Dark Chocolate and Sponge Cake (21)

The sides of this cabinet are designed to allow loads of crosswise airflow, and yet serve as an important structural member, having stiffness against shear:

The latticed hexagonal frame work with its (apparently) fully woven construction connects to the surrounding framework using floating tenons. These connections will all be glued.

The work on building the lattices themselves was one of the first aspects of this project to be tackled. So they were sitting waiting in a stack, and I’ve been steadily working my way back to them for the past while.

The last blog entry featured the sliding dovetail mortises on many parts, including the stiles for the latticed panels. One the front sides of those same parts a whole pile of mortises have been placed:

A closer look at the section having the mortises and dado for the middle rails and the panel sandwiched between them:

It was a lot of mortising, and very enjoyable. The main excavation work was done on the hollow chisel mortiser, and required additional clean out in the bottom of the blind mortises, so it was a two-step sorta thing.

Here’s an initial fit of of one of the latticed panels to a pair of rails:

I had made the latticed panels as square as I could, and they will in fact be the items that determine whether this frame and panel assembly is to be square-cornered overall or not.

At this point in the proceedings, the miters have not been cut at the frame corners, and the parts can not come any closer to one another. That miter work needs to be done before the many tenon locations can be marked directly onto the stiles.

Here is how much closer the parts get after the miters are trimmed back:

After the mortises are marked out, they are cut on the hollow chisel mortiser, and then cleaned out with a 6mm chisel.

In the next picture I have completed the mortising work on all the frame members for one side of the cabinet. After dry assembly, no clamps, one can see the ballpark we are playing in:

A second corner now:

Then the 3rd corner:

The first panel together, I wanted to take a look at it in the orientation it has within the cabinet, so I sat it on a sawhorse:

A view from the other side:

I’m thinking this assembly looks nice even when at an incomplete stage. Of course the middle panel has not been fitted yet, and that will transform the appearance somewhat I would imagine.

Here’s a look at how the panel is resting when on a fairly flat surface, in this case, the pairing of upper and lower frames:

I was pleased to find that it looks to be without any twist or bow, and lays flat. That was the goal.

Another view:

I’m liking the pairing of the cuban Mahogany frame with Honduran Mahogany lattice. It’s the tonal theme for the whole cabinet, and I think it will work quite well.

Next up will be to complete the the same work to put together the opposing side of the cabinet, and then sort something out with those intermediate panels. Then probably finish plane the parts, and glue them up. And I still have a bunch of mortising to do on the upper and lower frames for the battens which connect across and support the panel in each frame.

Thanks for coming by the Carpentry Way. Next up is post 22.