Underbench Cabinet: Adding colour

We left off with the dados for the drawer blades made and the case glued up ...

The plan was to make the drawer blades, partially fit them, add the drawer dividers, and complete the fitting. Then Christmas came along ...

Measuring the drawer blades had been done. First, a pinch stick obtains the width from inside the dado, and then a template is made with scrap ...

Set the template on the slider ...

... and cut to size the front- and rear rails ...

That was just before Christmas ...

Returning today, I thought that it wouldn't hurt to stain the Merbau case to match the Jarrah rails and drawer fronts. By the way, Merbau is also known as Kwila.

As mentioned at the start, the reason for choosing Merbau for this cabinet was simply that it was cheap and already available as a panel. This came with a cost, in that it is not the nicest wood to work with - interlocked and coarse grained. Plus, of course, it is light in colour. The result needs to blend with the Jarrah bench.

The first step was to use a grain filler on the outside and inside of the case. The surfaces had already been sanded to 240 grit.

The first two coats of the stain were initially mixed with a little methylated spirit, and the concentration increased for two further coats ...

With a few loose rails ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

December 2020