{"id":1035,"date":"2019-08-08T17:36:27","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T00:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2019-11-08T12:57:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T20:57:00","slug":"wall-cabinet-oak-cherry-elm-and-maple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/?p=1035","title":{"rendered":"Wall Cabinet – Oak, Cherry, Elm and Maple"},"content":{"rendered":"

I made this small, wall mounted cabinet to hold my layout tools for measuring and marking.\u00a0 It puts them within easy reach and keeps them organized.\u00a0 I used some off-cuts of red oak, black cherry, American elm, and sugar maple that were too good to throw away.\u00a0 And I used some of the same tools that are now housed in the cabinet to make it.\u00a0 [All photos \"copyright<\/a> Max Vollmer, Click on any photo to enlarge]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Wall cabinet. [Click on any photo to enlarge]<\/figcaption><\/figure>I’m going to illustrate the step-by-step process I use for hand cut dovetails, both the through dovetails on the case and the half-blind dovetails on the drawers.<\/p>\n

Step one:\u00a0 having determined the dimensions for the cabinet and cut the component pieces to size, I started the through dovetails for the case by marking the length for the tails based on the thickness of the board to which they will be joined, using an adjustable marking gauge made by Veritas Tools in Canada.<\/p>\n

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Marking the length of the tails.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Having decided on my dovetail spacing, I then marked the tails with a brass dovetail guide made by an Englishman, Richard Kell, many years ago.<\/p>\n

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Marking the tails.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next two steps were to cut alongside the marked tails and then chop out the waste between them.<\/p>\n

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Using a chisel to chop out the waste between the dovetails.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To align the dovetails with matching pins, I clamped the board with the finished tails in my bench vise and lined up the board that will have pins and marked their location.\u00a0 With the spacing marked in pencil, I used a marking knife to inscribe the outlines of the waste between pins.\u00a0 I go to all this trouble to get the narrowest pins and finest fit.\u00a0 There are always slight variations in hand cut dovetails, unlike those made with a router and jig.\u00a0 It is not possible to get the very small pins you see in fine, antique furniture with a router and I want my furniture to reflect the skill required for hand work.<\/p>\n

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Alignment for marking\u00a0 pin spacing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Pencil marks for spacing and marking waste between pins with a marking knife.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next, I fully outline the pins with a pencil to guide my cuts.\u00a0 This is slow work but yields good results.<\/p>\n

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Outlining pins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since I planned to have a recessed back panel for the wall cabinet, after cutting the tails and pins for all four of the case frame pieces, I took this opportunity to cut the stopped rabbets around the back edges of the case pieces as well.\u00a0 See Below.<\/p>\n

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Stopped rabbet for recessed back panel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The six drawers, with American elm sides and Black cherry drawer fronts, have through dovetails on the back corners and “half-blind” dovetails on the front corners.\u00a0 “Half-blind” means that the tails do not go all the way through the adjoining boards so that they do not show on the face.\u00a0 My technique for the half-blind dovetails was basically the same as that for through dovetails.\u00a0 See below.<\/p>\n

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Drawer side and back with rabbets cut for drawer bottom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Elm side with tails fits into cherry front with pins to create the half-blind dovetails.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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All sides, backs, and front pieces for the six drawers.\u00a0 Ready for assembly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Dry fit through dovetails at the rear and half-blind at the front of the drawer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After cutting the 3\/16″ oak plywood for the drawer bottoms, I cut and shaped a piece of Sugar maple with the table saw and a router to be cut into individual lengths for drawer pulls.\u00a0 Then I cut stopped dadoes on the outside faces of the drawer sides before final assembly, and made and attached matching wood drawer guides on the inside faces of the case pieces .<\/p>\n

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Assembled drawers.\u00a0 Drawer sides have stopped dadoes cut on the outside face to match up with drawer guides mounted on the inside faces of the case work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Case sides and center section with guides for drawers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What remained was assembly and finishing with clear\/natural Watco Danish Oil.<\/p>\n

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Case sides and center section.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Case.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Assembled.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Finished.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To hang the wall cabinet, I used a piece of oak with an angle cut mounted to the back of the case that mates with another oak piece, with the complimentary angle cut, that is mounted to the wall.\u00a0 In this way the cabinet can be hung and removed as needed.<\/p>\n

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The back of the case with a cross piece that has an angle cut on its bottom edge to mate up with a complimentary piece mounted on the wall that allows me to hang the cabinet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made this small, wall mounted cabinet to hold my layout tools for measuring and marking.\u00a0 It puts them within easy reach and keeps them organized.\u00a0 I used some off-cuts of red oak, black cherry, American elm, and sugar maple that were too good to throw away.\u00a0 And I used some of the same tools … Continue reading Wall Cabinet – Oak, Cherry, Elm and Maple<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[133,132,52,13,130,43,46],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-woodwork","tag-american-elm","tag-black-cherry","tag-half-blind-dovetails","tag-hand-cut-dovetails","tag-red-oak","tag-sugar-maple","tag-wall-cabinet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1097,"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions\/1097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxvollmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}