I originally thought that I would apply the finish to the main part of the nightstand, assemble it, and then build the drawer to fit. But I found myself waiting on the material for all the little ebony doodads, so I decided to go ahead with the drawer after all. The only critical step was making the drawer front fit properly within its opening, and I figured I could easily get the actual size of the opening by just dry clamping a few of the parts together.
The goal was to make the drawer front fit within the opening, with a 1/16" gap all the way around. I started by cutting the part about 1/4" too wide, and 1/8" shorter than the width of the opening. Then I cut the "ears" on the ends that mate with notches in the sides to form the giant finger joints in the front of the drawer. Then, using the ears as a reference, I aligned the part with the
router jig I had made earlier and cut the bottom curve. Finally, I shimmed the part in the proper position within the opening, marked where the top edge needed to be, and trimmed it to its final width.
The next step was to complete the finger joints by cutting the rabbets and notches in the drawer sides. I did most of this on the table saw, with just a little bit of chisel work to make everything fit right.
Damn, Russ!! You're making it look almost easy!! Nice fit.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Vic. Nothing wrong with those joints that can't be fixed with some wood putty and two or three pipe clamps!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I think what's helping me most on this project is using a marking knife instead of a pencil, my little Starrett double square, and just plain old being careful.
-- Russ
Very nice.n you are really thinking this through (or you thought this through caus it was 18 mo. Ago)
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