Doors and Drawers

The door fitting went well last week and now it's time for final passes of the plane before applying the finish. All the sharp edges have been softened, as well. Below, I've just put on a coat of shellac; a total of four light coats on the interior and edges. The outside surfaces then got a coat of the oil finish. I'll top that with a coat of beeswax polish after the oil cures a bit longer.

Picking up the drawer bottoms, I've jointed the edges with a hand plane in preparation for a glue-up. I used four boards to form each drawer bottom.

The first series of six glue-ups created pairs like this one, below.

These were then assembled into the complete drawer bottoms.

The drawer fronts, sides and backs have been planed to thickness and cut to the correct height.

After cross-cutting the ends, I set up for cutting the dovetails. Below, I'm marking the depth of the pin sockets.

I also marked the length of the socket and then laid out the angled sides of the pins with a pencil.

Here's the layout, ready to cut.

First, I saw close to the lines.

Then, using a chopping block and chisel, I cut out the sockets.

I followed a similar procedure for the drawer backs.

The pin layout is a bit different here, as these are "through" dovetails, whereas the drawer fronts have "half blind" dovetail joints.

The photo below shows the relationship of the joinery between the drawer front and drawer back.

Tomorrow, I have three more sets of drawer back pins to chop, then it's on to cutting tails on the drawer sides!

Hej då!

Craig