still at it

I've cut and cemented the Wedi board. Cutting was very easy, cementing less so, and I used a surprising number of screws - a couple of hundred I'd guess. Anyway I ran out and had to improvise with plasterboard screws, which are not a good substiture. They don't penetrate chipboard at all well.



As I have a day or so to wait while the tiles and the special waterproof grout arrive, I've had a go at making one of the cupboard doors. I think this door took about a full day's work, so it's not likely I'll get them all done by the end of the week.

This is a haunched tenon joint:



The wood on the left is the vertical piece, called the stile, and the inner edge is grooved to take the panel. The "haunch" part of the tenon (on the end of the bit of wood on the right) is the raised section that fills the groove in the stile. A good carpenter would make the tenon a good deal deeper, but this was hard enough.

The thinner panel that goes into the groove was made from a thick unplaned plank (3cm): I put it through the circular saw to split in half. The circular saw has a depth of cut of only 7cm, and the wood to be cut was 9cm, so I had to take it out and put it back in upside down to finish the cut. I still have my fingers, but it's touch and go (as they say). After that I planed it down to one centimeter thick. The benefit of doing this is that the grain pattern matches nicely: one side is a mirror image of the other.

It all went together reasonably well:



but whether I'll have the patience to do the other four doors the same way remains to be seen. However, three of these are bigger, one a lot bigger and the other two a bit bigger, and they may be easier to do. I've had to work cutting joints in quite short bits of wood (the "rails") and gripping longer ones will be easier. I hope.....