Mid Century Walnut Hutch Build/ How-To

what's going on we built this wasn't even that hard took us like a minute built it out of pallets completely old pallets no not really but if you want to see how we actually made it watch the video you will need approximately two four by eight sheets of three-quarter inch black walnut ply one four by eight sheet of quarter-inch black walnut ply one five by five sheet of five eighths Baltic birch and approximately 15 board feet of black walnut stock alright boys and girls let's make a hutch you want to start by ripping down all your full sheets of plywood to whip these plywood pieces will essentially make up the top bottom and back portions of our hutch once we rip down all our full pieces it's time to cut them to length now here's a little tip when cutting down veneer plywood I like to stick a scrap piece of ply under my veneer ply whenever I make my cuts this simply helps from chips or tear out forming on the bottom of your piece and ultimately will give you a nicer overall cut now I'm cutting all these pieces down on our chop saw but that's pretty much because I'm too lazy to pull out our tracks off you can cut them down any way you want track saw skill saw I'd love a panel saw but not a flippant millionaire once I have all my pieces cut to size I like to go back over the edges with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper now I'm not aggressively sanding the edge here I'm just lightly touching it trying to get rid of any splinters or tags that might have formed when I was cutting the pieces you want this veneer edge to be as smooth as possible when it comes to facing next we're gonna cut down our piece of quarter inch ply that'll make up the back panel of our hutch now I've set up my workbench with these 2 by 4 blocks so that I can lay that quarter inch ply directly on top of my workbench and cut it down without worrying about cutting into my work surface I hold it down with a few of these awesome bench dog clamps from crizzley and then I find and square up my line with a drywall square when you're breaking down sheets with your track saw it's important to remember to keep your blade depth at a quarter to a half of an inch below what you're cutting there's no sense in going any deeper than that and this will ultimately help prevent tear out and give you a nicer finished cut now the number one goal when using plywood to build furniture is to trick the lowly passerby into believing that you didn't actually use plywood to build set furniture in order to do this we have to face every piece of plywood with actual real wood for this we'll be using solid Eastern walnut it's the same wood that our plywood is veneered in and therefore will make the best facing we're going to start by facing what will eventually be the outer edge the top and bottom portions of our now here's a little piece of friendly advice our plywood is three quarters of an inch thick for all that is holy please do not cut you're facing three-quarters of an inch thick somewhere during this process you will go below your veneer and you will burn through that veneer trying to make it flush you want to cut you're facing about a sixteenth of an inch too big then we'll go back with a trim router and make it perfect when we're all done your goal is to get a nice smooth transition just imagine your grandma's chin after she's done shaving when it comes to facing plywood a lot of people like to use Brad nails to hold the facing in place but because this is gonna be a nicer piece of furniture or at least we think it's a nice piece of furniture we want to try and avoid this at all costs so for this particular piece we're attaching all of our facing with just glue and clamps now this process does take a bit longer but the result is a much nicer finished piece once your glue dries we can flush cut our facing you want to bring your piece out square with the edge of your table this gives you a nice flat surface for your router to ride against to cut our facing we're going to be using a half inch flush cut bit when you're setting your bit you want to make sure it sticks out just enough to cover your facing without hanging too much onto your plywood the last thing you want to do at this stage just cut a nice hole into your plywood veneer and have to start from the very beginning [Music] once you've gone over all you're facing with the flush cut router you want to go back and sand each edge now this is where you have to be extremely careful you want to sand just enough to flush up you're facing and you're veneered ply if you sand too much you will not only put a hole in your ply you will put a hole in your self-esteem as well at this point you're almost ready to put your box together the last step is to rout out a quarter of an inch groove on all the outside panels of your hutch this groove will accept the quarter of an inch piece of ply that will make up the back panel of your piece with all of our pieces cut faced and routed it's time to assemble our box to join our box we'll be using our Festool Domino joiner now I understand that a Domino joiner is a very expensive piece of equipment and some people don't want to fork over that kind of cash so if you don't have a Domino joiner you can accomplish the same task with a doweling jig that you can pick up for around 65 dollars at any local woodworking store if you don't want to spend $65 then I suggest you quit being a cheapskate or better yet go buy a piece of furniture and do yourself a favor but however you decide to put this box together whether that be fancy or cheap I suggest you mark out where all your side pieces and dividers are going to go chances are you'll only be able to do this once and you want to make sure you get it right now if you're anything like me this next part is simultaneously exciting and terrifying hold on to your shoestrings ladies and gentlemen it's time to assemble this beast [Music] once you get all your pieces glued and dominoed it's a good idea to take a speed square and check all your angles you want to make sure everything's nice and square before you put those clamps on and lock it in position and with that the main structure of our box is complete now it's time to make it pretty and it's some not-so-nice boys used to tell me in middle school my middle name is pretty call me a sucker for consistency but I've always liked to face my pieces with a stock that's the same thickness as the plywood in which I'm using in this case we're using 3/4 inch plywood so I'm using 3/4 inch black walnut stock for my face again to avoid any nail holes or blemishes we are clamping and gluing all of our facing onto the substrate of plywood be sure to take your time with this process if you rush it you will regret it later for any areas that you can't get clamps on I found that masking tape works like a dream to hold your facing in place intelligent and with that our box is done based and ready for a base we'll be constructing our base out of five quarter black walnut each leg will have a slight taper so we find the exact angle that we want on a stock piece and then make our cuts the exact angle that you're cutting doesn't actually matter all that matters is that you Mir that angle on your cross piece this will ensure that your cross piece and your leg come together flush and we'll make em much and much easier again will be joining these using our Festool Domino joiner you'll find that this tool is a common theme in most of our projects so if you've been on the fence about buying one all I can say is get off the damn fence and get yourself a domino jointer once we've glued and clamped our base and allowed the glue to dry we're gonna be shaping it using a roundover bit on our trim router this is a quick and fairly easy way to give a nice rounded profile to our piece you really bring out the mid-century vibe that we're going for once you've hit every edge of the trim router you're gonna want to go back over everything with a palm sander after you're done palm sanding I like to finish it off with a little hand sanding when you're done hand sanding it's a good idea to do a little more hand sanding and when you're done hand sanding it's a good idea to finish it all off with a little bit of hand sanding and just like that you have a beautiful mid-century base on which to set your box at this point we're about halfway done with the build next we have to do drawers doors and finishing now you'll probably notice in some of these shots that there's a wine rack on the left hand side and a shelf on the right no you did not fall asleep during some mystery portion of the build I simply chose to exclude them on account of time I'll do a video showing how to build those at another point for the middle section of the hutch will be installing three drawers using undermount drawer slides by plumb I love these drawer slides because not only are they low-profile they're easy to install and they work like an absolute dream we'll be constructing our drawer boxes using premium Baltic birch ply for the drawer sides and our left over quarter inch black walnut fly for the drawer base we start constructing our drawer boxes first by inserting a quarter of an inch data stack into our table saw I like things consistent so being with the dado is quarter of an inch thick I like to set the blade height to a quarter of an inch as well we then dado out a quarter of an inch groove in all of our drawer size that will eventually accept the bottom plate of our drawer because all of our drawers on this piece are going in the exact same location all of our drawer bases are going to be the exact same size which makes cutting them quick and convenient our drawer sides however will not be the same as our bottom drawer is going to be two inches larger than our top two just keep this in mind when you're cutting all your pieces and make sure to keep everything organized and proper place once we have our box is assembled we glue and tack them in place with 18 gauge brad nails we then insert each drawer into our box once our drawers are securely fastened it's time to put on our pants and when I say pants I mean drawer faces and doors this is by far my favorite part of the build this is when you take this lowly box of plywood and turn it into something truly exceptional our goal for the front of our cabinet is to have continuous grain match from left to right this means that we have to glue up one giant slab from which will cut our doors and drawers at the exact same time because we will be cutting this slab into multiple pieces we will not be using any dowels biscuits or dominoes to join each board because we can only do this once we don't want to risk cutting into any of those pieces of joinery and having them exposed in our final piece that being said it is extremely important that you alternate growth patterns from board to board to eliminate any chance of warping or cupping as the piece moves seasonally once the glue has had a sufficient amount of time to dry it's time to remove your clamps and cut out your doors and drawers I cannot over stress the importance of going slow and taking your time during this process you want to treat these cuts like you would treat a first date you want to have sweaty palms be extremely nervous and second-guess every decision you make you have one shot don't screw this up with our doors and drawers cut out it's time to start shaping our drawer faces the first step is to make a router jig out of scrap pieces of plywood this jig will allow us to duplicate a desired pattern on the front of each one of our drawer faces in this case our desired pattern is a mid-century inspired curve on the top and bottom of our drawer face so we start by cutting that curve shape out of scrap piece of black walnut fly [Music] the router will duplicate any imperfection or bump on that curve so it's important that it's sanded smooth before we continue next you want to take one of your drawer faces and use it as a template to construct your jig around again remember to take your time during this process making sure everything is lined up exactly the way you want it before you move on to actually shape your faces the carve-out each drawer face will be using a top bearing mounted flush cut deck it is imperative that you use a top mounted bed for this cut so that that bearing can ride along the edge of your jig and transfer that perfect curve on the substrate of walnut below you want to make sure that your jig and drawer face are sufficiently clamp to your work surface so that they can't move or wander while you're making your nuts as you carve out each drawer face go slow you want to do the entire perimeter first and then come back and remove all the material in the middle last [Music] after carving out each drawer face she'll want to go back with a random orbit sander to remove any swirl marks left behind by the router and then finally you'll want to go over the entire drawer face by hand to remove any imperfections left by the random orbit sander your end result should be three perfectly carved mid-century inspired drawer faces that should if done right perfectly grain match with your corresponding doors and now with the hop in your step and a smile on your face you can attach each drawer face to its corresponding prehung drawer in comparison to your faces the doors are relatively easy however you still want to make sure to take time to adequately sand them and to properly measure for your hinges you're so close to the end at this point you'd hate to get sloppy now for this particular project we're using full inset european-style slow closed hinges each one of these hinges requires a corresponding hole on the back of the door so we drill these out using a Forstner bit on our grizzly drill press we then drill pilot holes to accept the mounting screws for each hinge and check to make sure that each hinge fits properly inside the door in an attempt to stay true to a mid-century vibe we decided to opt out of Hardware on our door faces so in lieu of hardware we're simply drilling an inch and a quarter hole in the center of each door panel this will essentially act as a pole with our doors sanded and our hinges on it's time to mount our doors inside of the hutch [Music] and with that our hutch is structurally complete but when it comes to woodworking a piece isn't truly finished until it's finished [Music] to finish this piece we'll be using our Fuji HVLP sprayer and we'll be spraying a cab acrylic lacquer when it comes to cabinets I prefer spraying because in my opinion it's the only way to properly get in every corner nook and cranny you might also be interested to know that this is the same reason I prefer taking showers over taking a bath after each coat of spray I like to go over the entire piece with some 3,000 grit sandpaper to knock down any burrs or get rid of any dust that might have landed on the piece while spring using good spray technique in a proper sprayer it doesn't take long to put down a nice finish on your entire base when you finally complete a piece try not to just rush it out the door sometimes you have to for business but when a piece is done and you've poured your heart and your soul into it take a moment step back and take it all [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: Bourbon Moth Woodworking

Views: 363,894

Keywords: woodworking, how to, handmade furniture, furniture making, mid century hutch, wood hutch, DIY hutch, how to build a hutch, walnut credenza, bourbon moth, bourbon moth woodworking, easy wood hutch, easy hutch, wood bar, mid century bar, how to build a bar, how to build a cabinet, how to make furniture, mid century furniture, mid century, hanmade furniture, diy dining hutch, diy mid century furniture, how to make mid century furniture, wood furniture, build your own bar

Id: R8a4TynV67o

Length: 19min 53sec (1193 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 24 2018