First Aid Cabinet (Part 2)

After dimensioning the needed boards for the corpus I've written about in my last post (First Aid Cabinet Part 1), I'll report about jointing the parts together. Rabbeting the sides and doweling the top and bottom will hopefully make a rigid frame for the small cabinet.

Rabbeting

There are several methods for making a rabbet. As I'm in possession of a rabbeting plane, I guess my choice is obvious.
But if you haven't such a plane you can do it easily with a chisel. 
First I layout the lines with a pencil, so I have a visual reference.

Layout for the rabbets

By the way. An essential tool in my workshop is the shown pencil. 
These "Hello Kitty" pencils are really magic. More on that in a future post.

If I'm sure about it, I'll scribe the lines with a marking gauge.

Scribed layout line

That gives me a nice reference for the nicker in my rabbeting plane.
I set the plane into these lines and the adjust the fence to the needed width.

Rabbet plane nicker

Cleaning up the shoulders wit a shoulder plane will give a nice and crisp edge.

Final rabbet

Top and Bottom Fitting

After the four rabbets are done it's time to cut the top an bottom to final length and to square the ends.
A three steps process:

• Shooting one end square
• Mark out the final length to the other end
• Trim the board to length while shooting the second end

Shooting one edge square

Making a nick

Dry Fit

As all boards are to final length and the rabbets are established, it is time for a dry fit.

Dry fit

Perfect! I'm lucky with that.

Grooving

During the dry fit I recognized that I missed something. Before joining the boards together it would be a very great idea to make some grooves for the back panel.
That said, off we go.
Before I'm doing grooves usually I lay them out. In this case I set up my dual marking gauge and scribe the lines.

Groove layout lines

My back panel will be some pine plywood with 4 mm thickness.
So I install the 4 mm iron into my grooving plane and start to groove the boards.

Grooves for the back panel

Dry Fit
Ones again I have done a dry fit.

Dry fit w. back panel

Next Time

As the case is complete now (including the back panel), it's time to care about the dowel joints and the dado for the drawer top shelf.


I'm still on the development of this blog and I hope that it will evolve during the next posts.
But my first decision is to post the main entry every Wednesday from now on.

I would be glad to receive your comments, opinions, questions, proposal, etc.

So, stay tuned.

Stefan