Tag: display

Display Cabinet

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn FurnitureLeave a comment

Anita got two new booths in the antique mall she sells in. She went from having a small 8′ x 10′ L shaped booth to having two big rooms. Because of this, she needed a big display cabinet for the back wall in one of her rooms. She searched the internet and asked me if I could make this apothecary cabinet for her.

She wanted the piece to be made of a light colored wood but didn’t want maple or poplar. We went to Lowes and bought a bunch of 1×12’s that were a light pine made in Sweden. Being that they were from Sweden, I assume that it’s the same pine that IKEA uses in their furniture.

The first thing I did was make the legs by glueing up boards into a square. There’s a special lock miter router bit for this purpose but I have always heard that your stock has to be completely straight and flat in order for the bit to work well. My boards were neither, so I opted for 45 degree cuts and a lot of clamping pressure with band clamps and duct tape. Fortunately, they came out fine.

After the legs were made, I cut notches into them to fit the shelves. Then I wrapped the edge of the shelves with 1 1/4″ pieces of wood. On the end grain, I used a little bit of glue and pocket screws for the wood movemnet. The rest of the base was built with Festool Dominoes and glue.

I wanted robust drawers so I made those with handcut half blind dovetails. It’s a lot of fun cutting dovetails by hand and it really doesn’t take too long once you get the hang of it.

I wanted to make sure that the drawers wouldn’t bind, so I made the drawers a 1/8″ smaller in length and height so there would be a 1/16″ gap all around. I made sure the drawer runners were 1/16″ proud of the opening and screwed them in place with pocket screws and glue.

Once the base was made, I focused on the top. I wanted the sides to have a thicker panel in the middle of them, so I glued up the 1/8″ panels together. I used as many clamps I could find and stuck newspaper between the two panels so they wouldn’t stick together. Luckily, when the panels dried, I was left with two oversized panels for the sides of the cabinet.

I built the case with more Dominoes and glue and created adjustable shelf supports with the scrap wood I had left over.

I love this technique for adjustable shelves. You drill a 3/4″ hole every 2″ then you rip the piece in half on the table saw. Then for the support, you add a 1″ filler on the bottom of the support stick. This way, if you need your shelf 1″ higher, you simply flip over your shelf support.

I installed the back with more of the 1/8″ thick panel wood and Anita put a natural aging solution on the piece as she didn’t want it stained.

People in the antique shop love the piece and are perplexed that I built it out of 1×12’s from Lowes.

An Amazing Opportunity

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools2 Comments

Sometimes life gives you an opportunity you didn’t know existed.

My friend Tim called me last summer saying that he cuts the grass for our old Junior High Shop Teacher, Mr Morganroth, and he had some old tools he wanted to sell. Mr Morganroth was our shop teacher in the seventh grade. In class, we would make swordfish and ducks out of a piece of walnut, then attach painted metal for the fins and the wings. The class was the basics of woodworking, where we learned the simple steps of using surform files, grades of sandpaper, and cutting things out on the band saw. These simple steps got me hooked on woodworking, and I started to slowly build a shop in my parents’ basement when I was in high school.

Mr Morganroth said he was moving to Tennessee and wanted to get rid of some old tools he had been collecting asking if I would be interested in them. I told Tim I was but wanted to know what he had beforehand, so he sent me a few pics from his phone.

Tim sent me the photos, and I took a close look at them and I said I was interested, but I don’t want all of them since a lot were just common tools. Unfortunately, Morganroth wanted to sell them all at once, so I just let it go and forgot about it.

Then, a few weeks ago, Tim called me again and said Morganroth really wanted to get rid of them, so I contacted him directly and asked him to send me better pictures of what he had. Morganroth said he wanted to sell everything but the cooper’s tools as they were his grandfather’s.

Understanding that, we went back and forth for a few days, and I gave him an offer for the tools he wanted to sell (I really had my eye on the slick at the time). He responded that he would think about my offer. 

Then last week he got back with me and said he’ll include the cooper’s tools as well and he’ll also throw in some woodworking books he had. I made him an offer higher than the first one I gave him, and he agreed to the price.

Friday, I went over to his house and picked up the tools. He had them hanging in his house for 30 years. He said his kids have no interest in them as neither of them work with wood, so he was glad they were going to a good home.

I brought them home and clipped them off the barn wood they were attached to to take a better look at them. The tools on the bench are the tools that his grandfather used when coopering. I plan on keeping them together as a set. I’m even considering making a tool chest for them.

It’s an incredible honor to buy old tools from the man who got me started in woodworking over 40 years ago.

New Life for a Display Piece

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture2 Comments

A couple years ago I wrote a blog post about building this huge display cabinet for my wife. She wanted it to use as a backdrop for doing shows. Being 7′ long, it was long enough to stick in the back of a 10′ x 10′ booth with a little room on the sides.

She was hoping to use it for a show in the spring, then Covid hit and the show was cancelled. We waited for everything to go back to normal, but the further things went, Anita decided not to do the show anymore. In the end, we never ended up even using the piece.

It sat in our garage over the months so Anita decided to get rid of it and told me to post it on Facebook Marketplace for dirt cheap. One of Anita’s customers saw the post and came by the next day to buy it. She owns a specialty shop and was planning on painting the piece gray and using it in her store.

Anita stopped by her shop this morning and saw the piece painted. It looks amazing in her store. At least someone got use out of it.

I’m thinking now that I should make these display pieces and put a big price tag on it instead of the garage sale price this lady got. What do you think?