This week on the mahogany buffet cabinet it was time for surface preparation, flattening and squaring-up of the drawer tier panels with a hand plane. I then cut dados on the table saw into which I'll later fit the maple runners for the drawers. The drawers will be side hung.

I fitted and glued sapele edgebands onto the ends of the intermediate partitions.

And then added sapele corner posts to the end panels after some prefinishing with oil and wax.

Back to the partitions I flushed the edgebands with the smoothing plane.

And flushed the endgrain at the top and bottom with a block plane.

I really enjoy creating the finished surfaces with the hand plane, but fitting the panel joinery, well, that's just a great way to spend the day!

Then, it was time to cut slots for some splines that will keep the parts aligned during glue-ups. I prefinished the interior with shellac and wax, as before.

And the exterior of the panels with oil and wax.

While the finish on those parts was curing, I continued work on the cabinet top. The panel substraight had been assembled and now it was time to apply poplar edgebands in preparation for the veneers.

I nearly emptied the clamp rack for this glue-up.

The top will mainly be covered with four sequenced sheets of pommele sapele that are center and butt bookmatched with dividing bands of sapele. A mitered frame of sapele will surround the veneered panel with a final mitered frame of mahogany outside of that, reinforcing the design theme of the existing pieces in the client's home.