It was time to check the fit of the post lower tenons to the lower frame long side members:
A closer look at one of those connections:
These needed to be a slip fit, not too tight but definitely not sloppy, which is the point I believe I reached. As you can see, the rebated portion of the back post is only rough cut at this stage. The finish cut was done later on with my shaper, the Zuani ‘Jolly’ cutter head in place for the task.
Next, it was time to radically alter the cross section of the front posts. These present a portion of surface 45˚ which is to the face of the cabinet. I first ripped fat of the 45˚ mark with my table saw. A big concern after those cuts was whether the sticks would move in a bad way or not. The answer was ‘no’, fortunately.
Then I set up the Aigner back-fence on the shaper and used a 2-knife chamfer knife pair of the corrugated type in cutter head to clean up the beveled surface. This is the set up, though the stock feeder blocks much of the view:
The chamfer knife pair of cutters I have however are not quite tall enough for this task, so a portion of the beveled face was not touched by the run through the shaper:
The other portion of this face, which stands 45˚ in relation to the beveled cut just taken, is also over-dimension at this point, but one thing at a time.
For the left over portion of the beveled surface, I cleaned up by way of shoulder plane and chisels:
The two posts had been very cooperative throughout, as you can see when they are placed back to back and exhibit no bowing or warp:
That doesn’t mean that Cuban mahogany doesn’t warp, as I have found with some other pieces. If you want to produce slender structural members, you need a wood that behaves well when it is cut. Fortunately, you can tell pretty much when you cut into a board how it is going to behave, especially as you become more familiar with a species. Some sticks move a bunch at first and then much less with subsequent machining passes, but other sticks warp with every cut, regardless of how long you may have let them rest between cuts.
Another view:
The arrises are sharp at this stage, but their ultimate form will be different.
Then I took the two posts on another run through the shaper, climb cutting along the back fence, but with a Zuani head in there which was set up for rebating. With this set up I cleaned the remaining portion of the beveled front face a lot closer to final dimension:
All for this round. Thanks for coming by!
