difference one way of the other.
Anyways, a fun project, and it was good to be in the shop again.
– Matt
