Sunday, January 11, 2009

Beginning the bedside chest

I've decided on the term 'bedside chest' for the piece of furniture I'm making. I think it's reasonably descriptive.
Oh, and I mentioned to a lady at work that I was building it, and she told me that she has one in her daughter's room, so they can't be as rare as my experience would indicate.

Anyway, today I'm starting on the carcase. I have made a few design c
hanges already. The most pertinent is that I will be using web-frames for drawer runners instead of using solid wood. This will be more work, but I don't happen to have enough wood to do solid, and I'm trying to use up what I have, so web-frames it will be.

Regardless of how I choose to support the drawers I will need to cut rabbets to receive the supports. Cutting stopped rabbets is not my idea of a good time, so instead I'm going to cut rabbets all the way across and then add extra pieces to extend the sides, which will stop the rabbets.

Below you can see the material I'm using for the case, wi
th the story-pole lying on top. This material is 3/4" thick by 16" wide laminated southern yellow pine. It comes in 8' lengths and it is cheap like borscht. I think these things cost me less than $20 each. I use them a lot for shop fixtures and such. Since I paint everything it really, really doesn't matter that there are finger-joints here and there. It's a huge time-saver. The first step I'm going to take is to cut the dado for the back to fit in. Since I'm using virtually the entire 8' piece for the two sides, top and bottom of the case, I'm just going to rabbet the whole length in one go.
And done. The Veritas skew-rabbet plane (it's a moving filister, really) is my new best friend in the shop. I love it. After cutting the dado for the back I mark out the rabbets for the drawer supports. Once they had been marked out I made up a cheek-piece for my back-saw to allow me to cut the sides of the rabbet. Once the sides are cut I will use a router plane to remove the waste. Below we see the 'modified' back-saw lying on the case side that has been laid out for the rabbets. The cheek piece is just a bit of scrap that was planed to the right width to allow for a 1/4" depth of cut.
More coming soon...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Mike
Looks good so far

Metalworker Mike said...

Thanks! :) I've got a ways to go yet. Next up is dovetailing the top and mortising in the bottom.

M.Mike

Steve Smith said...

Will this ever get finished?