I preparation for the next kitchen fabrication, I decided I wanted to finally create a worksheet for the project. I’m sure every cabinet making shop has their won worksheet but no one shares them … until now.

This will take a few posts to explain and at the end, I will post the actual worksheet. In the mean time, here are the "moving parts" …

There is a top sheet which gets into decisions that affect the entire project. These are things like how high the counter top will be, how thick is the counter top material, how deep will the cabinets be, will there be doors or drawers for the base cabinets, and are these "inset" or "overlay" fronts.

There are also a bunch of fixed dimensions – the width of the stock for the cabinet bodies (aka the carcasses), the drawer sides, the drawer slides, the face frame material, etc.

From these data, a bunch of calculations take place for the "fixed" measurements – depth and height of a cabinet carcass, depth of a drawer, etc.

Once all of the calculation are done for the overall kitchen, the next step is for each cabinet. There is a page for each cabinet when the overall width of the available opening and the desired width of the cabinet get entered. There are also choices for the drawer configuration – 1, 2, or 3, drawer(s), usable depths, use a door on the lower portion, etc.

In all cases where there are choices, the recommended value is right next to where the actual value is entered.

The last step is the sheep shown here. It takes all the values and generates a cut sheet – with measurements converted to "tape measure" – aka 1/2", 1/4", 1/8" etc.

If you look closely you will notice this cut sheet does not yet include the finish fronts for the drawers/doors. It does include the carcass, the face frame, and the drawer boxes.

If Shakespeare had been a polymer chemist, he might have said, "The glue is the thing that will stick to the conscience of the king." … or perhaps not. In either case, there are some amazing glues out there and a couple I ALWAYS keep in the shop.

The first is Titebond III I use this as my primary wood glue. While it’s a bit overkill for some things, when I need something that will survive moisture (like glue-ups that will end up in kitchens), this is the stuff. In bulk, it’s not a significant difference in price to non-waterproof glues and I’d rather have one bulk container in my shop that two or three. In the standard household bottle we’re talking $4.99 vs $3.99 which might seem like overkill if you are headed to the hardware store for a bottle of basic glue but given that bottle will get used for projects down the road, the extra versatility is a bargain.

The other glue is not as obvious but even more versatile – JB Weld or JB Kwik. The primary difference in the two JB products is the setup time.

The JB Weld / Kwik glues are actually a resin / hardener combination. There is a tube of each. One reason I like it is that it works – duh. The other is that it can sit in a drawer for years and still be ready when you need it. They advertise this stuff as "liquid steel". I treat it like a "composite welder in a tube". I’ve never used it in some of the examples from the manufacturer – hot/cold pipes, engine blocks, and the like. However I have used in in some high stress and high heat areas like an engine fitting on my lawnmower or to hold a wire in place of a stress relief. I’ve also used it for plastic-to-plastic (as in the plastic housings on appliances, tools, etc). Perhaps the most interesting case for me was bonding a broken cast iron part. When I finished bonding, letting it harden, and then lightly grinding, the part was whole again – more important, it worked and the machine is still running. In all cases, once this stuff hardens, I can work it like it is metal. IF I catching it before it has cured 100%, I can work it likes its plastic. The trick it to let it harden fully before putting the repair into service. If you are less patient, that’ where Kwik comes in <grin>.

I’m sure there are lots of other important glues – like contact cement and PVC pipe compound – but I like multi-taskers so these two glues get me through 99% of my projects and repairs.

When the Unisaw gets in its final spot in the shop, it will need to be level with the outfeed table which will need to be level with the contractor saw at the other end. So I needed to come up with a solution for leg levelers for all the equipment and tables. Here is what I ended up with …

The outfeed table was ease as it has 2×4 legs. The contractor saw needed something extra.

I created “leg blocks” using a glue-up of three layers of 3/4″ Advantech. I love this stuff but it’s not cheap so I kept every scrap from the farmhouse construction. These glue-ups were all scraps. Once everything dried, I cut them to match the legs. That required a 10 degree cut on the ends and then a 7-1/2 degree bevel top and bottom. The beveling was not absolutely necessary but it made the next step much easier.

I drilled a shallow hole followed by a smaller but much deeper hole at each end of both leg blocks. This all makes more sense when you see the photo. The two diameters of each hole can be seen in the lower right of the first photo.

The leg levelers are just 4″ long 1/2″ diameter carriage bolts. The smaller hold is just large enough for the shank while the larger hole is just deep enough to receive the nut and quite as large around. The bolts are much longer than needed to insure stability inside the leg blocks. I thread the nut onto the shank as seen in the lower right example of the top photo, then – with the leg block on the floor, not on the saw – drive the bolt into place until the nut seats. The nut will wedge into place and will bottom out. For added insurance, you can add a small amount of epoxy but make sure none gets on the threads.

The completed leg blocks were bolted into place on the saw.

Since the carriage bolt has a square flange near the head, it is easy to use a wrench to adjust the height and level the saw. The oversized outfeed table uses the same scheme directly into the end of the 2×4 legs. The Unisaw has a plywood bottom so it uses carriage bolts with nuts and washers both top and bottom of the plywood.

I picked up a table saw at a count auction about a year ago. I figured, for $17.50 it would be a good project and if it turned out as hoped, it would be a great saw.

The saw, is a Rockwell Unisaw. Today that would be Delta (following an acquisition and rebranding). From some casting marks, I conclude the saw is from 1979. The saw has seen a number of significant changes in the past 4-5 years but prior to that, it saw almost no mechanical changes since it debuted in 1944! This saw spent it’s first life in a vocational school and it was a tough life.

The saw was equipped with a three-phase motor. I could care less if it was any good since my shop does not have 3-phase power. From the start, I knew the saw was going to need and get a new motor. I eventually settled on a Leeson 3HP motor. The biggest advantage to this unit, in addition to its power, was that it already was configured with the necessary pivot bracket used by the Unisaw. With the motor on order, I set to working on the saw.

The plan was to refinish the top, check the bearings (and pray they were all right), replace the belts, figure out the electrical system, create some option for dust collection, and build a motor cover.

The frame #1 in filmstrip shows the saw with the fence removed and my first attempts at cleaning the top. Eventually, I went for a substantial tear-down. You can see the yoke and other castings in frame #3. After more effort than I care to acknowledge – and more than a few recitations of "wax on / wax off" – I finished stripping the coating on the top. The mess I was dealing with was painted on urethane. This was most likely applied because a vocation school could not be bothered with enforcing proper tool maintenance by the students. Sadly, it was applied after some amount of abuse had already been inflicted. I used a combination of solvent and variously grades of sandpaper and scotch pads to get down to metal. Then a wipe down with Naval Jelly (now just call "rust remover jelly") to get at the rust in some of the scratches and tiny pits that I could not remove. After washing and neutralizing the (phosphoric acid) jelly, I did a little more sanding with 320 wet/dry. The remaining scratches and machine marks were too significant to remove without rendering the top unusable. I finished with three coats of good old fashion paste wax (frame #7).

I had to remove the fence and top along the way so I decided I’d clean up the fence rails even though I plan to eventually replace the fence with a Biesemeyer. I also cleaned the various screws and bolts (a habit I picked up on the clock restoration).

I had to do a bunch of digging but thanks to the Old Wood Working Machines wiki – yes, there is a web page for everything – I found I could use most of the existing electrical system. The control box houses the "Magnetic Motor Starter". I had to switch the step down transformer (which feeds the remote starter buttons and back to the relay) from 200v (part of the 3-phase wiring) to 230v and replace the main power leads and plug. I then used just the first two legs of the system for the new power and motor. Frame #4 shows the electric box with the  motor, power, and remote switch wires left-to-right at the bottom; the 24v relay switch for 3-phase power in the upper left and the step-down transformer in the upper right; the block that looks like it has springs is actually the thermal breaker and those are heavy gauge heater coils that will trip the breaker if they got too hot from too much load.

The new motor arrived via UPS and was install that same night. Frame #5 shows the new motor already installed and the old motor and 3-phase power on the floor. The local industrial /farm supply only had 2 of the belts I needed. The motor drives the blade using three redundant belts. The last had to wait a couple of days.

For dust collection to work, I needed to create a filler panel that is behind the front louvered access door (frame #8) and build a motor cover (frame #6). The cover has a frame contoured and attached to the side of the base cabinet and then, using a piano hinge and latches, the box cover enclosed the motor. Remember, the motor pivots and tilts with the blade so it move quite a bit inside the cabinet – hence the motor cover needs to be spacious.

The finished assemble is seen in frame #8 and you can see the clean and slippery smooth top in frame #7. The blade insert is in bad shape but at $40 each, I’ll make a set out of hardwood. I need to make my zero-clearance and dado inserts anyway so another couple won’t take any extra time. The last step is to align the top to the blade before tightening it all down. Frame #9 shows the dial indicator gauge in position. The first test measures the distance from the track to the blade at both the leading and trailing edges. The second test measures any wobble in the blade. Wobble could be from a bad blade or from misalignment in the mounting arbor disks. Final calibration is not finished yet and I have 0.008 front to back and 0.006 of wobble.

It’s been a fun project. I am really looking forward to setting the Unisaw in place. It will go at one end of the long outfeed table and my JET Contractor Saw will say at the other. The nice part is that the JET Dust Collector has two inlets so I won’t need to switch when I go back and forth between saws (though a remote might be handy <grin>).

During the construction of the kitchen cabinets, I concluded that more time and effort than necessary went into cutting parts out of 4′x8′ sheet stock. I had to hire an extra set of hands many times. This was true both when I was building the carcasses as well as for the door fronts, rails, and stiles because my bamboo came in 4′x8′ sheets. The solution was to employ a panel saw but I did not have one and was not about to buy one, given their $2k – $4k price tags. However, there are a group of ingenious wood workers who have crafted their own. So I decided to do the same.

The trick is to build a "sled" for the saw and run it on two pipes. The real trick is how the sled is built. It uses angle iron, "U" bolts, and roller skate bearings !

I started with the description from the lumenalb forum.

Here are the parts I used:

• 1@ 21′ black iron pipe – $50
• 1@ 3′ 1-1/2" pre-drilled angle iron- $8
• 20@ 22mm roller skate bearings ($40 for 100 on ebay)
• 1@ 4′x8′ sheet of 3/4" MDF
• 4@ 12′ 2"x6" – $15
• 1@ 4′x8′ 3/4" plywood  $30
• 1@ 4′ of 5/16" clear tubing – $2
• lots@ hardware (U-bolts, carriage bolts, nuts, washers, etc.) – aprox $15
• 1@ 8-1/4" circular saw

The process builds from the inside out, starting with the wood plate that the saw will mount to, then the receivers for the sled, then all of the hardware for the sled. Once that is built, the next step is to glue up three layers of 3/4" plywood to build the top and bottom holders for the pipe. I’d recommend getting 1-1/4" ID rigid conduit pipe but that was not locally available for me so I went with 1-1/4" ID black iron pipe. The iron pipe is a bit rougher exterior than the conduit and weighs a lot more.

The forum shows the sled being built to ride under the pipe rails. I chose to have it ride on top – mostly because it made it easier to access the hardware if/when I needed to work on it. (Plus, I did not build my end blocks wide enough to comfortable accommodate the sled and saw – oops. At some point I may build the sled again to accommodate the recessed saw but to be honest, it works so well, I may just leave it.

You can see in the picture that this thing is huge. The reason is I needed it to handle a full 8′ sheet of stock so the entire panel saw is 10′-6" tall. I have plenty of vertical space so it was not an issue. I could have made it so the saw could be rotated 90 degrees and then slide the stock through but that would complicate keeping everything square and true and that was a priority. Getting the base bed square to the saw rails took some trial and error but better to spend an hour now than to have cuts off down the road when I am building the home office.