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Building a Medicine Cabinet

Bob shows the plan for the handcrafted medicine cabinet and Ryley shows Bob the wood that will be used in its construction. Ryley cuts the main pieces with a radial arm saw at one time to make later assembly go faster. He then plows out a rabbit for the top and bottom of the cabinet into the sides using a Dado blade. Ryley employs a router to plow out an area of the sides to make the standards flush with the sides. The standards will allow the interior shelves to be adjustable. Ryley then finishes off the cabinet construction with screws and carpenter�s glue.
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Building a Medicine Cabinet

  computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate

" -What we need is to cut 2 side pieces that are gonna be 42 inches -"

" --That's right."

" --tall and then the four shelves for inside it, top and the bottom."

" -That's correct. We'll be using, for the back and the front, we'll be using these 3 quarter inch pacific grade bricks [unk], 2 feet by 4 feet -"

" --So one of these will be trimmed down to become the door?"

" --That's correct."

" -Yes."

" -And for the sides and the shelves themselves, we'll just use a 16-foot length of 1 by 8 [unk]"

" -Great. What's your first step?"

" -First thing we'll do is take it to the radio arm sawer [unk] and cut the sides and tops [unk]"

" -Ok. Alright, which piece are we going to cut first?"

" -Well actually what I'm going to do is cut the board right in half so that we have a nice square [unk] to work from -"

" --Yes."

" --and once we've done, that I'll just cut the 2 side pieces from that 8-foot piece."

" -Ok."

" -Ok well now we have everything is cut to length and we're still at the radio arm sawer [unk] and what we wanna do is plow out a rabbit on the sides to receive the top and the bottom."

" -Ok so essentially the joint that we're gonna use to create the the frame?"

" -That's correct."

" -And how are you gonna do that?"

" -Well, it's got this dado blade here--"

" --Yes."

" --And we'll just set it to 3 quarters of an inch, it's adjustable--"

" --Yes."

" --and I'll take these--"

" --and then essentially as it turns it plows out the middle and the sides of the cut."

" --Exactly."

" -Unplug this thing."

" -Yes. Definitely want to unplug it and then we'll just take the guide and this blade here off and change over to the dado."

" -Excellent. That essentially gives us the, the joint that we want where we can tie one of the side pieces with a top piece and get a good strong corner. Ready to put it together?"

" -Yes we are. Let's take all the pile [unk] over to the table."

" -Ok."

" -The shelves are going to be adjustable and that's why we're going to use these metal standards, but we want them to be flushed with the inside of the cabinet. So how are we going to do that?"

" -Well, we're going to use a router [unk] for that, Bob. We're going to be plowing out 5/8's of an inch of the material to receive these guides. We know that we want it to be an inch from the face of the material--"

" --Yes."

" --We know that the router [unk] base is 2 and 3 quarter inches from the edge of the bit [unk], so we'll just set a straight edge, 2 and 3 quarter inches back from where we want the groove, tape the router [unk] and all the way from behind we'll just turn it on and push it."

" -You want to push to do the material, right?"

" -Push to the material."

" -Ok. And we'll put the metal right into the wood and fasten them with these small nails that come with the, the brackets."

" -Ok. So carpenter's glue on to the butt end -"

" --Yes, just a little bit."

" -Now we'll just set a pile of hole in here."

" -The most important part of the job is you don't split the wood."

" -That's right. Now we're just going to set the screw in there just a little bit. So while this is being painted we can put some wood [unk] in there."

" -Ok."

" -Ok that's the back side and the actual backer is a 3 quarter inch piece of plywood for strength because we don't have any permanent shelves inside this thing. Now in order to hide that ugly edge, we're going to alter [unk] the router [unk] around the edge of the side piece so that we can recess it. Ready?"

" -Sure am. We've got a 3-inch [unk] bit on here. I'm going to do this in 2 passes so we get a nice clean cut."

" -Ok. -Ok. That's got all 4 of them."

" -That squares out the corner."

" -Coz of course the router [unk] does not make a square corner. And, here you go."

" -Ok. Alright."

" -Nice."

" -Ok. Now I'll square it up real good and we'll just put it in with some 5-penny [unk] galvanized box nails."

" -Why not use finished nails?"

" -Well, I like to, it's on the backs [unk]. I like to have a head on the nail that's going to pull it in nice and tight. The nail won't slip through."

" -Great. All right we'll use some scrap so that we can position our door, which is the other piece of plywood, right where it wants to be and we'll be using a piano hinge, which is the best type of hinge to fit in here when you've got a heavy door like this. And we've created a a rabbit [unk] on the edge of the plywood so that it, it's plush [unk]."

" -Ok these are very small screws. I'm going to use it all to get started here."

" -That's pretty good."

" -Yes ok. Now this door we won't need a handle because we've got a 3 quarter inch overhang on the door.--"

" --And you can just grip it on the bottom."

" -That's right and I've already put in these metal clips into the runners to receive these shells and they can sit right on there. They're adjustable."

" -Very simple! All we've got left to do now is put a finish on it. Thanks [unk]."

" -Ok."

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