EZ Furniture Style Vanity

Hi Guys,

This furniture style vanity is in process. These pictures were taken yesterday (4/9/09).

The carcass and door panels are all EZ. The hardwood rips are all EZ. Some of the hardwood crosscuts were done on the miter saw.

The tapers at the bottoms of the posts were done on a Jet 6" jointer using a shop made jig. Even though I take enormous safety steps before making any passes, I don't like using the jointer. I'd much rather use a 4" hand held planer on the SRK. Maybe someone can share recent experiences with that. Dead wood is the safest by far.

One of the most useful aspects of EZ rails, square, clamps, etc. was the ability to precisely fit the inset doors and drawer front, which were constructed slightly oversized for that purpose. No matter how carefully the carcass is put together, the openings are never exactly square. By trimming and fitting on site, several times, we achieved a uniform ~1/16" seam all the way around. Great seams make the job look sharp. I'll post finished pictures after the granite and sink are installed.

Let's rock this focus group!! I've got hundreds of pictures to sort through for posting.

Thanks,

Adam

Wow Adam,

Fantastic job. I can't wait until I can finally start making furniture. Remodeling is getting old after nearly 15 years...

Adam Stone wrote:

One of the most useful aspects of EZ rails, square, clamps, etc. was the ability to precisely fit the inset doors and drawer front, which were constructed slightly oversized for that purpose. No matter how carefully the carcass is put together, the openings are never exactly square. By trimming and fitting on site, several times, we achieved a uniform ~1/16" seam all the way around.

More details on this process please. Do you trim the drawer front before you attach it to the drawer or do you do a test fit, then remove and trim? With a bunch of drawer fronts, how do you fit them to one another? I guess it's not quite clear to me either in general or EZ in specific.

Adam,

Beautiful work as always.

I enjoy your comments. They are factual and to the point.

I would have tapered the legs with the EZ PBB. A lot of things like this aren't important in the way you do them. It is just the end result that counts.

You have my admiration for dealing with inset doors and drawers - I hate doing them with a passion.

Burt

SchreiberBike wrote:

Adam Stone wrote:

One of the most useful aspects of EZ rails, square, clamps, etc. was the ability to precisely fit the inset doors and drawer front, which were constructed slightly oversized for that purpose. No matter how carefully the carcass is put together, the openings are never exactly square. By trimming and fitting on site, several times, we achieved a uniform ~1/16" seam all the way around.

More details on this process please. Do you trim the drawer front before you attach it to the drawer or do you do a test fit, then remove and trim? With a bunch of drawer fronts, how do you fit them to one another? I guess it's not quite clear to me either in general or EZ in specific.

I'm sure there are better ways than what follows - I did not own EZ rails at the time. On the one and only inset vanity I've buillt so far, I mounted the drawer fronts to the drawers and installed those assemblies into the vanity. They were square-cut to approx. the sizes of the frame openings minus only about 1/16". Then I could close each drawer, measure the gap to the frame around each side, slide it open, sand each edge ( hand and power ) it until I got the 3/32" (winter=dry) I was looking for all the way around. A lot of opening and closing each drawer, but it worked and the gaps came out even. My face frame wasn't exactly square ( still haven't figured out why ). If it were I feel I could have cut them to finished size and they would have come out just fine. When I finished I marked and numbered each drawer/front pair for reinstall after finishing.

I saw a similar technique ( better ) on a documentary about Stickley Co, in which a worker was fitting an inset drawer front with it mounted, trimming using a small block plane, closing it frequently to check the fit. He was doing it by eye. Talk about masterwork. I don't own a decent block plane so I went the belt sander route instead. Tired arms.

I would have benefited from having EZ rails then. I could have mounted, marked, removed, and trimmed, then remounted and then blocked sanded until perfect. I did own EZ rails by the time I got around to trimming the two doors, and it was much EZ'er.

oh.. forgot...I initially centered the rough-cut drawer fronts on the drawers with two sided tape, then took them out and installed the wafer-heads so they wouldn't shift during trimming.

-Jim

Adam - nice work, I like the dark stain...I may consider trying a shade like that for a future project.
-Jim