Mini Chest With Drawers - Part 5

A mistake, a sticking board, and an epiphany ...

I guess I got a little cocky.  Just when you think you're getting better and you try to go a little faster the mistake bug bites.  Sometimes I curse.  Sometimes I bang my fist on the bench.  This time I just had to laugh.

What is your major malfunction?

The drawer back was the last item to get done on this drawer.  The right drawer side was fitted to the drawer back no problem.  But when I transferred the left side tails to the drawer back, I had the back reversed.  So proud of myself for getting a nice tight joint.  Then I went for the dry fit ...

I decided to try to fix this piece rather than start fresh with another piece.  So I cut of the dovetails and a little extra and half-lapped a new piece onto the end.

Replacement end

It didn't look too bad after cleanup and I completed the dovetail corner on the correct side this time.

Fix partially completed

I needed a new way of holding my stock when running grooves, so I decided to make a quick sticking board.  I had some crappy (though reasonably flat) pieces of plywood hanging around and this is what I came up with.

Sticking board with drawer side ready to be grooved

The adjustable stop could have been (and should be) as long as the sticking board itself, but I didn't have any longer material handy (that I wanted to sacrifice).  The workpiece moves a tiny bit at the end of the cut (doesn't affect the cut), but I'm very happy with this.  It took a little time away from the drawer construction but it was time well spent.  Grooving is definitely quicker, safer and more pleasant now.

Action shot

Plenty of room for the tool to do its work

I had an epiphany yesterday related to fitting dovetails.  There is a real feeling of exhilaration when this happens.  I feel like my skills are really taking strides lately.

Anyway, when fitting dovetails, I'm often left with edges that don't meet up properly.  For the drawers, the bottom edges are the reference edges and I'd like them to line up properly when the dovetails are fitted.  In the following picture the chisel is set flat on the vertical piece.  You can see a small gap between the chisel and the horizontal piece.

Mind the gap!

This one is not too bad, but sometimes the gap is unacceptable and I have to do a fair amount of planing to get all the drawer bottom edges in the same plane.

Maybe I'm getting better at seeing things, or maybe I'm getting better at getting a "close" fit off the saw, but if I test the edges before trying to fit the DTs to their recesses, I know which side of the recesses to remove material from.

Here's an example.  In the next picture, I'm fitting the left drawer side to the drawer front.  The DTs go in the recess just a little, but are still far too tight.  So I look at the reference edges and test with the flat back of a chisel.

Testing the edges

Case 1: If there is a gap between the chisel and the drawer side, that means I have to move the drawer side to the left a little.  Therefore I pare the left sides of the two recesses to get the DTs to fit.  Case 2: If the drawer side was proud of the drawer front when testing with a chisel, then the drawer side would need to move right and I would pare the right sides of the recesses to get the fit.

Good alignment of DTs to recesses

This one turned out fantastic.  When tapped home the alignment of the reference edges was nearly perfect.

Daddy like!

Lately there's been a lot of good learning.  I'm psyched!