Cabinet Complete

Whew! The last few weeks have been crazy. I had to clean out my garage, set up my trailer for hauling sheet goods, transform the trailer into a work surface... I built the cabinet from 4x8 sheets of 3/4" MDF in the garage on the trailer. I don't really like doing woodworking any more. I just don't have a decent work space and most of my tools stink.

Anyway, here's the design again:

And here's the (nearly) finished cabinet:

MDF is like Super Cardboard. It wicks moisture like crazy and swells up. I got this great idea to seal the cabinet with a few coats of water-based polyurethane. The stuff I picked up is quite nice. It repels water nicely. It also repels latex paint. It took me a few extra passes of the primer paint to get full coverage. It kept beading up. It also looks like the paint is not bonded real well and it will chip easily. You can see several such chips in the picture above. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. I'll do touch up paint when the whole thing is done.

The drawer design is super simple, the drawers are just open-top boxes riding on 1" rails glued to the sides of the cabinet. I rubbed paraffin wax on the contact surfaces and the slide action is quite nice.

I was worried about the rectangular cutouts in the counter top. I used a single straight edge carefully clamped. Only one of the four corners did I use an end stop on. The rest was just done very carefully. I took my time and nudged things ever so slightly to get the cut I needed. I practiced on the speed control first since it wasn't critical then did the DRO cut out. The DRO sits flush with the counter top. Here's a pic:

I'm VERY happy with it. It's perfect. Here's a closer shot (click for larger view):

The corners on the DRO are 1/4" radius and I happened to have a 1/2" trim bit for my router.

Here's a shot of the power strip / surge protector on the front:

While I struggled with a few different techniques to do the cutout it came out very nice in the end. I did this cutout before the counter top and I was afraid the router technique would be unwieldy, but it worked out fine.

I made my usual fare of mistakes, mostly craftsmanship, a mental error, a design error. Most mistakes are well hidden. The one design error was that I didn't allow any overlap of the ends of the counter top. It should extend 1/4" off either end to account for inexactitudeness of the cabinet. Instead I built it flush and the cabinet is not perfect leaving under hang visible in the upper right corner of the top photo. I'm pretty sure I'll make some chip guards which will give me a chance to cover it up.

I drilled and tapped holes to secure the mill to the table and cut a 1" slot in the center of the counter top under the mill to run wires through. Next is some sanding work on the counter top, secure the counter to the cabinet, then start wiring things up!