September 3, 2010

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Fitting the drawers to the stand-up desk

January 26, 2010 By Al Navas

Finally, time to fit the drawers to their respective openings in the front apron of the desk (Edit to add: all hand-cut dovetails, as I am trying to reproduce features of a desk for my client):

Changes in humidity caused the drawer fronts to grow considerably across the grain; I had to wait until things stabilized prior to doing the initial fitting – I am glad I did. Had I not waited, it would have been close to impossible to remove the drawers from the openings without damaging the front apron, as they would been too tight!

As I made progress, things are taking shape. Notice how the grain runs uninterrupted from left to right; this is the result of cutting the drawer front pieces from the same board as the front apron/frame:

The initial fitting is always exciting, as it is an opportunity to aim for the smallest possible reveal around the drawer fronts, while ensuring smooth opening and closing of every drawer. Sharp hand planes are the best way to do it!

The fourth drawer awaits initial fitting now. Construction can then proceed, as moisture content in the wood has stabilized significantly.

— Al Navas

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Related articles: Click this link to read several articles related to the construction of the desk.

Filed Under: Blog, Dovetails, furniture Tagged With: Design, Dovetails, drawer, fitting, furniture, Joinery

Tutorial: hand-cut half-blind dovetails

December 21, 2009 By Al Navas

Download this video in Quicktime format
(In Windows,  Right-click | Save Link As…)
Duration: 21:41 minutes

One of the readers of the blog recently posted the following Comment to the earlier article on More great drawers:

Could you add ‘Cutting Pins by Hand for Half-Blind Dovetails’ to the list of topics to cover? I fully get how to cut pins and tails for through dovetails, but half-blind pins I can’t seem to wrap my mind around. Is it all chisel work? Is there a sawing technique I don’t know of to cut 80% through the thickness of a board?

Torch, this article and video are my response to your request – perfect timing!

Although today it is considered the hallmark of a woodworking craftsman, the dovetail was not always held in such high esteem. In fact, dovetails used to be buried behind trim, as they were strictly a utilitarian joint; but they were used for their holding strength. Today we make dovetails by hand and with dovetail jigs, to get beautiful results; and they are beautiful!

In this episode I show in detail how to cut one half-blind dovetail on a narrow board. Although I managed to damage the fit on the first attempt, I recovered to shoot the chopping of the pins for this episode in its entirety. In the video I show in high speed the details of chopping the waste, from start to finish:

  1. Very light chiseling at the baseline, to ensure that it stays nice and clean.
  2. Once the baseline is established, more aggressive chopping can take place.
  3. But care must be taken at the half-pins, to prevent splitting of the wood; typically, a narrower chisel, and lighter chisel action are required, or the board will split.
  4. Slight undercutting at the baseline, about 1° to 2°, will result in better and easier fit of the tails in their sockets.
  5. However, too much undercutting will result in a weak joint – as a result, avoid too much undercutting. Practice, practice…
  6. Chop the bulk of the waste with the board supported by the workbench; then place the work piece in the vise, to finish with light paring cuts.
  7. Cut a very small chamfer on the back of the dovetails, to easy entry into their respective sockets in the pins board.

Gary Rogowski is a great advocate of the 5-minute dovetail, a practice session to get ready for the real job of cutting the joinery on a real project. And although the exercise is typically for through dovetails, I believe it applies just as well to half-blind dovetails. In fact, I always do a similar warm-up when I use the Leigh dovetail jig – I never start cutting dovetails cold, regardless the method. Click on this link to see the Inlaid Dovetails Tutorial videos I posted on the blog in March 2008, using the Leigh D4 dovetail jig.

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Filed Under: Blog, Dovetails, Education, Joinery, Tutorial, Video Tagged With: Dovetails, Education, half-blind, hand-cut, Joinery, Tutorial

More great drawers

December 18, 2009 By Al Navas

Glenn, one of the readers of my blog, saw the following photo of the first great drawer I made for the stand-up desk. The joinery on the back of the drawer is shown, with no glue, and the surfaces not yet planed even – in other words, pretty much as the the dovetails came off the saw:

Glenn wrote me a short note, asking how I am able to get the shoulder on the half-pin sockets as nice and square as  I showed in the photo above. As I worked on the drawers yesterday and today, I documented how I do it. My old way of doing was fashioned after the technique of Frank Klausz – simply line up the saw with the baseline marked on the edge of the shoulder, and cut it off. Most of the time it works just fine, but sometimes I miss and cut a little beyond the line – and that creates a gap I dislike very much. My fault, of course. If you are not familiar with the pins-first technique to hand-cut dovetails, I suggest you view the three videos of Frank Klausz I shot during the Woodworking in America conference in Berea, KY, in November 2008.

I much prefer the new way I do the cutoffs these days; I wish I could tell you where I learned to do it this way, but I cannot remember. I start by carefully and lightly chiseling the baseline on the edge of the board; then I cut off a very small and shallow sliver – this leaves a nice channel for the dovetail saw, and a nice reference edge on which I can rest the saw to start the cut:

drawer-side-shoulder-2

I then carefully place the saw in the channel, and saw off the half-pin to create the half-pin socket for the pins board (practice, practice, practice, to learn to saw really close to the scribed base line):

drawer-side-shoulder

The photo above shows my preference to cut pins first; once the pins boards are done, I mark the dovetails from the pins. Note: This applies only to the through dovetails on the back of the drawers.

I chisel out the waste on the remaining pin sockets by carefully removing very thin slivers at the baseline, as in the following photo:

drawer.chop-pins

Today’s work: the through dovetail joinery on the drawer backs, for three additional drawers – two drawer backs fit very well right off the saw, and one required a little paring work:

drawers

Now I can start on the joinery to the drawer fronts. These will require half-blind dovetails, similar to the first drawer I made:

Once all the drawer joinery is done, I can start machining the drawer slips for the hardwood bottom panels. I will cover in detail the making and fitting of the drawer slips in another article.

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Filed Under: Blog, Dovetails, Joinery Tagged With: Dovetails, drawer, Joinery