Wood working - cutting board shelves

I bought a couple small accessories for my router (Muscle Chuck and 1/4" collet) because I have a number of home projects I want to do.  My first project is a small storage shelf addition that I want to mount under the top cabinets in our kitchen which would hold cutting boards, cooling racks and even the cookie sheets look like they will fit.  This was intended partly as a Mothers Day gift to my wonderful wife but my time got split into to many things to complete it for mothers day. 

This won't be a fancy item; it is about 5" tall with a bottom and one middle shelf.  This is intended for under a diagonal corner cabinet and will be 17" across the front and 17" deep at the sides.  I am using 1/2" oak plywood with 1/4" plywood for the bottom/shelves.  I decided to create dado grooves in the 2 sides for the bottom and middle shelf to attach to the sides with the use of some wood glue.  I am looking into nailing as well but with the thin wood makes me leery of both hand nailing without pre-drilling and use of my 16 gauge air nailer seems like a bad idea as well.  I've got some time to make my final decision on that yet.

I decided to route the grooves in the 1/2" plywood and this gave me a perfect opportunity to try out my new Muscle Chuck and 1/4" collet.  I removed the fixed base and pulled off the existing collet from my porter Cable 690 and popped the Muscle Chuck in without issue.  I did find that the allen bolt didn't seem to clear the base when I went to put it back on; not really a problem.

The 1/4" collet slips into the chuck easily but has enough friction to not just fall out.  I then put in a 1/4" straight plunge bit for making my grooves.  It took me a while to get my depth right; I have not used my router much and it is like learning all over some days.  I finally got it right but ended up setting it again after it appeared that the bit had slipped vertically in the collet and was pushed up higher than desired.  I ended up tightening it a bit more than I thought I would need.  I remember a few blogs indicating problems with slippage in the 1/4" collet (not sure if it was the Muscle Chuck or something else off the top of my head).  I don't think that a bit with a normal 1/2" shaft bit would have a problem.  I did line up the slit in the collet with the slit in the Muscle Chuck as indicated in some instructions so it was setup correctly.

Under power I had no problems, there was no apparent vibration and no slippage as I was working on the work piece.  I would recommend the Muscle Chuck if you tend to mash knuckles changing bits.

I am intending to build a router table in preparation for a number of other wood working projects and am hoping that the Muscle Chuck will reduce the pain involved with those projects.

Here is the in-progress shelf for the cutting boards, cookie sheets and such.  I'll be edging the front with some thin solid Oak trim.

Here is the Muscle Chuck installed and the 1/4" collet. 

Another view of the installed Muscle Chuck.

Here is the nearly completed result.  It was somewhat difficult matching the stain to the existing cabinets.  I ended up mixing 3 stains to get it close and am using a satin polyurethane finish.

I was a bit bummed that I ended up with some polyurethane runs in a couple places; I took a stab at correcting that (scratch out some of it, light sand papering, restain a touch and add another poly coat).  I was using some older brushes which were somewhat nice except I would lose a bristle in the finish every so often.  A bit tiresome, I think I will start with fresh brushes next time.

Here is the location prior to installing the shelves.

[2014/06/07\ And here is how it looks after installing it .  

Not bad overall.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I wish some aspects would have turned out better though.  I think my wife really likes it even with a few warts though so it was certainly worth the effort. 

Lessons learned:

• I should have planned more of the final assembly/install in the very beginning.  
• Dealing with the vertical air gap between the wall of the new shelves and the bottom of the existing cabinet turned out to be more of a headache than I expected.  Need to put more thought into that.  The 1/2" wood did not make it easy to get screws into the walls without some slight bulging of the wall.  I did pre-drill holes but would likely have to go to smaller diameter screws as well.  I didn't show it in a picture but I took some scrap flooring pieces and cut them down in height and thickness for use in filling the nearly hidden side gaps  between the new shelves and cabinet.  I put the finished side of the flooring out so it blended better.  This was a workable idea but getting screws in from inside the main cabinet and hitting the center of the 1/2" filler was where things didn't go so well.
• I should have done some of the stain/finish before final assembly.  I had to use a small roller and paint brush taped to a stir stick to get the inner shelf.  It worked but not as well as desired.
• Use quality brushes which are not shedding.
• I should consider whether a small finish/HVLP type sprayer could have produced a slightly better finish.  Of course, without a good dust/breeze free location to work on it; it may not make much difference.
• A pin nailer may have been a little better for tacking the face pieces on with less chance of splitting and smaller holes to fill.  
• I should have checked with my Dad for some tips.  He has lots more experience and is always full of good ideas - a slight same I had to learn some things the hard way.

Hope you enjoyed this adventure and may God bless your day!
Scott