Toolbox

School's back in session and I am almost done with my toolbox.  I started working on it before last semester ended, but was really bad about taking pictures and never got anything posted about it.  Now I am  nearly done, so I will post what pictures I have now and will take a full set of pictures once it is completely done.

Cutting pins for the case dovetails.  There are lots of dovetails on the 17 in wide case.

Case glue up.  You can see my almost finished night stand in the background.

Close up of case dovetails.

Case with dividers and drawer stops installed.

Fitting drawer fronts.  The drawers are under construction and sitting on top of the case.

Cutting pins on the drawer fronts.  Most of the time you label what pieces go together with numbers or letters, but I decided to start drawing pictures like this surprised face.

Drawer construction complete.

I turned knobs which get progressively bigger to match the ratio of the drawers.  The smallest is 3/10" and the biggest is around 1".

This is one of my panels for my lid with my new tool,  my shoulder plane, sitting on top of it.

The lid being constructed.  It is floating raised panels with mortise and tenon joinery   

My finished lid.  The panels are curly maple which is resawn and bookmatched.  I will explain that more in a future post.

Ready for the finishing room!

Project #1: Shaker Table FINISHED!!!

I am finally done with my table.  I stressed a lot about the paint color, but I love the way the green looks with the walnut.  ***UPDATE*** I decided not to sell my table.  Instead I gave it to my friends Joe and Kristin who generously gave me a place to stay for free my first 2 months back in Boston.

Here's the pictures:

Complete

Lapped dovetails

Turned knob, then painted, oiled and waxed

Drawer from behind- You can see the through dovetails on the corner.  Also, the drawer bottom is a separate piece that slides in from the back.  It is beveled to fit into a small groove, as to not take away strength from the sides, but leave maximum thickness so the bottom is sturdy too.

The knob goes through the drawer and is wedged from the inside.  Despite having a backing board, the inside of the drawer front still blew out when I drilled the hole. :(  Also, I was so concerned about keeping the knob seated against the drawer front while pounding the wedge in that I forgot to use glue. Luckily, once the wedge is in, it doesn't come out, so that should mean that it should always work without ever needing glue.

Internal workings- runners, guides, kickers (which you can't really see in the photo, but are above the drawer to keep it from dropping down when pulled out), drawer stops, and pocket holes in the back with screws to hold the top down. 

Dovetails

My main instructor, Dan, is not good at pacing the class.  Because of this, a few of us keep running out of things to do.  After a week of seeking him out every day to tell him I had nothing to do, he finally decided to give those of us who have been moving quicker a special instruction session on how to cut dovetails.  This gives us plenty to do because they are used a lot, so we need to get really good at cutting them.  It is a very strong joint because it is held together both by the interlocking of angled pins and tails as well as the glue, whereas something like a finger joint is just held by glue.

Dovetail joint. Pins in blue.  Tails in white.

Finger joint

The process is fairly straight forward.  You start by marking the width of each board on the other board with a marking gauge (I will be posting about marking gauges soon).  You then lay out the pins on one of the boards.  Next you cut close to the line with a dovetail saw

Dovetail saw

Then you pare to your lines with chisels.  It is important to have very sharp chisels in order to get clean lines.  When you have the pins finished, you trace them onto the other board.  On that board you cut out the pins, leaving the tails.  In order to get a perfect fit you must pare to your lines exactly.  Because the lines are an outline of the pins, if you cut into the line at all, you have gone too far and it will show when you put them together.  Here are the first dovetails I ever cut byt hand:

They had a good, tight fit, but there are way too many gaps.

This is the same joint from the other side.