Final Episode: Epic Pallet Wood Door Build Series

hey thanks for checking out next level carpen tree i've got a simple question for you what do you think of this door lie to me if you have to but do keep in mind that every piece of wood used for the door along with the jam and the custom cove casing was rescued from a pallet because this pallet wood door build series is over a year in the making i want to thank viewers who have waited patiently from the beginning i invite viewers who are new to the series to go back and watch the transformation of pallet wood into the finished door that you see here all 11 episodes are in a playlist that you can find in the video description here at next level carpentry for everyone who's followed the series from the beginning i'm excited to show you the finishing steps so that i can move on to other projects but first i'll fill you in with some background information that complicated things and delayed my ability to bring this thing in for a landing many times logistics are harder than the actual work itself and this door build series is definitely one of those times besides the challenges of woodworking on a unique concept and design like this a high hurdle for the project was finding the right source and the right material for the spaces in between the slats you see here on the door panel i knew what i wanted the door to look like from the beginning with stainless steel strips in between wood slats but i don't have the capability of cutting actual stainless steel into narrow strips like this plus real stainless steel is harder to work with and it would make the finished door heavier so i pursued the line of new metal plastic laminate materials that you see here in this sample ring sheets of new metal are basically for mica with real or simulated metal surfaces this stuff is much easier to work with it's lighter weight lower cost and a wide range of amazing finishes is available this screenshot gives you an idea of fascinating new metal surface options that are available they can be used on an infinite number of projects to get an infinite range of looks so although it was difficult i ultimately selected this material that looks very much like brushed stainless steel it's new metals number 256g brushed stainless steel which is a great match to the door hardware finish plus it doesn't fingerprint like real stainless steel wood there's a number of places out there that offer new metal products but through a serendipitous chain of events i ended up working with milan at decorative ceiling tiles to get the perfect laminate for the next level carpentry pellet wood door build series project on pest projects i've done using new metal laminate like the reception desk in this clinic i worked with a different supplier but because of order minimums inflated shipping costs etc they were difficult to do business with so i was very pleased to hook up with milan and decorative ceiling tiles for this project fyi decorative ceiling tiles is not sponsoring this video but they did provide the laminate that i used for the strips between the slats on the door so thanks milan both for collaborating to provide the material for the door and more importantly for your patients over the many months it's taken for me to finally put this video together the arrangement i made with milan is to give next level carpentry viewers an idea of the wide range of products available through decorativeceilingtiles.net so i asked him to send me samples of other products that they have to offer through the website i've not used products other than the laminate you'll see me using here in a few minutes but that's mainly because the right projects haven't come along yet this whole collaboration process started out quite some time back when milan reached out to me about these faux box beams that are available through decorative ceiling tiles after you saw my video about the best box beams here on the channel for a lot of applications these faux beams are the perfect solution when making them out of real wood like i did in that video just isn't practical the beams come in a bunch of different types and styles that you can learn more about through a link in the video description below it's been a long time since i've done any work that required the use of metal ceiling panels but like so many other things materials and options and processes available today provide a better solution than some original products and these ceiling tiles made out of plastic rather than stamped metal are a perfect example using plastic sealing tiles like these that from any distance look exactly like metal ceiling tiles this is a lot like using a drywall instead of plaster and lath it's a different process in a different era but this solution just makes more sense in this day and age and in a lot of applications these can be dropped into a ceiling grid instead of being fastened directly to a surface just depending on the final look that you're after the other sample selections i have here are some textured plastic panels for accent walls this ring of simulated wood veneers are used as door skins and it occurs to me that i've been showing you the wrong sample ring for the new metal laminates the sample ring i've been showing you are these plastic sheets that have various metal look finishes on them but this is the ring of actual new metal samples and even though the sample chips are smaller you can clearly see the wider range of fascinating finishes and textures for these products this hammered copper product is what i used on the reception desk at a clinic some years back that's real hammered copper on a phenolic backer and produces amazing results of course you can check out these and other products available from decorative ceiling tiles through links in the video description but the one i'll talk about most is the line of new metal plastic laminates that they carry it's really difficult to pick just one from this selection so i'm really glad that i already decided on the look i wanted for that door and picked this style or that door might never get done if you're interested in new metal in particular or any of these other amazing products just follow the link to decorativeceilingtiles.net in the video description and while you're there be sure to take advantage of an exclusive special offer code for next level carpentry viewers who shop at their site now that you know the backstory and the source for this very cool brushed stainless steel plastic laminate join me as i weight into the rather complex process of finishing up the pallets on the pallet wood door this thumbnail shows how the door looked at the end of episode 9 when i applied gel poly to the door itself in episode 10 you saw me make this pile of cherry palette wood slats as shown in the video's thumbnail so now it's time to make strips of new metal breast stainless steel laminate that fit between those slats cutting new metal laminate into narrow strips is simple enough using this special laminate strip cutting fixture that i made knowing how wide to make the strips to achieve the gradient spacing that you see here between the slats on the door well not so much i tried and failed to use sketchup to figure graduated widths for 19 strips to fit between 20 slats on the face of the door my goal was to start with a quarter inch space at the top and increase each space by the same amount to fill the remaining space with 20 slats which are each 2 and 15 16 inches in width to all the math professors out there this is a perfect story problem to me it was a frustrating effort and admitting defeat i cried uncle crying uncle is easy when you've got a nephew who's a math whiz so i reached out to my nephew mark mcgee to see if he could give me answers to this test mark humored me and listened intently while i explained my predicament i'm pretty sure he did the math in his head while we were talking but because i explained to him how i toiled to try and figure this thing out said he'd need to think about it for a while to come up with the graduated measurements that i needed for the spacing of the slats on this door sure enough it wasn't long before i got a string of texts from mark with formulas that looked to me like chalkboard drawings in the russell crow movie a beautiful mind i'm sure mark sends my bewilderment and kindly offered to build a spreadsheet calculator so i and viewers configure graduated spacing like this at will i'll add a link to mark's graduated spacing calculator in the video description below that you're free to use to use the calculator follow the instruction sheet that shows how you just plug in the number of spaces width of the first space and total amount of space you need to divide and it spits out answers for you to the nearest 1 64th of an inch if you find the calculator useful please mention it in the video comments if you're motivated to show mark your appreciation monetarily just use the next level carpentry paypal link and add a note to your tip and i'll pass it along to him with thanks and please don't bother posting annoying comments saying this spreadsheet doesn't calculate values in millimeters because mark's smart enough to do metric with half his brain tied behind his back i'm the one that asked for results rounded to the nearest 1 64 of an inch instead of blowing all your steam through your whistle i suggest you use that energy to modify the spreadsheet to get metric results for yourself if you want them with all that background covered i've got my list of widths here and need to quit all this yattering and get the slicing strips right this box of laminate arrived at next level carpentry in may of 2020 that's almost a year ago and it gives you a pretty good idea of the amount of lapsed time i've spent on this particular pallet wood door build video series laminate sheets ordered from decorativeceilingtiles.net are rolled up and shipped in a sturdy carton like this to prevent damage and to keep shipping costs reasonable unboxing laminate isn't too difficult but i always handle it carefully and with respect notice that i tighten up the roll inside the box a little bit to loosen it up so it slides out of the box a little more easily although it's pretty tough stuff mishandling a sheet can cause it to crack tear chip or break once out of the box i carefully unroll this four foot by eight foot sheet onto my table and this particular style comes with a protective plastic film on it so it's rolled up good side out other types of laminate that i generally get a roll up with a good sign in so that it doesn't scratch while handling it in addition to that plastic coating there's a list of instructions included in the package and i'm sure this is on the website as well and because this is a specialized material you have to take certain precautions about things to use and more importantly things to not use i'm not going to dwell much on the instructions for handling this particular material other than to just give you a heads up if you order something with a metal finish it's a different beast than other laminates other materials you work with so educate yourself a bit before using the material to make sure it's suited to your purpose and that you work within the parameters outlined in the instructions so that you don't end up spoiling the material or the piece you're working on out of ignorance now that i've got the sheet unboxed and laid out here i need to cut it down into a more manageable size you can see this kind of got this curve built into it so the bigger the piece the harder it is to work with because i want the grain direction of the brushing on this aluminum to run horizontally on the door and it runs the long way on this sheet i need to cut an oversized piece off the end of the sheet to work with i need each strip to be about 26 inches long to cover the width of this panel so i'm going to rough cut that to 30 inches to give me a little bit of extra wiggle room on there and i can still get three 30 inch strips across the full width of that eight foot sheet because my 48 inch sheetrock square is off on vacation i'm just going to use a tape measure and a sharpie marker to slide a mark across the end of this sheet at 30 inches and then i'll draw a second line at 30 and a half inches to act as a guide for the rough cut i'll make to separate this end off the sheet rather than cut this unwieldy sheet on a table saw like i normally do to break down large sheets of plastic laminate i'm going to use these clank laminate cutters that i recently got from wayne at woodstock supply in rapid city their specially designed jaws cut laminate by removing a small strip so you don't get the collateral damage you'd get trying to use regular metal cutting snips so all i need to do to make this cut is just snip snip snip along my sharpie mark to cut a piece of manageable size to work with and this laminate is some amazing stuff it's heavy duty it's durable but it does have a mind of its own you know wants to keep jumping off the end of the table and curling back up on me but with that part done i've got this piece that i can use to start cutting strips for the door before i cut this into small strips i want to trim the hand cut edge down so it's nice and straight and parallel with the other side just so that i know what i'm working with but because this stuff has got such an opinion of its own it definitely wants to curl this way and actually wants to curl the other way too so to compensate for that i'm using a different method than normal most laminate without a metal facing on it lays a lot flatter but so i've adapted a new method i cut some strips of half inch osb i'm just going to use that to kind of stabilize this sheet and all this osb does is just kind of stabilize and flatten the sheet and even with this osb on here this is a little difficult to manage but i'm going to slide it right out to the edge that needs to be cut drive those little screws in there and then that allows me to control this a little better when making this cut it's still a little bit gangly and unwieldy but with the assistance of my dual outfeed roller stands i'm able to get a nice clean cut on the opposite edge of this sheet by golly i think i just invented something new i've got to cut so many narrow strips and they all get cut off the side of the sheet here i'm going to cut this a couple more times just to break it down to get some of this fight out of the sheet and make it easier to work with when i'm cutting all those thin strips this is 48 inches wide so i think i will just cut a few 16 inch wide strips and call it good i'll use my little bent sheet metal auxiliary fence to keep the laminate from sliding underneath and smurf gloves will help me control the sheet and that gives me three sheets that are extra manageable for cutting narrow strips accurately i got to thinking while i was cutting those that this is a real aluminum face on here so i'm guessing anybody with a saw stop is going to have to shut off that saw stop capability because an aluminum surface here is surely to conduct the electrical current that sets off a saw stop but that's just me thinking not confirmed as fact before moving on i use my newly created invention to rip another 30 inch strip off the opposite end of the sheet and then set it up one last time to square up the other hand cut edge from the initial cut with all the extra handling necessary for trimming up and sizing these sheets i can tell that the protective sheet on the face of this is preventing any of the scratches from handling from getting through to the brushed aluminum surface of the laminate itself and even though the material is temperamental and my sheet handling strips are a little bit crude i'm able to get a nice clean straight cut on the edges of these sheets and this extra material will not go to waste because i'm going to laminate it to a substrate of acrylic and then have the letters for the sign on the door cut out of this material so that everything matches nicely on the door when it's finished my original plan for cutting these smaller manageable sheets down into all the strips i need for filling in the spaces between slats on the pallet wood door was to use the same rip fence and rip fence accessory that i use for trimming laminate and normal applications but it quickly became apparent that that wasn't going to be accurate or safe enough for ripping all these strips normally when i cut laminate it's cut oversized and then trimmed to shape with a flush trim router but in this case the strips need to come out straight accurate and consistent right off the bat so i needed to come up with a different more efficient more effective and safer method than what i've used previously and what i came up with as an alternative to this rip fence accessory is a special clamping fixture designed specifically for cutting these laminate strips very accurately consistently safely and repetitively as you'll see this clamping fixture is one part of a two-part system that i designed and made for cutting these strips the second part of the setup i have for ripping these narrow strips safely and accurately is a sheet of quarter inch melamine mdf i've got it set up especially in the table saw top with a guide rail on the bottom that fits into a miter guide slot and then it's attached to my throat plate insert to hold it in position i'm also using a 24 tooth thin kerf dewalt blade from my cordless saw for cutting this laminate for its sharp teeth and very narrow kerf and between the clamp and this tabletop overlay i'm able to cut these strips consistently accurately and repetitively to ensure accuracy from the get-go i run one edge of my rough cut sheets over the jointer taking a light pass to make sure the edge is arrow straight because the phenolic backing on the laminate is really hard and it has an actual aluminum face on it i wouldn't recommend this step for anyone that doesn't have carbide knives in their jointer you can accomplish the same thing with a straight edge and a flush trim router bit with carbide tips and now to use the fixture i simply slip that straight edge of the laminate sheet into its long jaw and then use these three cam levers to clamp it into place because the fixture is holding the entire edge of the laminate sheet it keeps it well under control and the special design of the fixture at exactly two inches wide makes it easy to set the rip fence for the width of strips that i need to cut and remember from earlier in the video these strips vary in width by only three sixty fourths of an inch from one strip to the next so it needs to be consistent and accurate you can see here that i've already cut the first six sequential strips for these slat spaces and the next one on my cut list is 41 64 of an inch gap so that's the one i'm going to cut now you may remember that the slots for the door have small slots in the edges and those slots are exactly a quarter of an inch deep so when i put a piece of laminate in between the two of them a half inch of the strip is going to disappear from those slots alone so strip number seven needs to be 41 64 plus a half an inch and that takes me into part of the special design of this fixture i'll demonstrate the fixture design features with this little sample mock-up that i made in the fixture making process you can see here how the fixture has two pieces that form a jaw and that the laminate slides in between the jaws and is clamped down by the cam more importantly is the fact that this little lip is precisely a half inch wide and the overall width of the fixture is exactly two inches that way when i slide a piece of laminate in here and clamp it down i only need to measure 41 64 from the face of the jig to the cut line and because this part of the fixture is two inches wide i just read on the rib fence two and forty one sixty fourths and everything is already set up because the extra half inch of width that i need to fill the quarter inch slots on the edge of the slats is already accounted for by the amount of laminate that slips in to the jaw on the fixture and that way i set the rib fence at two and forty one sixty fourths of an inch which is one sixty fourth of an inch over five eighths and lock it down assured of an accurately cut strip so now ripping the strip is merely a matter of running the fixture past a spinning blade [Music] nothing more to it than that and now when i remove the strip from the fixture and slip it in between two of the cherry slats for the door i have a space that's exactly 41 64 of an inch just like that and now you can see the efficiency of having a dedicated fixture for cutting these strips and that efficiency was necessary because of all the strips i have to cut for the door there's two strips in between each space and there's two faces of the door so it's 19 times four and each batch of four has to be precisely the same or the whole layout of the door is going to get thrown off but with the rip fence at the same setting i can quickly cut three more slats in the width for number seven space without any trouble and as i'm so fond of saying just like that because of the slight difference in width from one strip to the next i put a number on the back and then bundle them in groups of four with corresponding numbers to keep things organized when i'm fastening the strips and the slats to the face of the door and you can see how the rest of the process is a matter of rinse leather and repeat just make sure i have a straight laminate edge in the fixture reset the fence and this time it's 45 64 which is 11 16 plus a 64th and yes that difference is 4 64. there's a rounding error in there because the actual variance between each of the pieces is probably more like seven one hundred twenty eighths of an inch rather than three sixty fourths oh yeah in this close-up of the two parts of the fixture in action you can see that the quarter inch table saw overlay makes a perfect zero clearance insert for that small thin blade to make the cut without chipping wavering or vibration and in large part that's due to the fact that the bottom lip of the fixture is the same quarter inch thickness as the table saw table overlay each time after i cut a few strips i double check to make sure that the edge of the laminate is still straight and true by placing it up next to the edge of the ripping fixture if any variance develops from making the cuts i simply re-straighten it on the jointer before clamping and ripping the next strip and just like that i've got four strips for space number eight all ripped numbered organized and ready to install and fyi i did shoot video of planning designing and making this fixture but because it's so far off topic and of limited appeal to the wider youtube audience i didn't include that in the door build video series here i did produce a rather rough cut unplugged version of the build though and uploaded that video to patreon so that anybody that's an active patron for next level carpentry on patreon has access to that video in the video library there that rough cut video goes into some detail about the various components of the fixture why they're designed the way they are and how to make the rather unusual parts that make up the fixture part of the fun that came out of the build video was what you see here with the name on these clamps one patron made a comment that who needs destinco clamps if you have melaka clamps from next level carpentry and i thought that was kind of funny so go check that out on patreon if you're interested in that level of detail on an arcane fixture like this all that aside i best get to work and finish this up i've got 32 of 76 slats completed and if i don't get these cut this door is never going to get done and here we go 49 64. well this is what 76 strips of laminate look like when they're all bundled up together and ready for installation so it's time to put the strip cutting fixture away and organize the slats the way they'll be oriented on the faces of the pallet wood door these are the slats that were made in episode 10 of the series and because they're all unique i need to shuffle them around to get the overall appearance of the door faces there's kind of an a side and a b side the a side will be from the shop and the b side is the back side of the door but i want to get this slats strategically placed and because there's 44 of them and i only need 20 i'm able to high-grade four of these out in the culling process i got things set up with the table saw top and my roller stands so that i can spread out 20 slats for each face of the door and in my mind as i'm sorting through these i'm thinking about the a face of the door and the b face and that the focal point on each face of the door will be about two thirds of the way up so i'm thinking i'll place the coolest looking boards from the bunch at that elevation in each of the faces i spent a good 15 minutes sorting through the pieces arranging and then rearranging until i settle on the look that i'm after and this process is a little bit more challenging because i've got so many amazing boards to work with here once i've got everything sorted out i label each piece so that i know where they're going to go when i'm doing the final installation i designate the faces of the door as a and b and start the numbering with number one at the top and number 19 at the bottom and by using a sharpie marker i'll be able to easily identify each piece even after the contact cement is applied to the back of these slats this selection process is so subjective and with more iterations than a chess game i gotta stop somewhere i'm quite pleased with this orientation it looks like these four pieces that have a bit of sapwood on them got called out and so like many authors i've got either publish or parish so i'm going with this i had to do a dress rehearsal for putting the slats on this door so that i could work through all the the bugs with the steps required to put the slats and the strips into the faces of the door and kind of get an idea what it looks like here where i did all the strips and slats on the b side but now it's show time i'm going to do the other side of the door [Applause] which is the a side or the show face as all of you that have seen other episodes of this series know finishing this door has been a long time coming starting out way back when with the cardboard door and finally after at least a year getting to this stage so i'm kind of excited but also a little bit nervous because of all the things that have to happen and go just right to get this thing finished up but it's fun that the old cardboard door is still serving a purpose and part of the process acting as a protector for the work surface and the other thing is this thing ain't getting any lighter but it's nothing that a little bit of grunt can't handle i've got the stage here to fit everything up and glue the slats to the face of the door i've got all the laminate strips in sequence there's a pair of them taped together all sequential here you can see how they graduate in width and from earlier i've got the bundles of slats a1 through 810 and a11 through a20 so that they get laid out on the door in the order that i planned them earlier and i'll just mention um on a project like this there's a lot of moving parts so it's important to pay attention to labels and notes and things about the process so that everything goes smoothly and comes out the way you hope because there's a very slight variation in the width of the panel top to bottom it's about a 32nd of an inch i can't just put these slats in a fixture and cut them all to the same length but i need to mark them individually i'm not going to measure them with a ruler because that introduces too much potential for inaccuracy plus it would just take forever so i'll go through the process i use for all the slats by starting with a few at the top so you can see how i use a piece of aluminum angle a flashlight and a marking knife to get a precision fit on parts with an accuracy that goes well beyond measuring with a tape or a rule well i'm here to tell you i hate it when this happens i'm right in the middle of a shooting sequence and when i get to the critical step i forget to press the record button on the camera and to make matters worse i don't realize it until the is all done the slats are all cut and i've got a back pedal to show you the sequence but that's the reality of it so i'll just wing it what i wanted to show you at this point was how i evaluate each one of the slats each one has kind of a good end and a bad end i like one end better than the other so what i do is choose the good end and trim it off just enough to make it nice and clean and square and then most of the waste comes off the less desirable end pretend this slat is still too long i like the character on this end better than the character on this end so i'd trim off about a half inch here to get a clean square cut that way when i trim off the extra inch or two on the other end of the piece all i lose is boring figure while preserving the cool features of the good end of the piece next i place a small scrap to act as a shim on the face of the door panel and then put this freshly cut clean square end against the inside edge for a nice clean fit of this slat with the clean cut on the other end fit tight to the style i need to make a mark on this end of the piece to trim off the waste if i were to use a regular square and a pencil i'm still transferring marks and the thickness of the lead even at 0.07 millimeters is less accurate than i want for this operation so i'm going to use a marking knife to get this done accurately and consistently but even with a marking knife there's some transition using regular squares and because i've got a mark and cut the ends of 40 slats i want to make this process as quick as i can while maintaining a high level of precision so i took a piece of aluminum angle made sure that the end is precisely square and then i can drop that on the slat but the end of the angle into the style and make a mark with a flat face of the marking knife and the precision of that mark for as simple as it is to make is incredible using those simple steps in that sequence gives me a mark on the piece that i can cut with confidence knowing the piece is going to fit nicely but cutting exactly on that mark because it's so fine isn't necessarily the easiest thing to do but that's where the flashlight comes in even when i zoom way in the mark left by the marking knife is nearly invisible making it difficult to line up with the teeth on the blade but a glancing beam from a flashlight across the surface marked with a marking knife makes that mark jump out as if it was being lit by a laser so now not only can i see the mark but because it's made with a marking knife and not a pencil i'm able to sneak up on that mark with an incredible level of precision to watch closely as i'm cutting you'll see that there'll be a little crumbly edge between the cut and that knife mark until i'm precisely on the knife mark when both the crumbles and the knife mark disappear the piece is cut precisely to length and a perfect fit is virtually guaranteed every time you can't see the knife mark on this board like i can see here but note the position of my left hand it's well away from the spinning blade but with the position of my fingers and thumb i'm able to slide the piece a few thousandths of an inch at a time to quickly and accurately sneak up on the knife mark for a safe precise cut every time oh yeah there doesn't seem to be much of a connection between next level carpentry and lawrence welk but hey if you think about it i'm cutting these slats and you just watched me cut a one and the two and now ladies and gentlemen start the bubble machine i wanted you to see the precision cutting process that i use for cutting the wood part of this but because the pellet wood door gets strips of laminate in between each slat they need to be cut to the same precise length as the slats themselves so on slats that i'm cutting while i'm not shooting video i square up one end of the slats slip it in place and cut them to length at the same time as the slat itself i'll show you that on the next one now that you know the particulars of how i mark measure and cut with precision i'll go through that set of steps again here as i do one more slat with the laminate that goes with it you might remember from earlier that the laminate has a protective coating on it and that can be tough to peel off of here so i just take a piece of good frog tape and stick it on there that grabs that protective layer and pulls it right off without a lot of fuss and because of the precision of the slots on each of these slats even those two thin layers of protective plastic would keep this laminate from slipping in there anyways i take the two slats and square up one end first so i quickly decide which end of this piece that i want to trim a little off and which end i want there to be more waist and make that cut to square it up in this case i want to preserve that nice knot that i went to the trouble of filling it in so i'm just going to trim a little off this end now i slip a scrap into place the clean cut end up against the style and use the marking knife to mark the precise length of this piece then i take another scrap of the slat material and slip the two slats number three into place and trim up the ends nice and square on the miter saw and this is why i cut these strips over length so i can trim them to precise length at this stage now i'll just slip the strips in the slot on the slat like that the square end of the wood and the square end of the strips are on the same end i can tap the slat with the strips on the miter saw table to make sure the ends are flush and then slice the slats and the strips at the same time so they're the same precise length and then voila precise fit with a minimum of fuss and frustration and if i take the strip i just cut and put it down towards the bottom of the door you can see the amount of variation in the width of this panel that i talked about earlier and that i've gone to these links to compensate for so there's an overview of the process i use for cutting and fitting the slats and strips on the a face of the pallet wood door the other 17 slats and 16 strips is pretty routine so i'm not going to bore you with that i guess i could do a time lapse video and play some play some pretty music but as it is i'll just catch up when i get down to the last strip there and take off with the next steps in the process of finishing this door and here it is the last of 40 slats number a20 with its corresponding piece of laminate and let's just see how this fits in here i think i'll buy that and you can see here at the very end i've got a gap of about a sixteenth of an inch and so my cumulative error through all these pieces is 1 19 of that amount it comes out ever so slightly short but i'm just going to fix it by making a slight adjustment in these slats when i glue them up and i'm happy that it came out just a little bit short instead of just a little bit long that gives me a slight bit of expansion throughout here this stuff is going to be on with contact cement so there's movement allowed if anything grows in width i feel pretty good about it the thinness of the slats and the stability of the wood the way they're sealed up etc i don't think i'm going to get pressure and then i also think that if there is expansion that's threatening it'll just put pressure on the laminate strips and not try to break out the door fingers crossed hope that's the deal when this is all said and done like i just mentioned i'm sticking these slats to the tenon panel on the door using contact cement anybody that's ever used contact cement has got to be thinking how the heck is he going to do that get all these parts in there because of the main limitation of contact cement which is once it's stuck in place there is no adjustment other unlike other wood glue you can move it around before you clamp it anybody that's not used contact cement well you're in for a treat i guess because i'm going to show you a few tricks that i came up with to work around the negative property of contact cement that you can't move it for all its positive properties which is why which are why i chose contact cement for putting this together before i start the glue up process i'll pause for a minute and ask that if you like this sort of video with in-depth content going into a great level of detail about how this stuff gets done i'll ask that you subscribe to next level carpentry if you haven't already as a subscriber you'll be notified each time a new video is uploaded from the next level carpentry channel and while you're at it if you like this particular video enough to hit the thumbs up button go ahead and poke it now i appreciate it because that kind of tweaks the algorithm over there at youtube and lets them know that things are happening at next level carpentry i use a fair amount of specialized products tools and supplies here in the next level carpentry shop and if you're doing a similar project and need any of that sort of stuff you can find links to what i use and recommend in the video description below in an amazon affiliates link as an amazon influencer they pay small ad fees for purchases made through those links even though you get the same low online price you expect you can also follow links in the video description to teespring for t-shirts like this one posters like that one signs like the one over there if that's something you're interested just go to the next level carpentry swag shop through that link i'll talk more about patreon later in the video but there's a link to patreon and a tip to teacher link to paypal in the in the video description as well if that's something you're motivated to do everything i've mentioned in this infomercial is part of what helps make next level carpentry a viable channel and i appreciate it all and to keep any more viewers from getting clicked off and leaving this video during the infomercial i'm going to get back to work because the potential for multiplication of air is so great on a layout like this it's important that i maintain the exact position of each slat and each strip when i'm doing the final glue up and a good way i found to redistribute these just a little bit to make up for that gap at the bottom adding a half a frog's hair to each gap is just to kind of give it a rub like that now the gap is gone and to preserve this layout i'm just gonna run a strip of masking tape right down each edge like so and then use a specially notched little block of melamine to mark each gap along the side to use as an alignment mark when i'm placing these slats for good with the contact cement then i tape a rule to a framing square to extend it to double check everything for squareness and put corresponding marks on the opposite edge of the door to make sure all the slats are parallel and square to the edges when they're glued down for good and as i go down the opposite edge aligning squaring and marking everything looks copacetic so i'm good to go and move on to the next step i suppose somebody out there is going to insist on an accuracy test so i better do one here just to show them and everyone else that i'm not just blowing smoke on this project this is strip number 19 this is strip number 18. survey says strip number 18 1 and 11 30 seconds 5 16 is 10 30 seconds i'm a 64th of an inch over that so 18 spaces into the project i'm about a 64th of an inch off oh my gosh i better start over if i were like some youtube channels and had a fully stocked garage mahal sponsored by 3m fastband contact cement i'd move this whole thing into a gluing station in another part of my barn but as it is here in the next level carpentry shop i work with reality and i need to disassemble this so i can apply contact cement so i'm just going to lift these guys out of here it's all pretty cool and then i can position the pieces upside down on this auxiliary table for a nice smooth consistent surface for applying the aforementioned contact cement and it doesn't take long to get it taken apart like this and as some of you know more than others i'm paying very close attention to the numbering and the orientation of these slats during this process because everything is so sequential and i want the grain to flow a certain way from one slat to the next to keep all the individual slats organized and keep spaces between them to an absolute minimum i use a straight edge to align one end put a strip of tape down the middle to pull them tightly together and then go all around the perimeter of the slats with green frog tape covering just about an eighth of an inch of wood which is enough to keep the contact cement from running over the edges and globbing them up but not so much as to prevent any kind of meaningful break and adhesion for the slats and subscribers to next level carpentry for any length of time notice i've made the switch from 3m masking tape to this one inch green frog tape it's a little more expensive but it never fails me in use because a failure in masking tape at this point is frustrating aggravating and counterproductive because what i'm doing here is essentially laminating a door with slats of wood i'll use the same precautionary procedure that i use when using plastic lamin you can see a link to a video here i did recently a master class on that but as i did there you'll see here i take this amazing level five putty knife and then scrape the entire surface of the tenon panel face of this door to make sure there are no little nibs or chunks on there that would prevent the slats from sticking once i scrape this whole surface and am satisfied with the smoothness i give the door and the slats a puff of compressed air to make sure there's no remaining chips or particles on there that would interfere with applying the contact cement i'm sure it didn't show up in the camera but there's a few flex or small chips of the laminate and there was some little dabs of glue on here that clicked as i went over with the putty knife but now i'm content that that's perfectly smooth ready for contact cement and as you can see in this panning shot there's just a few small gaps between these slats but if any contact cement runs down into those gaps i can clean it up before installing the slats to further manage the mess made by applying contact net i'm going to take an inch and a half masking tape and go around the whole perimeter of the door panel that'll keep the glue from globbing up in the corners and any glue that slops onto the face i can lift it off with masking tape instead of having to clean it off the gel poly finish of the door i'm letting the tape wrap down about an eighth of an inch onto the face of the door again to keep that corner clean and the steps you're seeing me do here are ones that i learned on doing the other side of the door in a kind of a practice run for this part of the door build because i've never done anything quite like this before and as far as i know nobody else has either no surprise here i'm relying on 3m's fastband contact cement as i used in the other video i'm using the neutral color not the green even though the two perform the same as far as i know for the other side of the door it took a heavy court to do kind of a one to one and a half to two coat application i just want to get a good heavy coat on this because the material at least the door panel is a little bit porous i had my roller pan covered from earlier in the day when i did the other side and i can just pour that in there and wipe the threads clean for some hope of removing this cap in the future applying this water-based contact cement is a lot like doing a responsible job of painting with latex paint i've got a 3 8 snap roller here i just took a long roller and i cut it down for this little handle just for maneuverability but uh just apply it like always start in the middle work toward the edge go both directions make sure to get the corners and i'm just getting a general coat on this trying to prevent it from puddling in the corners or spooging into the corners like i might say and the goal as oz with contact cement is to get a nice even application unlike what you see here in this decidedly uneven application once i make sure i got a good coat i roll back and forth to eliminate any of those roller streaks like that and then i cover the edges one more time just to make sure i don't get any lap marks anywhere i don't want them and then quickly and efficiently work down the rest of the length of the door's tenon panel i don't really want to show you this or admit to it but wouldn't you know it because the camera's rolling i bumped the roller pan and spilled a good pint of contact cement on the floor and the next level carpentry tool chests because this stuff is impossible to clean up when it gets dry i give it a spritz of denatured alcohol and wipe it with a paper towel and get it cleaned up completely in very short order and i realized after a bit that a four inch floor scraper would be a better tool for this but my floor scraper is on vacation too so a small single edge razor knife will finish up the job and truth be told the floor is now cleaner than it was when i started the project no harm done and all's well that ends well you can see that this first coat has started to dry after i got my mess cleaned up on the floor so i'm going to go back over it with another lighter coat and really roll it out evenly i don't really need two coats but you can see how there's drier spots in here and i just want a thicker than normal coat to hold these wood strips down just because any irregularities in the back of the pieces of wood there's not many but they're not the same as the back of a piece of plastic laminate so the thicker layer will give a little better bonding to an irregular surface i've never glued this much wood with contact cement before as far as i know it's going to be fine but i'm kind of hitting it with both barrels this time just to be sure without the debacle of spilling glue on the floor i would have spent that time putting a first coat on the back of the slats then second coated this and then second coated that but my my sequence has gotten a little horsed up because i had to clean up that mess no harm done as long as i get the same smooth even consistent results necessary to get a good job on this i've just gone around the perimeter and the second coat rolls out a little more differently a little differently than the first one you can see the stipple from the roller is a little finer and i'm just letting the roller kind of dry that way it gives it an even texture and even stipple and an even coat this will dry more evenly than the last one makes a little more noise when you roll over it the second time because that glue is a little more tacky there's no not that much glue in the roller itself so it pulls the hairs of the roller up and just gives me a real nice even somewhat heavier than normal coat on the whole panel of the door and there's nothing amazing or interesting about this i'm just gonna do the same thing roll a coat on the back of these slats trying to keep it just a little bit drier on the first coat because i don't want it running down in between those slight gaps and some of the slats probably can't see it in the camera but there's i don't know 32nd of an inch of variation between some of those i don't want any more glue puddling down in there than necessary it happens but i can clean it up and i can clean it up later but if i can avoid some of it that's a good thing if you remember the back of these slats all got gel poly varnish on them i almost spilled it again the back of the slats have gel poly varnish on them so i'm not really worried about the moisture from this contact cement getting into those uh soaking into the wood and causing the the slats to cup or bow they could i don't know i think if anything cups or bows it'll flatten out in a little bit of time just because the shop is so dry and it's all varnished you can see how the little bit of masking tape around the edges really controls when the roller goes over the edge and because these pieces are all cut precisely to size i don't want any glue hanging over there because when i go to put it in it would make it fight it would leave a little smear of glue on the edge of the door that would be nearly impossible to clean up but this way all neat and tidy just like i know what i'm doing even though never done this before the goal is to get that nice even fully covered surface you see i'm getting a lot of roller lap marks here just because i'm distributing glue not paying attention to evening that up just yet when i do that i will put the roller down and i tilt it one way or the other so that it's not as likely to leave a lap mark and you can see here it's leaving a lap mark on this edge because i'm tilting the roller this way and just leaving this other edge feather out right now right on a little dry here on this end i'll give it one more going over this way switching the tilt of the roller this way you can see the lap mark on the leading edge but not on the trailing edge of the roller it's probably less of a deal with these wooden strips because they have some thickness to them but on plastic laminate a lap mark like the one you see there that's a bump and you'll see it right through that laminate like like somebody laminated over a pencil so on a force of habit i'm getting a nice are leaving a nice even well-distributed coat of contact cement on everything and the amount i've got left in the pan it's about what i spilled out on the floor so that shy court for a double coat on this many a square feet it's a pretty good deal as far as contact cement goes and this is an opportune moment to fill in a gap i left in a previous video when i built the paper towel holder here on the toolbox i left the blank space over here and now you can see that that space is filled in with a paper cup dispenser why would i go to all that trouble for making a space and mounting a paper cup dispenser in a wood shop when i don't even have a water fountain well you're about to find out i've got a bit of extra contact cement left over and i don't really want to throw it out because there's nothing wrong with it but you saw how messy it is to clean up contacts matt right so rather than take one of my funnels from over there i simply take one of these paper cups tear the little end off of it and fumbling and all voila i have a disposable funnel for saving contact cement and with the paper towel and a wipe [Applause] i just saved probably 15 bucks worth of contacts in it [Applause] and didn't even create a mess in the process while the glue is still a little bit wet i'll pull off all the protective masking tape because it just gets stringy when that glue sets up and i hope you'll take my word for it i've just saved myself 45 minutes worth of fussing and cleaning not to mention frustration by spending five minutes to apply that masking tape and with the tape removed from the edges of the slats i just wiggle them apart because that too will only get more difficult as the adhesive cures fully now look at that i have to get some ca glue to fix that little bugger aren't i you can see on an edge like this where the contact cement ran down through a crack but as long as there's no contact cement above that slot it won't show when the slat is put in place on the door and the contact cement when it's cured just kind of rubs off in little globs so because i've minimized it cleanup is not very difficult and you can see in this handheld shot of the panel on the door that the edges are perfectly clean glob free and proud and with that bit of housekeeping and homework done i can reposition these tables and then fire up the furnace and fire up the fan and let air circulation do its miracle and dry out this water-based glue in just a few minutes and i suppose everybody is going to want to see how i go and fix this slat at this stage of the game well here it is i've got a clean block of wood i'm just dropping it down in my vise taking starbond ca glue accelerator spraying it on this joint like that positioning the piece on the block like that spray accelerator on this face of the joint like that then i'm going to put firm pressure down on this piece of wood and drive it into place with a hammer with light taps and doing it in that sequence kind of tends to weave the wood fibers back together like this for a stronger joint i think i'll tap this down a little bit here main thing is though that this end is perfectly flush now you can't see that gap but i can feel it and this is going to make a mess on the surface for a while but don't worry about that so i'm taking starbond thin i'm just going to let it wick down into that joint like i that pump that a little bit get that glue wicking down in there trying to keep my finger out of it much as possible i just want to get a good coat soak down in there from this top side there's very little accelerator on the surface so i'm going to wipe that off because i really don't want any glue on the top of this but i know the accelerator down in there is curing all the glue that's soaked down into that joint liking the way that's behaving wipe this off a little more accelerator on the surface and that accelerator kind of softens some finishes but that's okay this is going to be a little bit of a mess in the repair process but i'm feeling pretty good about it so far so i'm going to unclamp this snap everything loose flip the piece over here and then i'm going to wick more of the thin ca down into that same joint from the back side see it just disappears down in there and the fact that it was a crack on the back is why the piece was so weak in the first place and broke on me and use a little bit of medium ca glue so it doesn't run so much just in this end of the crack and that is looking good still a little bit wet it's all right while the piece is in this position i'll use a file to flatten it out and you can see that i'm corrupting the contact cement on the back here sharp level five putty knife that'll remove any irregularities luckily my contact adhesive roller is still handy i'm just gonna see if i can get some of that to roll out on here and it shouldn't take long for that contact cement to set up or catch up to the drying level of the rest of it now i can flip the piece over without the block for alignment carefully clamp it into place with the surface prod of the jaw tops of the vise take my flat file here take off the worst of that ca glue that's out on the top there's a little unevenness in the wood here sharp level five putty knife and i just scrape that surface until it's flush when the pieces came together inevitably the thin edge was proud of the thick edge but i'm just scraping them back flush [Music] just like that and that step is much much better done with a scraper then with sandpaper because the sandpaper just kind of rounds things off where the scraper cuts it even just like finishing the slats in the first place i'll take 220 grit sand out until it's all smooth and wonderful then take a little bit of 320. polish it up nice and smooth make sure that edge is clean contact cement is drying a little puff of compressed air and then last but not least a little wipe of the satin gel poly to finish this off i think i got enough on there that's the beauty of gel poly if this was a lacquer finish i'd have to re-spray this piece but as it is i just dab some gel poly on there and then proceed to wipe it in let it soak in let it dry and apply a little bit more and there you go at long last with the broken slat repair completed contact cement cured on the back everything laid out dried and staged i'm ready to start placing these slats with the strips if you remember i was talking earlier about working around the benefits and the drawbacks of contact cement and this is where that comes into play if i were to put a slat in here and stick it down and i stick it a 64th of an inch too far by the time i get to the other end of the door everything's going to be too long i got a problem so i've got to be able to adjust the slats so they're in perfect position before i actually stick them down and the work around i came up with for that is this i made these two little wedges they're about three quarters of an inch to nothing over about 16 inches and they're very smooth there's no splinters on them anywhere the edges are all rounded and they've got a thin coat of wax on them and what these two little shims do is act as ramps and although one of the drawbacks of contact cement is once contact cement comes in contact with contact cement it's stuck for good but at the same time anything that doesn't have contact cement on it can be moved around at will and it doesn't affect the contact cement itself so i just place one of these little adjustment wedges here and here take repaired slat a1 slide the two corresponding strips of laminate into the little slot it's great difficulty naturally because the camera is running slide them into space and because everything is all pre-fit just slide these like this everything is all pre-fit i can put this slat in place i can take it back out i can do whatever i want because that thin wedge in here is keeping the contact cement from contacting and now with almost no stress whatsoever i can just take slat number a2 this is how it's going to go a is up add the two laminate strips to this piece everything's cut the same length and trimmed i can slip this into place got all the time in the world nothing to worry about here nothing's stuck yet i can start over there's plenty of open time on the contact cement i could wait a good hour or more and still have this stuff stick just like it's supposed to when i put it down i shut off the furnace in the fan to extend the open time because i'm talking during the video but you can see how this process works slot number a3 strips number three if i get any contact cement down in those grooves and this stuff doesn't line up like it's supposed to i can just take it back off clean it up make it work just so i can also check my alignment marks which is what i'm doing here and after i've got a number of strips all in there everything is good then i can merely slide these wedges out about the space of one board a little more push everything tight this way and tap that strip into place these two strips i can still move and adjust just like i need to for as long as i want to essentially but strip number a1 is there absolutely permanently and perfectly positioned according to the edges and my marks doing the same thing with slat number a4 make sure the edges are cleaned up down here down to that groove everything is good put the strips of laminate in the bottom of that slat this slip it into place double check all the alignment marks everything looks good slide these slats out about one slat width and tap slat number two into place and i'm not liking this misalignment here something is not right this is slip strip number three number four this is number four but it is clear that this strip is too wide i've got to sort that out all right i figured out what i did when i went to mark these i put this slat in place here and just marked those marks a quarter inch apart rather than sliding it over for the second mark i did it on both sides when i squared those marks across but the reason i know that is because this mark lines up just like it should on this side so that tells me that everything is in order except my reference mark but that whole thing is a perfect case in point of having these little wedges under here i can just calmly go about figure out what's going on if i miscut a strip somehow that didn't make any sense i can just back up readjust and move forward not panicking along the way which is good for the blood pressures now i can take a five goes that way strips number five all the glue is cleaned off down to that little slot slip in the strips add the slat everything's going to be good advance the wedges and permanently set slat number three here again the laminate strips in between there slipped out of place that one's fighting a little bit the laminate piece shifted a 32nd of an inch past the end of that slat kept it from going down if this piece was stuck i'd be in trouble but as it is just keep moving along a6 and i guess this time i will run a little interesting music while i get set up and put these next few slats into place [Music] and with 10 slats in place i think you get the gist of what this process looks like so i'm going to carry on with the rest of the door and start it up again when i get to the very last slat well i'll pick it back up here because uh like sitting on the turns on a racetrack if there's going to be a wreck this is where it's going to happen at the last numbered slat number 19 last number last two strips number 19. i've had to do a little bit of adjusting to slide these pieces to line up with the magic marker marks just ever so slightly but as you can see i've got to take these wedges out of here at the end and then stick all four of these last slats down at the same time that's a little bit nerve-wracking but it is what it is i'm just visual visually aligning these pieces here to my marks maybe i can get one more slat to stick down i don't remember how it went last time yeah one more variable in there out of the way i can just get these guys lined up making sure i got a little extra length here pull this out slide this piece so it's nice and tight on the end laminates just ever so slightly sticking out over here there it goes and that better be good because that thing is never coming apart breathes heavy sigh of relief my goodness there it is 20 slats 19 pairs of strips on the a face of the next level carpentry shop door no speed bumps or hurdles that we couldn't get over or around and this thing is done as far as that's concerned these wedges worked remarkably i'm going to try to remember that if i ever have to do something like this again but the alignment is great all the fit is nice and tight everywhere but i'm going to get this tape pulled up here no need to let that sit overnight and with that stage complete i'm gonna call it a night truth be told i've been procrastinating about this next step which is to heft this beast off the work surface but it's not going to get done by itself so i better get with it and there it is not going to get a good night's sleep and not have to face doing that first thing in the morning well can you believe it i actually talked to chip into coming and hanging that door now that it's at its full fighting weight well there it is it appears to be going good it seems like that thing gets a little easier to install every time and by using wedges underneath the door it's able to get those little sugatsune hinges into their pockets and get the set screws installed but the way the hinges are it's still the same installation as before the hinges are well rated for the capacity of that or for the weight of that door even fully assembled like it is but it's absolutely marvelous to have it in place and even better to have somebody else do that final grunt of the door yeah wow that that didn't look too bad appreciate you getting that stuck back in there yeah it uh hung right in there just like it's supposed to even though it's probably another 40 pounds heavier than it was last time we had that thing swinging but uh it's been great working with you on the project thanks everybody for joining us on the journey and uh from now on no more cardboard door all right see you chip you can only imagine how thrilled i am to have this thing swinging in the jam that should be the last time i ever need to take those hinge screws out of there and after over a year that is a good feeling well i must confess that i do hope that this is the last time i have to put this door knob on for quite some time it's a beautiful piece of hardware but i sorely want to be working on something else this is a spyglass style entry door hardware kit by baldwin that i chose for appearance fit and finish although i decided not to install the matching deadbolt for this interior door because it was unnecessary and it interferes with the doors lettering that i'm going to put on next this has been a fantastic project so far but it's exactly the kind of thing that you can get a little too much of so it feels really good to hear that satisfying little click the overall appearance of this door and the lettering in particular has undergone quite a transformation from what i originally envisioned for the door i had the gradient spacing increasing towards the top instead of decreasing and this iteration of lettering you can see that i was going to stack those letters well comments on a previous video begun by alien productions led through a chain of events where greg from greg's garage and my friend dan satterfield of projects all kind of weighed in and helped kind of coach me to change and improve the overall visual appearance of the door so i went from uh so i reversed the spacing top to bottom and then got rid of the stacked lettering that was the biggest change and i'll give a special shout out to alien productions for politely clueing me into the fact that there's a better way after ditching the stacked lettering i went to a couple iterations of this baseline of line lettering i learned that's what it's called and with help from dan i got the the font and the spacing dialed in and those decisions were supported by input from greg at greg's garage who is an architect by day and a maker by night and weekend but anyways went through those changes tried to fill up the space a little more so i got rid of this concept here and then settled on letters of this height so that i was content with the way this was going to look when it's all done once the final proportion and design and font and everything was selected i went to troy at vanway trophy here in rapid city and worked out the final details for actually making the letters you can see the letters here neatly sorted out into bags by word and these letters were cut out of a piece of this plastic sign material it's actually for name badges and through an ongoing discussion with troy worked out this system where the letters were cut out of this piece and this piece acts as a template for placing the letters on the door and the upshot of it is is that troy and vanway trophy here in rapid city are the type of people that under promise and over deliver and he really came through with this setup to make it easy to install easy to align but then it's going to stick like crazy so special shout out to those folks who do a great job of working through details for a project and then executing the final decisions i've put center marks on this template and i'll peel off this final paper iteration of the lettering and then add a few pieces of tape for orientation for placing the lettering template a piece of two inch wide tape right above the escutcheon for the handle with a center mark on it and then another piece of tape at the top of the door with the center mark from the two and three quarter inch back side of the handle give me alignment marks that are easy to follow for taping the stenciled out placement template to the face of the door style once i'm satisfied with the placement of the stenciled out template the thing i need to do is peel off the protective facing from the front of the letters and the backing on the double stick tape on the back of the letters i use a piece of frog tape to remove the protective facing on the front and then use the needle sharp point on a carbide scratch tip for removing the backing off the double face tape and removing that backing is a bit of a tedious process because the tape was put on in half inch strips but i'm not complaining because the tape is super strong and it's precisely cut to the exact shape of the letters for a permanent bond on the face of the door and then simply place the letters one at a time in their corresponding holes in their corresponding spaces on the template on the door and after following the same steps on the rest of the letters i can place them one by one into the template for a perfect final placement and the precision that the laser cuts that backing along with the letters is pretty remarkable as i apply the last letters into the template i'll give a special shout out to everybody who supports the next level coventry on patreon everybody that goes above and beyond for next level carpentry just helps make this whole thing work out a little bit better a recent survey of active patrons told me that it's really not necessary to do the scrolling list of active patrons in the video so i've not done that this time but anybody that's interested in becoming a patron providing that kind of extra level of support and getting access to the library of patron only videos like the ones from this final episode is really appreciated and you can find a link to patreon in the video description below to sign up as a patron if you're motivated to do it naturally i want to thank everybody that watches and is subscribed to next level carpenter channel as we kind of join together here for a final review of the completed door that is now 100 complete with slats spacing and lettering gotta just love it when a plan comes together i've got a laminate j-roller to make sure that this adhesive is really stuck on there and i'm completely satisfied with that lettering and a sincere thank you to everyone that weighed in on the design discussion for this door because it helped it be the best it can be and with that lettering installed i guess that's a wrap for the 11th video in the pellet wood door build series here at next level carpentry thanks everybody for your patience over the months and year that it took to complete this door and as always until next time thanks for watching i forgot to say last one out shut off the lights

Channel: Next Level Carpentry

Views: 200,096

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Id: 5JGmGK_MqQY

Length: 85min 58sec (5158 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 13 2021