Part 3 of a Kitchen Unit for my Mum

Progress on the kitchen unit continues and this weekend was all about preparing the pieces for assembly. My Mum wants a natural pine look, which means no stain or paint and no visible fasteners. I find even wood filler can be noticeable in a natural finish. To that end, I decided to use dowel joints for all the visible areas. The backs and bottom I took the easy route using screws and pocket joints.

First thing, I drilled all the dowels for the face frames and the trim around the top. Since the face frames overhang each side of the gables by ¼” it took some creativity with the dowel jig to get the holes in the right locations. I ended up forgoing the attached clamps for my own and measuring all the locations. This was time consuming but effective and 95% of my holes lined up on the first try. 

Once all the vertical pieces of the trim were jointed, I cut the horizontals to trim out the bottom shelf. Everything is cut to size and in place but I now have to go back and glue it all piece by piece. 

For the top I’ve been having some issues getting the 2 pieces of pine to fit together nicely while fitting onto the piece. It took much more adjusting than I though it would. I finally got it almost right, drilled the dowels and glued the joints. I guess we’ll see next weekend if it still fits nicely on the unit.

The pieces to trim out the top are 1” pine by 1 ¼” and I wanted it to be consistently wide all the way around. In order to achieve this on the ends, I rountered out a groove so it sits properly on the gable yet is still the right width at the ends.

I also ran into some frustration with my table saw; it only cuts up to 24” width. Usually I can work around it, cutting the negative side between the guide and blade, but this time the wood wasn't straight at both ends. I ended up building a little extension piece for the saw, this was not super effective or as accurate as I would have liked.

And now we know: I need to either find extensions for my table saw or invest in a new circular saw. Mine is old and heavy, leading me to not be very comfortable using it, so I don’t!