Category: Armoire

I finally finished the first drawer. No pictures. I’m a little disappointed with how it turned out. The tails aren’t as tight as I wanted, plus when I clamped everything together I didn’t seat the pieces entirely. In the past I had overclamped drawers, I didn’t want to repeat that mistake here. The result was that the tail boards didn’t seat flush with the pin boards.

I spent the weekend working on one of the drawers for the armoire. It’s not done yet- I have to mill the pins for the half-blinds to finish up the dovetailing. Followed by cutting the grooves for the drawer bottom, installing the cleat and drawerslide clips, and cutting the two recesses in the drawer back that the drawerslides ride in.

When I actually sit and consider everything that needs to be done to make a drawer for this thing, I realize just how unrealistic my timeframe was for building them. I’d hoped I could build a drawer in a day or so. After roughly 12 hours, I’m still working on the dovetailing. Plus, I’ve got 2 more drawers after this.

Oy.

Even though I immensely enjoy the end result and the sense of accomplishment that comes with well executed, hand cut dovetails there are parts of the process that are a drag. In my case, the most tedious part is also arguably the most important part of the whole process: the layout.

When I first started I marked, by hand, the depth line as well as each point of the tails and then draw the line using a ruler. Then I picked up a template which gives me a couple of angles to choose from for the tails. With the template, I only have to make tick marks along the tail-depth line, lineup the template and mark my line. So it reduced the amount of marking by half.

Most recently I received my marking gauge- now marking the depth line is a breeze. Just set it and draw it across all four sides of the board on each end. Between the template and the gauge, my marking time dropped dramatically.

After marking the first side up completely for the tail layout, I realized that I could streamline the process for the remaining boards by using a story stick. I fashioned one up as a ‘T’ so that I had a constant reference for making the marks on the board. I then trasferred the marks from my first completed side to the storystick using my marking knife. From there, it was a simple matter of methodically trasferring the storystick marks to the remaining boards, then using the template to mark the tails.

The other benefit I gained was consistency. By transferring the layout to the storystick, I greatly reduced my opportunity for layout error. I also eliminated a lot of the minor variations that would have otherwise cropped up while re-measuring the layout for each board.

Lastly, I marked up all 6 boards, both ends, in about an hour. As a sanity check I lined up all 6 boards and eyeballed the marks to see how the registered with one another. They all lined up perfectly. Can’t argue with results like that.

I’d been meaning to write this up for a couple of weeks but a number of things have conspired to keep me from it. I finally assembled the portion of the armoire that I’ve been working on lo these many months. If curious, there’s a picture of it after the jump. Go ahead, I can wait…

When my armoire project was still in the planning stages, I knew that it would have drawers. I just hadn’t settled on the size of the drawers. As luck would have it I found some exceptionally nice looking cherry boards that were planed on both sides and still close to a full 4/4 thick and a little over 8″ wide. It didn’t take me long to decide to use those boards as the drawer fronts. They also solved my drawer sizing problems. I planned to make the drawer’s a full 8″ deep, thus using as much of the boards as possible.

Because I haven’t had enough experience making drawer runners, or slides, using all wood I decided to go with the Blum slides. Everything I read about them indicated they were top notch. The only drawback I came across was that the drawers had to be made to fairly rigourous specifications in order to work with the slides.

I really underestimated the meaning of ‘rigorous specifications.’

Finally, today, a little gluing. A lot of milling and fitting and cutting and thinking has gone into this thing thus far. It’s funny, when asked about it I usually reply “It’s not that complicated, all it I’m doing is building boxes.” Well, taking a look at all the mortises in the posts and the tenons on the stretchers and the extra milling to tenons to get everything to fit together properly, it’s clear that it’s a little more than building boxes.

At this point, pictures are more clear than words, so here we go.

I didn’t get a chance to mention, but the Blum drawer slides have arrived. Holy moly, they are HEAVY. I pulled them out and now I can understand why they’re rated for 100 pounds.

The down side of their sturdiness is that they take up a lot of room. The upshot is that I’m going to lose at least an inch of space on inside height of the drawers because of the size of the slides. Normally, for drawers of the size I’ll be making for the armoire, I’d leave about 3/8″ to support the drawer bottom. With the slide size, I’ll have to leave considereably more so the slides can fit on the bottom of the drawer.

It’s a bit of a bummer because I had originally thought the drawers would be a little oversized compared to what I’ve seen for similarly designed armoires. That extra space is going to be used up accomodating the slides.

The good news is that I can definitely get some assembly done now. I’ll post pics when I can.

Having decided on and ordered the drawer slides, I had hoped I would finally be in position to get some gluing done. No such luck. I did finish the supports for the drawer slides which now leaves the drawers and the top as the main items left to works on. The reason I didn’t get any of the glue-up done is that I couldn’t get the material I wanted for the drawer separators and back.

All right, here’s a shot of what’s been accomplished so far. Nothing is glued up here, everything is just dry fit. I still have to mill dado’s for the rear panel and I also have to put a taper on the adjacent inner sides of each of the posts. That will all be easier to do if it isn’t glued up. I’ll also put a fairly wide chamfer on the front corners of the posts. Again, easier to do if everything isn’t assembled. Mainly it’s assembled to make sure the panels don’t warp.

The story stick ended up being a worthwhile diversion. It’s definitely a technique I’ll use again. I didn’t realize it at the time, but a big advantage of the story stick is that you can make mistakes on IT and still be in a situation to correct them. With it, I was able to layout all 4 posts, 2 sides per post, in about 10 minutes. When I did the original layouts, it took about 30 minutes for matching sides because of all the redundant measurements.

After getting everything marked, I once again laid everything out together for a sanity check. Everything looked good. Finally, time to cut some mortises.

I can honestly say that I’m glad I didn’t really get much done in the shop today.

Not that I didn’t try to. I was actually hoping to fit some of the stretchers into their mortises; with an outside shot of doing a little glue up. In the end, all I really got done was trimming the tenons on the stretchers for the front and back, and getting the rails for the sides cut along with their tenons.

I thought I had marked the layout lines on the posts for the mortises. After I had finished the third attempt and realized I had gotten it wrong again, I decided it was time to call it quits. How did I get it wrong 3 times? Because I’d forgotten the details involved that I had so meticulously thought through a week or two ago and I didn’t thoroughly inspect the notes I’d taken at the time.

After the first markup, I realized I’d forgotten to account for the shoulder cuts. Having remarked everything for the second time, I then forgot to allow 1/4 inch for spacing around the drawer. So I marked it up a third time. When I finished, the last tenon was too close to the end of the post; I knew I had left a margin for error. Finally, I went back to my notes. I figured out that instead of starting the layout at 4″ from the bottom of the post, I should have started 3″ from the bottom of the post.

Man, was I glad I hadn’t cut any mortises like I’d considered doing. Next time, I’ll make a story stick when I’ve worked out those details for a non-trivial layout.

Believe it or not, that pile of wood is going to be an armoire. Well, that’s not completely correct- I actually need to get more before all is said and done. Mainly the cherry. Hopefully I won’t need anymore maple. I’ll need some plywood as well so I can close up the back.

But still, can you see it? Those pieces of cherry on the left are the 3 drawer fronts. The wider maple boards on the right are the drawer boxes. The 8/4 maple will be the posts. The 12″ wide pieces of cherry will be the panels for the sides of the armoire. The narrower pieces of maple are the stretchers between the drawers and rails on the sides.

The details are what always get me in these projects. The bigger the project, the more important the details. Typically I draw complete plans prior to buying the wood. That way I have an idea of what width boards I need as well as what lengths I can cut them to so that I can get them into a vehicle. (Most boards that are roughcut are 10’+ in length. They’ll let you cut them, but you have to buy the whole board.) I’ve already been bitten by details in this project. Since I didn’t know the details regarding lengths, some of the boards that are cut are an inch or two short.

Of course, I had my reasons for doing it this way. Having plans is no guarantee against mistakes either. At least, not for me. Many of my plans that I’ve done have had flaws in them for one reason or another. Those flaws don’t become apparent until I get to a point in the project where they do become apparent.

In this particular case, I saw the cherry board and new it was the drawer fronts for the armoire. I wanted to maximize the usage of the boards but I couldn’t tell for sure what the dimensions would end up being. Thus, I had to guess at lengths for the maple, but I was a little off. In particular, I didn’t allow extra length for the tenons on the ends of the wood that is to become the stretcher. Bummer. Still, I should be able to make it work.

At this point, I’ve got the drawer fronts sized and I’ve cut the four posts for the lower portion of the armoire. I’m making it as an upper cabinet portion and a lower dresser. The top of the dresser will serve as the bottom for the cabinet. I’ll pin the front posts of the cabinet into the top of the dresser for alignment, but this will allow the dresser top to move without stressing the cabinet. I don’t have all the details figured out For instance, I’m still trying to decide if the door frames will be maple or cherry. I’m leaning towards cherry, thus making them all cherry doors, but I’m not completely decided. Also, the top of the cabinet is a bit murky. Will I mill some cornice? or put some kind of crown up there? The biggest question mark is the interior of the cabinet. I want to put more than just some shelves in there. But I’m not sure of anything beyond that.

There’s plenty more to come on this project. I’m looking forward to it.