These days I am mainly restricted to working at the weekends, so progress is more spasmodic than it used to be. I did manage to find an hour or two in the week, though, to get some preparation work done. Firstly, I prepared some boards and put a moulding on the edge on the router table:
I also made did some mouldings for under the table edge. I can't find a photo, but here's one of my trial piece:
So, the weekend. Time to knuckle down and get something done. Firstly, the skirtings:
The plane which worked best on the mitre shooting board also had some nasty sharp corners, so my hand ended up in a bit of a mess. Still, it did a good job. Dry fitted:
For the mouldings under the table tops, I have a mitre guide:
And a different arrangement on the shooting board:
I always use a block plane on the shooting board if I can. It's just more comfortable and efficient, and I get better results. Your mileage, as the Americans apparently say, may vary. It's not as if my shooting-board-block-plane is anything special:
But it does a wonderful job:
Just mind your knuckles!!!.....
That moulding was glued and pinned:
The skirting was glued, and screwed from the inside:
Getting that out of the way by lunchtime on Saturday was a real bonus. I hate mitres!
After lunch I did some timber preparation:
.....and once the dust had settled, I stained the carcases:
I was really not impressed to see this, which of course was invisible prior to adding the colour:
That's obviously adhesive which has spilled out during the veneering process. Luckily, it will be underneath my printer, so I carried on regardless.
Next, focus moves to the next two units. These are smaller chests of drawers either side of the knee-hole. For the drawer runners (yes, that's where you start), I cut up some bits of old pub-table which I had acquired recently. The consensus is that this is probably rubberwood:
It is lovely straight and uniform stuff. Lots of sawing and shooting followed:
Sunday morning started with a coat of the usual 1:1:1 mix:
After that was wiped off, I got on with the drawer runners:
Marking was a bit slow, but cutting shoulders was quick and easy:
The bandsaw was the easiest way of removing the tenon cheeks:
And this is marking for the locations of the drawer runners:
The front frame of the drawer units is obviously in oak. I marked them all out together for the half-laps:
Then used a tenon saw and chisels to form the joints:
Followed by my router plane to finish off:
Working out the drawer spacings. These had to line up with the drawers in the filing drawer units:
Finally I made up 20 ply triangles, and shot them square:
This is the joint construction. Just a tenon (or tongue) into a slot:
The occasional one needed adjusting, and this gorgeous little Record shoulder plane did the job beautifully:
Glued up:
That's 4 for one side, and one for the other.
Finally, I chopped out the half-laps in the frame stiles:
That was it for the weekend. I would have got everything glued up, but we were off out at 5.00, so it had to wait. Luckily, the phone didn't ring on Monday morning, so I sneaked out for an hour and glued up one of the units. I started by truing up the drawer runner frames:
Next, the drawer runner guides (they've probably got a real name........I just made that up). Never mind what you've heard, this is the real Ruler Trick:
It's nice to have the drawers flow easily in and out, but settle into a tightish place in a well controlled manner when shut. So instead of having parallel guides, I taper tham in ever-so-slightly at the far end. Hence the ruler, which is only about a gnat's thick.
Glue up under way:
