I've finally built the complete, original cabinet according to the plan. Here's the full write-up.

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October 19, 2005 Here's a shot of the cabinet in its current state. You might notice that it doesn't actually have my drill press on it. Right now, it serves as just storage and another work surface. We'll see how it shakes out as the shop continues to evolve.

The drawer pulls were originally to be patterned directly after the AWW plans. However, I soon discovered that in order to make them identically to the plans, I needed 3 more router bits. This would set me back about $60 and I didn't have the money at the time. I posted a message over at WoodNet asking if someone would sell me their used equivalents or let me borrow them. Shortly after, someone replied, "Why don't you just make do with the bits you have?" Strangely, this had not yet occurred to me. The more I thought about this, the more it made sense. I quickly came up with a revised and simpler pull design which would suit my needs just fine and I'm happy with the results.

To be complete the cabinet now needs a back panel and some basic finish.

April 15, 2005 I had been putting off installing the drawers and slides to this cabinet for about 3 weeks. The prospect of all that accuracy-dependant work really intimidated me. I was afraid I would screw it up and then go into one of my sudden fits of rage, smashing the whole thing with a sledge hammer. (Ask my wife about the "Shelf Incident"; I threw the thing all the way down our driveway.)

Well, my worries were unfounded and I credit all of my recent self-education, the plans and the spiffy shape of my shop nowadays for helping me pull this off.

By golly, the drawers look and work great. This is really helping my confidence in the shop.

March 10, 2005
I'm going to point out the good and the bad on my progress on the drill press cabinet.

The Good

• I was able to get all of my drawer parts cut quite accurately with my new Delta table saw. They're not all exactly right, but they're within tolerance and they're FAR and away more accurate than anything I was ever able to get from my old saw. I'm particularly proud of how well the pieces fit. (See Fig. 1 and 3)


• I did the rabbet and daddo cuts on the router table in my night class. This went better than I thought it would and cut quite accurately for my no-experience level. I did ruin one shallow drawer side, but I have plenty of extra Baltic ply to cut a replacement.

The Bad

• In Fig. 2, you'll see one of my errors. I accidentally routed daddos in the back parts of the drawers, not realizing they were intended to sit on TOP of the drawer bottoms, not recieve the bottoms into a groove like the sides and front. D'oh. As a result, I'll position the accidental groove toward the inside of the cabinet, so you won't ever see this mistake. Fortunately, it shouldn't affect operation of the drawers or the stability of construction.

March 6, 2005 As I sat down to plan for materials on this project, I realized it would be quite expensive and risky considering my lack of experience. So, I decided to scale it down to one box and set of drawers to form a smaller version. I'll put my grinder and drill press on it.

Here are some shots of the carcass and cabinet top. I've learned a couple of important lessons at this stage.

1. Don't buy materials before you measure or look at your plans. *head smack* I bought a 2'x4' sheet of melanine to build my cabinet top, got it to class and discovered it was too shallow to overhang front-to-back as needed. My instructor, Mr. Scrivner, suggested I simply add some flush hardwood edging (already on hand) to extend over the back edge. This is what I did and I think it was the best possible solution at the time. The front and side edges will still look like they should.


2. Be very careful with melanine. The surfaces are very fragile and chip easily around the edge. Its not durable like formica. I won't mind the small chips along the edge on this project since its a shop cabinet, but I'll keep this in mind on future projects.

January 2005 I've started a night class in cabinet-making at my local community college. I had gone looking for a woodworking class and this was the only one they had at night, so I signed up. (Every Tuesday night for about 3 hours, 13 weeks long.) Luckily, my wife teaches there part time, so I got the $160 class fee waived. You can't beat that price, but the real money comes in buying the lumber. Ugh.

I picked up this issue of American Woodworker and decided to build this cool shop hutch from the cover as my first class project.