Projectland!

I recently paid a visit to projectland, directly secondary to my move.  It seems that I have been poor for a long time (ie always), so a lot of my stuff has been inexpensive (ie cheap) items that don't hold up well to moving.  One fiberboard cabinet which completely gave up the ghost this time is actually a veteran of three other moves, so I guess it was over-due for retirement.  A metal file cabinet had only survived one prior move, and was completely ruined in this move, highlighting the very true axiom 'you get what you pay for,' which can also be stated as 'don't expect a file cabinet from walmart to last.'  That said, only a few of the things that got broken were things worth keeping; one was my telephone chair, which mostly just came apart at the joints, the other was my sewing machine cabinet.  Now, that cabinet was already in poor shape; it was banged up, gouged, and wobbly even before the move, but pulling it out of the truck I noticed that the plywood had split in a couple of key areas, and the top wasn't really connected to the bottom anymore.

I didn't think to take a before picture, so this is the best I've got, but you can tell a little of how banged up the cabinet was.  With the split plywood, I didn't think repairing it would be practical, so I had a plan to get a replacement off craigslist, ebay, wherever one could be found.  After many hours of searching, it became clear that no one wanted to say what model of sewing machine their cabinet was from (likely they didn't know) but also they felt no need to list the size of the hole for the machine, or even show a picture of it.  So many cabinets are listed online with a single picture of the front, closed view.  Very frustrating.  Eventually the frustration had the effect of convincing me that the better course would in fact be to fix my existing cabinet.  

At the beginning of this project I went to look at it and determine what I would need to buy to fix it, and found myself taking it apart (lets face it, it was already mostly apart) and scraping old glue off it before I even realized it.  

This is during the scraping off of old glue phase of the project.  After that I started sanding, quickly realizing that I could spend all year sanding by hand, so I went to price electric sanders, and bought one since they're only about $20.  Best $20 I ever spent, btw.  

This is the bottom side of the top part of the table, with plenty of wood filler in place, and clamps on where the plywood had separated.  

Here it is all sanded and reassembled.  It turns out that the actual wood veneer on the outside layer was a light colored wood with a nice grain, though finding that out took hours of sanding and resulted in a layer of fine red sawdust covering the majority of my house.  I spent at least as long cleaning up that mess as I did making it, which made me grateful this is the only project I have in mind for now, because next time I'm going to need to figure out somewhere else to sand.  

I had two goals for this project; one was to make it look nice, the other was to make it sturdy.  While scraping off old glue it became clear that this poor cabinet had been re-assembled a multitude of times, and I didn't want it ever coming apart again.  Not only is there plenty of wood glue involved in every joint, but I reinforced the corners with wood blocks, glued in, and then screwed those in...  The top to side joints are now reinforced by six 90 degree metal brackets.  I'm pretty sure its going to stay together now.  

After reassembly I applied stain, called 'dark driftwood', and then two coats of varnish.  While the stain didn't go on quite the way I imagined, I am nevertheless pleased with the result.  

Its a dramatic change from the reddish brown stain that was on before, and I think it looks quite nice with the green of the machine.  I also appeased my OCD side by completely taking apart, cleaning, and oiling the sewing machine.  

So, all completed, very sturdy, and ready to last another 50 years, and I am back out of projectland just in time to go back to work.  Its always nice to visit projectland, but its nice to come home, too. 

:)