Back in stile

Remember the hanging wall cabinet? Well it still doesn't have any doors or drawers - so let's remedy that situation.  I decided the door fronts would be first, and why not amp it up a bit with through haunched tenons. I love haunched tenons because they let me cut all the grooves straight down all the rails and stiles on the router table without having to square anything off with hand tools.  But they do add an extra level of difficulty to the tenon construction. So I'll show you a way I quickly measure out the haunches and cut them with a hand saw.

And with stiles just an inch wide, I was worried shorter tenons might not be strong enough. So I decided to just run the mortises all the way through the stock. Top it off with some raised cherry panels for effect, I think these door fronts will really complement the hanging wall cabinet. Which reminds me, I need to start looking for some hinges pretty soon. Enjoy!

A game of recovery

You might recall that I’m building this entire live-edge hall table completely on the fly. This all started with the live-edge top dictating the exact size and shape of the carcass. While this project seemed simple enough, having no drawings, model, or even sketch started to become a limitation. I started to make some fairly dumb mistakes that I would have easily avoided by looking at a 3D model or even a sketch. But woodworking is a game of recovery and agility, and fortunately I didn’t screw anything up so badly that I had to start over. I retrospect, deciding to introduce drawers into the plan this late in the game probably didn’t set me up for success!


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A simple solution to complex joinery

With the aprons veneered, its time to start thinking about my joinery. The trick to this step is twofold. I have a curved front apron, which would be almost impossible to clamp into my tenon jig, or even a vice to cut tenons by hand. And secondly, the legs meet the aprons at roughly a 5 degree angle, adding to the complexity. But as is often the case when I face this kind of challenge, the solution is a green one.



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