Radius Cabinets Photo Essay
Installing End Panels
Contents: 5 Pictures
Overview
| Forming and Bending Section
Fabrication
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Installing
End Panels: #1
Just Look at that Sap
Remarkably little of the sap showing on this side went through to the visible side. What little did, I touched up with that stuff Jeff Jewitt puts in the little bottles. It only takes a drop or two to ruin all your bed sheets if you sweat at night and were too exhausted to take a shower. And I used to think only Sissies wore those thin rubber gloves.
I used it very diluted after a wash coat of shellac, then sprayed. After rubbing with steel wool, I applied my top secret ageing formula - brown kiwi shoe polish. This has to be done long before the owner gets home, since it has a distinctive familiar smell, and few of us wear our Gucci's on installation jobs.
A couple core box router bit lines are visible on the side, since it wanted to cup in the shop. The end panel is leaning against the window, and you are looking at the back of it. The panel is very thick, so I hacked a taper to it with a power plane to remove stress risers. I use a modified Makita for general purpose planing. If you have a Makita, you may want to watch the video on how to quickly modify yours for a deeper cut. Here's a link to my Index of Videos.
The plywood behind the stile and against the wall are spacers for the end panel.
Installing End Panels:
#2
Looking Down on the Top
The End Panel bottom is shown here leaning against the top. It has been dadoed to accept the 1/2" spline on the countertop.
The butchered plaster around the window was indeed done by me. A previous trim guy had cased the windows with poplar, and had attached the backing for it by screwing and nailing through the rock lathe into scraps. He then had cut back the rock lathe along his casing line, so the lathe butted his casing. The plasterer had then skim coated to the casing.
What bummed me so bad was that I then had to mill my casing as wide as his to hide everything. And his was way too wide for that place already.
Installing End Panels: #3
Rabbetted Stile
Sequence is the name in the installation game. Since I had no idea, given whatever shape that room actually was, exactly where the cabinets would start and end up, I opted to not even make the end panels until after the cabinet units and the paneling were both installed.
That way I could get the maximum panel width, and minimum stile width possible to show off the boards (matched with those on the opposing cabinet end) that I had been saving for the end panels. To further this aim I opted for flat panels coupled with an overlay molding I had copied from a piece of Victorian furniture a long time ago. I don't think the owner ever noticed that he has "reverse raised panels" on the ends.
The stile is deeply rabbeted to accept the end stile of the paneling which was screwed extremely tightly to the wall prior to the end panel being put on. After the end panel was in, those screws were removed. This left a significant hidden gap between the edge of the paneling stile and the bottom of the rabbet for movement. I've been fond of the hidden gap for many years.
Installing End Panels: #4
What's With These Lousy Glue Tops
Anyway? Hey Titebond CEO. Get you head out where the sun can shine. The old ones were cheaper anyway!
You can see that the extra thick edge of the end panel stile is flush with the front face of the adjacent face frame. (By the way, that lower end panel didn't fall out, it's just leaning there resting a bit.)
Instead of grinding most of the wood off the boards then paying to have it hauled off, I was able to get enough thickness out of selected 5/4 that the edges of the end panels doubled as backers for the pilasters. This eliminated a long glue joint with its associated sanding, eliminated a change in grain on prominent corners, and greatly facilitated minor planing chores.
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