The 2019 Book Sale continues on so please check back there if you are interested. I intend to add more books in coming days.
Progress on the two-mahogany cabinet has been steady, and a few milestones have been reached. It’s nice to see things transform.
The back panel framework is mostly done, at least up to the point of being an assembled frame:
For some reason the camera lens is making it look like the rail is bowed up, but it’s actually nice and straight. The battens still need to be trimmed into sliding dovetails on their panel-facing sides, and then fitted to the panels.
The junctions for the battens meeting at the middle stile employ rod tenons which will eventually have tiny little shachi pins, yet to be laid out or cut:
This time we have some overview photos in which the cabinet is standing in its intended orientation with respect to the floor. I’ve started in on fitting the drawer framing to the case:
The rails have small dovetails at their ends – here’s one end of the back of the cabinet:
A closer look at the four back connections of the drawer support rails:
Two:
Three:
Four reveals a slight gap atop the dovetail:
It helps to have the photo to look at, as I had not spotted it otherwise. This location is completely obscured by the rear frame and panel unit, so there is no aesthetic concern, but in interests of mechanical strength I will glue a bit of material to the male dovetail cheek to pack it out.
Here I’m working on the step of final fitting of all the crosspieces to drawer rails and central dividers. In this view, the lower drawer support rails are being clamped to the rear set of rails and associated central divider:
A fair amount goes on in a little space:
Once the crosspieces were all test-fitted, I could move to assembling the drawer support framing to the case:
The drawer rails are partially supported by the tenon connections on the crosspieces, which are in turn mechanically connected to the rear of the latticed panel units by way of a tongue and groove connection:
I’ve been waiting months to see this stage reached:
You may wonder what the mortise in the middle of the vertical strut at the back is for:
After all, the vertical strut at the front does not have such a mortise:
A little mark from the power planer needs to be attended to there. Many of the parts are yet to be finish planed.
With the demountable back frame assembly in place at the back, we can see the connection to the back of the drawer partition framing, and that a hammerhead key connection is placed in the middle stile. This key passes right through the stile and into the mortise shown earlier on the back drawer framing’s middle strut.
This is a junction which, in concert with cross-wise dadoes on the back panel middle stile, serves to lock the back panel frame to the drawer partitioning and help support it against any tendency to sag
I’m doing a certain bit of load distribution to ward off any potential deleterious loading or even simply the effects of time and gravity on the framing by having adjacent members contribute to each other’s strength once connected. It’s one of the main aspects to the way the framing joints developed for this cabinet, working with constraints brought about by assembly sequence, along with to adhering to stock size limits I had with the frame material, and a design direction pushing ever-lighter framing elements in the first place. This, to interest of maximizing air flow and giving a graceful appearance.
At this stage I at last have the opportunity to drive the hammerhead key in and that will allow me to mark out the location of the fixing pin on the interior:
Additional strength is achieved once the two frameworks are locked together. The key’s head, once seated, sits slightly proud of the surface and will receive a light chamfer soon enough:
Also securing the back frame’s outer stiles to the associated rear posts are 8 lipped keys, four per side, I thought worth a mention, one of which is shown here slid partway into position:
All for this time – thanks so much for dropping by and having a look-see. Comments always welcome.