Dark Chocolate and Sponge Cake (12)

In the last post I was sorta getting my sea legs again in regards to this project, and had spent a fair amount of time going over the previously done drawings and making sure I was completely understanding where things were at and where they needed to go.

That drawing work continues in regards to sorting the details out on the skirt and feet which fit below the cabinet sill, but otherwise everything seems to be worked out satisfactorily, including the somewhat complicated connection between posts and the sill and skirt/feet assemblies.

In this round, a bit of attention was devoted to the top and bottom carcase panels, both of which are edge-to-edge glue-ups of mostly quartersawn wood. I gave it a once over with a finishing plane in preparation for some joinery work to come:

I tend to get these sort of fibrous shavings from mahogany:

Once the surfaces were cleaned up – andI will give the upper surfaces a final pass before  assembly at a later point – I cut the sliding dovetail trenches in the underside:

I use a Japanese dovetail bit with a somewhat steeper angle than most bits found over here:

The other panel, which fits to the sill frame, came out similarly to the top, and it should since they are the same size as one another:

There’s one more panel yet to be dealt with, one of 3/8″ (9.5mm) thickness which covers the middle shelf with incorporated drawer bank. I have yet to glue up the two boards for that step.

Next, I got to working on the frame corner joints for the sill assembly. These are the same joints as were employed on the upper frame corners and described in earlier posts. The cut out is the same as before and while it might be repetitive, I decided to post some pics anyway. Hopefully readers will bear with me.

Here I’ve just cleaned an abutment to the line marked using a down-shear bit – and if you look closely you’ll see a trace of the knife line at the top:

I knifed the lines on the first pair of sticks but later realized that the down-shear bit was giving clean arrises so didn’t bother to knife the joints on the long side frame rails.

Another view, another corner:

No knife lines on that one to worry about.

A few more cutting operations took place, not pictured, and got these sill corner joints to the point today where a first trial fit could be ventured:

A look at one of the corners:

A look at the inside of a (nearly) completed joint half:

The tongues are slightly slimmer than they might be otherwise as the sill will have some profiling work done on it later to the upper and lower arrises.

Another view:

A different corner:

The miters are open a hair still and I’m not concerned. The joint is cut such that the current stick’s dimension remains a little oversized for the allotted space, so the miter portion should meet tight once I’ve finish planed the back edges of the sticks. Well, that’s the plan at least.

A few more views of the assembly upon initial trial fit –  I was pleased that this is how they went together right off the bat, and they were tight to draw up but not overly so:

Another corner:

Another corner:

These should clean up well with a few plane passes:

I’m satisfied with how these joints came out. There’s a lot of cut out yet to do, both on these joints and on the sill pieces otherwise. Next steps on these sill piece will be cutting the trenches for the shachi sen, plus fabricating the pins themselves, then cutting dados on the inside edges for the panel, then on to the mortises for the half-dovetailed batten tenons. And in regards to that, I have yet to prep the stock for the battens that attach to the underside of the sill framework. So, lots ahead yet, and I hope you’ll swing by later on to see what sort of misadventures I can get into. Thanks for your visit today. Post 13 to follow.