In Part 1 I was in a hurry and glued up the vanity top without any Dominos for alignment. This part starts with an hour of sanding and hand planing to get it flat again. Lesson learned: put alignment joinery in your panel glue-ups even when it feels unnecessary.

My daughter and I designed this vanity together in Fusion 360. She is a senior this year and headed to college, so it may end up being more of a desk. That is fine. I am happy to make her pretty much anything she wants. If you missed it, Part 1 covers the top and a jointer fence trick.

Why the top needed so much work

Without Dominos or biscuits, boards slide against each other under clamp pressure. You end up with steps at the glue lines, and the only fix is taking material off the high side. A few loose tenons would have kept everything in plane and saved me the time.

Side panels, done right this time

Same layout as the top: alternate the boards in and out at the jointer, then draw a triangle across the panel so they go back in the right order. This time I marked Domino locations on every joint before glue.

I use generic loose tenons instead of the name brand ones. They are a lot cheaper and they do the job for alignment.

Dry fit before you glue

Clamp the whole panel up dry first. You are checking two things: how the glue lines look, and whether everything lines up. I leave the tenons a little loose so there is room to wiggle the boards into place.

Match for continuity, not perfection

I am not trying to make the panel look like one board. I am trying to make it easy on the eye. That means blending sapwood next to sapwood and dark next to dark so there are no hard transitions. Where I could not avoid one, I put it on the back of the panel. Once the oil finish goes on, it all comes together.

Tape your clamps

Painter’s tape over the clamp bars means squeeze out peels off instead of hardening in every little groove. Otherwise you will be chiseling glue off your clamps for the rest of your life.

The side panels came out with nice cathedral grain. Next up is bringing the case together.

Tools from this session

Links below are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which costs you nothing extra and helps keep the shop running.

• Domino compatible loose tenons
• Stanley block plane, for fixing the top
• Parallel clamps
• ScotchBlue painter’s tape, for the clamp bars

Follow along

One guy in a small shop on his father-in-law’s property in Lindsborg, Kansas. IT Director by day, maker by obsession. Equal parts problem solver, craftsman, and curious human. If you’re the kind of person who takes things apart to see how they work, or watches people who do, you’re in the right place.

Uncut shop sessions go up on YouTube and I stream on Twitch. Everything is @carverwoodworking. There is merch in the shop, or you can buy me a coffee.