Chest of Drawers - Box is complete

[woodguy1975]

Well after doing over 60 mortises something like 20 sliding dovetails and cutting something close to 70 pieces the chest is finally glued up. Now you can actually see all 24 drawer boxes. It is finally starting to take shape beyond just a huge box. Here is a quick pic.

I was chatting with Chris earlier today and he asked about the jointery for the 3 way intersections. Since this is an important part of the case jointery I figured I'd snap a quick detail pic.

Now I've got at least 2 weeks of drawer cutting and sizing after a few minutes of mounting the drawer runners. :eusa_doh: :eusa_doh: Tomorrow I start planing the maple down. :icon_thum

Thanks for viewing.

John

 

[Splinter]

John,

That is a massive complex piece of work. Great joinery work.

 

[McRabbet]

John, Your work continues to impress, big time! It looks superb and you've got to feel good as you post these pics! Watch out FWW -- John's one of your upcoming contributors! :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

[DaveO]

Dang, that is what I call a great candidate for glue-up dementia. Looks like you avoided the crazies:drunken_s

Dave

 

[woodguy1975]

Dang, that is what I call a great candidate for glue-up dementia. Looks like you avoided the crazies:drunken_s

Dave

I was already crazy before I started. :rolf:

Actually the way I set the jointery up I could do it in 3 stages that were relatively stress free. The fun part was when those perfect fitting sliding dovetails were hit with glue. It took a bit more persuasion to get everything set. Those suckers aren't going anywhere.

 

[woodguy1975]

Watch out FWW -- John's one of your upcoming contributors! :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

I hope so. :eusa_pray :eusa_pray That was my goal when I embarked on this project. The only payment for a terrible margin. :saw:

I just hope I finish it out well. I've still got lots to do. At least the base is dead square to start. I don't have anything I have to compensate for at this point so that feels especially good.

Thanks,

John

 

[D L Ames]

John, that chest is looking really great.:icon_thum All of your joinery is superb. I will be on the look out for it to show up in FWW.

D L

 

[Monty]

Wow - that looks fantastic! Great work!

 

[cskipper]

Very impressive!

 

[JohnsonMBrandon]

Awesome work man. If only Insomniac, Steve, and I could find a teacher who could do that :lol:

 

[Sweetgum]

Beautiful work, but I only see one clamp holding that piece together. Is that a "miracle" clamp? Mind selling me one of those!!!:icon_thum

 

[Joe Scharle]

It's going to be a marvelous piece. Did you square the case in sections or as a single unit?
Joe

 

[woodguy1975]

It's going to be a marvelous piece. Did you square the case in sections or as a single unit?
Joe

I started by squaring the case. After the case was square it was just a matter of positioning the sliding dovetails and half laps precisely to get the boxes square. Basically there is no adjustment to square things up. Either you get it right or you don't. For instance a half lap cut in one of the vertical members off by 1/64" would through off square for 4 boxes. It all comes down to precision of your layout. I spent hours seting up before ever making a cut. Every dado and dovetail were scribed for location and test fitted with MDF before cutting the mahogany. That is why it took a while to get to this point. A single error gets multiplied by 4 in a peice like this where you have so many intersections. I might have over complicated the piece a bit, but I just couldn't see another way to do it.

Thanks,

John

 

[Travis Porter]

Very very NICE. I do not envy you on the drawers. They do get montonous at times.

 

[chris99z71]

John,
I don't know how I missed this thread earlier today. Thanks for the detailed pic by request! The joinery looks amazing. That many mortises makes my brain hurt.
Kudos!:eusa_clap

 

[Dutchman]

John,
Looking good. I was wondering what goes in the small space at the top - all the way accross? Will this be supported?

 

[woodguy1975]

John,
Looking good. I was wondering what goes in the small space at the top - all the way accross? Will this be supported?

There is a molding that will run from the top of the chest to about 1/3 of the way down on that rail. I may add a few backers for the molding to be glued to, but it really isn't required. The molding will be glued to the front edge and then at the miters along the side. The rest will float through some slotted screw holes for expansion and contraction. I thought about doing the dovetail keys, but Lonnie Byrd uses screws with slotted holes so I figured that was good enough for me.

Thanks,

John