First Aid Cabinet (Part 5)

My last week was creative, although I had a bad cold.
So again I couldn't spend so much time in the shop as I wanted. But I had time to think a bit about my Blog, my posts, a logo and other stuff like this.
I think in the next days I will do some changes to my Blog layout.
But anyway. As last time said, I will complete the door and build a drawer for the First Aid Cabinet.

Completion Of The Door Build

Where was I? Oh yes. 
The first tenon and mortise for the bridle joint of the door was made. Okay, next one. 
After laying out the tenon with the marking gauge and a pencil it is just sawing down the cheeks.
I'm making a small kerf on every side, so I've got a registration point to start my saw. 

Tenon layout with kerfs

After sawing down and cleaning the cheeks I marked out the mortises on the stiles.
Therefore I laid the tenon on the stile and make a nick with a knife to transfer the measurement directly to the piece.

Knife nick for measurement

With this done I sawed and chopped out the mortise. A bit of clean up and I could test how it fits. And it fitted well.

Test fit door rail and stiles

Doesn't look bad, or? But what you can't see in the picture, that now the frame is warped.

I assumed that I wasn't square on one of the cheeks of the tenon.

Hm...a bit of frustration came up. But am I a woodworker? Yes I am. :-)

Thought a moment about it and then I had a brilliant idea. I've got a small router plane.

I started to make the tenons of the top rail and this time I used the router plane for cleaning the cheeks.

Rail tenon

I setup my small router plane near to final depth and I used an off cut as support.

Cleaning tenon cheeks

Now the tenons came out great and they are square. 

With this done I started to correct the tenons of the bottom rail. That worked well too so far.

The warp is gone now and the door is flat, but the very first joint I made is pretty loose now.

Door dry fit

And there is a second issue I will have to fix.

Tenon not wide enough

Tenon too thin

On the left picture you can see that the tenon is not wide enough an in the picture on the right you can see that the thickness is not okay.

That said I cut two shims and glued them to the faulty tenons. Luckily I haven't thrown away any off cut of this project so far.

Shims

Fixing the tenons

After the glue has set, I trimmed both tenons again so that they will fit (better) into the mortises.
And here comes the door frame. Square and with snug fit joints.

Final door frame

It nearly looks like a cabinet

In the meantime I prepared a plywood panel as the infill for the door frame.
It is already painted in my workshop color.

Door with panel

 
And have a look. More and more it will be a cabinet.

A cabinet

 
I'm thinking about inserting a pin to every joint. But I haven't decided yet.
It will be more an optical aspect than a matter of rigidity. 
What do you think? Would you do that?

The door has to be smoothed and fitted to the box. But that will be steps of the finalization.

The Drawer

In the lower part of the cabinet is room for a small drawer. Until now I haven't dimensioned any wood for it. For building the drawer I'll take the measurements directly from the opening.

The thickness of the drawer sides will be 6 mm. The drawer front will be 12 mm.

I'm starting with cutting out a piece of wood for the drawer front.

After rough cutting it and smoothing a face side, I'll fit it into the opening. Starting on the left side as a reference. Doesn't matter on which side you will start. It is just a question of behavior.

Marking the right side of the drawer front

I marked the right side of the drawer front on the left side of the drawer opening. And then cut it to dimension.

Making a knife line

Chiseling out a V groove

These pictures describe the process.

Making a knife line

Transferring this line around the board

Making a groove along the the knife line on the face side

Cutting to length

Shooting to fit

Then cutting the board to length.

And finally shooting it to the final dimension

That done the drawer front should fit snugly into the opening.

Fitting the drawer front

 And the board has to be cut to width. Therefore I measure the opening with a square.

Measure the opening

As planned it is 6,5 mm. Due to some measurement tolerance I will make the board a whisker wider than this.

Marking the drawer width

I marked the drawer front width with the marking gauge and darkened the line with my magic tool ;-).
Since there are only a few millimeters, I shoot them off on the shooting board.


Then I prepared the sides, with a little bit more length as needed, and a back panel.

Half blind dovetails will connect the sides to the front. I laid them out like this.

Dovetail layout

Dovetail cutting

Tails 

I cut the tails with a dovetail saw.

And then I chopped the waste out.

Actually I wouldn't describe the whole dovetail process. There are other descriptions out there which are much better and detailed than mine. 

And this is the point where I am at the moment.

 

Drawer parts

The pins have to be cut and chopped out at the drawer front. Then I'll fit the sides into the opening and cut them to length.

The back panel will sit between two rabbets. And finally I will cut a groove in every board where the bottom will sit in.

But I have to postpone this to the next report.

What's Next?

Hopefully the next time I can report about how all the things will come together.
And then I'll call it done.

Except from this, I'm in the planning phase of my next project. I guess I need a few more days to figure out some details so that I can start.
More on that in the next days. There will be a side post apart from the regular schedule.

Additionally I plan a surprise. So wait and see!

And last but not least. For all of you who are celebrating the Easter festival, have great Easter days. 

What Do You Think?

Question of the week. Do you think I should pin the bridle joints?

I'd love to read your thoughts.

Do You Like This Post?

If you found this post useful check out the upcoming post on next Wednesday.