bathroom cabinet & question
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So I built this cabinet for lotion/cream/shampoo/wife-stuff storage over the toilet. I’m pretty happy how it turned out – there is a surprising lack of information available on how to make a curved door, and I still need to find some pulls.
The plan was always to paint it, but now I’m stuck – this might be a better post for finishing, but does anyone know if I need to seal this before painting? I thought just a thin sanding coat of shellac or maybe glue-size, but I’m not sure if the paint will stick in the humid bathroom.
Any experience/opinions would be appreciated – I don’t want to have to refinish in a year.
~first post from an anti-social lurker~
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You must be logged in to view attached files.16 July 2016 at 11:53 pm #138535Great work, it looks great! Do you have any work-in-progress photos?.
I assume you mean the doors would stick to their stops when closed. Why do you imagine this would happen? Properly cured paint should offer no issues but, if in doubt, you could paint only the outside and edges and leave the inside unfinished.
I would be inclined to use a film finish on both sides of the doors however, as curved pieces – no matter how you make them – are almost always less stable than straight pieces. A study in Fine Woodworking showed shellac to be the most impervious finish to moisture, but of course it stands up poorly to liquid water. If it were my piece, I’d stick on two coats of shellac then over coat with your chosen paint.
All the best,
Matt
16 July 2016 at 11:55 pm #138536Ah, I see now that you were worried about adhesion problems. Nevertheless I wouldn’t change my advice.
Matt
Thanks Matt, as not-so-unusual, the SO changed my plans for me. She likes the wood plain on this one, so no paint. I’m going to try Tried and True Varnish Oil and hope it cures hard enough. I wish I had known that I wasn’t going to paint it, I might have picked stock without great big knots for the door, and matched my panels better, and worried a bit more about the other little (and not so little) surface flaws, and on and on – ah well. No in-progress photos, just near the end result. My workflow is so haphazard that in-progress would be too embarrassing :).
ehisey – the curve is kind of an illusion, only the rails have a curve. The stiles and panels are flat and straight (at least as flat and straight as I can do). That’s why the middle one is so thin (3/4″) and set slightly back from the rail (maybe 1mm), it messed up the “curve” if it was wider. I basically 4-squared a thicker piece for the rail, laid out the curve (from a template) and tenons on top then saw/chisel/spokeshave. I left the rails over-thickness by about 1/8-3/16″ so I could shave them down to match the stiles after it was glued up. The stiles being straight let me use a plane for the grooves, but the rail grooves I had to do with a chisel. Bevel the outside of the door rails to match the cabinet (not quite finished in the pictures – looks better now) and there you go. I’m sure someone smarter than me (or with a bandsaw) could come up with an easier way.
24 July 2016 at 6:34 am #138769The Tried and True should work fine. It’s one of my favourite finishes. The important part is the application. Here is a video which explains how to apply the finish. He uses the danish oil and original wood finish, but the same applies to using the varnish oil.
24 July 2016 at 5:25 pm #138771Did you make the doors or cabinet first? Conventional wisdom says cabinet, but James Krenov – master of curved doors – preferred to make the doors first.
The pine should look nice under oil.
Matt
Thanks Peter – I’m sure that I put too much on the first coat (saw the video after starting), but it’s curing fine so far. Go Riders!
Matt – I roughed out all of the curved rails, but completed one door first, then the second door and cabinet were built to match. I couldn’t figure out how to get the cabinet to match the width with the curve, so built the doors and taped them together to get the width of the cabinet. I wanted to do ‘planted’ doors, but wasn’t confident that I could match up the carcass to the back of the door, so ended up with sort of half-planted doors – which hides any mismatch between door and cabinet a bit, so it works I think.
I’ve got three coats on so far, the end-grain comes out dark and looks pretty nice I think.
D.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.28 July 2016 at 1:44 am #138870Go Riders!
Yeah, they finally won a game. Hopefully the first of many.
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