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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Don't get your drawers in a twist

This episode is entirely dedicated to the two drawers that make up the front section of the cherry huntboard. Now, I detailed much of my standard process for hand cutting half-blind dovetails in Episode 2 of the hand tool shaker table.  So rather than just repeat the process, in this project I go into some other tips and tricks I use, and even highlight how I dealt with a poorly fitting dovetail.  I also had to wrestle with some nasty grain on the curly cherry drawer fronts, and addressed that issue here as well.  Basically this episode is more about recovery than it is a how-to of building drawers or hand cutting dovetails.  Hopefully you find a tip or trick in here that you find useful.


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just a quick question Rob. If you had sized the drawers already to the opening, won't trimming the pins down to the level of the sides mess with the fit? Do you plan for that when initially cutting the drawer faces?
Great video blog by the way!
Brian

Rob Bois said...

Brian, great question and something I realized I didn't address in the video. What I do is size the drawer fronts to the exact size of the opening in the carcass, so when I take down the proud pins, I'm left with a small gap on each side. When I do the final fitting, I will plane down the drawer top to allow the same gap on all four sides of the drawer (usually 1/16" to 1/8"). I will likely address that in an upcoming video when I fit the doors and drawers just before finishing.

Richard Barrett said...

Gorgeous drawer.

Thanks for the good tips on fitting a dovetail joint.

The last practice dovetail (my "real" dovetails are still too loose to be used on a decent project) joint I tried to fit ended up ugly precisely because I didn't pay proper attention to the ends of the pins as I pared away the wood.

A Perpetual Pupil said...

Rob,

I've been watching your podcast for quite a while and I've got to say that you're doing a great job! The content is great and your perspective is refreshing! I'm really enjoying the six legged huntboard series.

I have a question for you about your table saw. I noticed that it was a steel city. How do you like it? And why did you choose it over the other saws out there? If you've covered this already in a podcast or something I'm sorry to make you repeat yourself... Anyway, lemme know...

Spencer Bates

Rob Bois said...

Spenser, I bought my Steel City about two years ago, when they were still relatively new. I was looking for a hybrid saw with a large cast iron top, and the SC was the best value out there at the time. I've had no real complaints although the dust collection could be better. It does what it's supposed to do, it's very tunable (the trunions are accessible from the outside of the cabinet) and has all the power you'd expect from a 110v machine. I know they've gone through an ownership change (likely for the better) so I wouldn't hesitate to buy one again.

Bruce Somes said...

Rob,

Another great production. I really appreciated the tip about paring your pins below the defining edge. Keep up the good work.

Bruce, AKA FlWoodRat

Unknown said...

I wonder if a scraper would have help smooth out that curly cherry rather than using your cool jointer?

Anonymous said...

Nice episode again Rob. During your episode you mention you cover your clamp heads with wax, is that just regular bee wax?

Ralph

Rob Bois said...

First, with regard to using a scraper, that definitely would have been the way to prevent the tear-out in the first place. However, once you get deep tear-out, that's a lot of scraping to get it flush again. I did try my high angle smoother plane, but that didn't even work. If I owned a scraper plane, that would have been the best choice. As for the question about wax, I have blocks of paraffin wax all over the shop and use that both for the bottoms of my planes and anywhere I want to prevent glue from sticking. Bees wax would work equally as well, but you can buy paraffin wax in big blocks for short money.