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 should be able to clean it up and make it look OK. A little planing here and there should do the trick. Filling in a some of the gaps between the tails and pins will be a little more difficult. Not impossible. I’ve already cut some slivers I can use to fill them. There aren’t a lot of gaps. Just enough to bother me. It gives it a sloppy kind of look instead of that nice clean look that quality dovetails have. After the letter drawer project, I had hoped for better.
One thing I tried, and it worked well, regarding the half-blinds was using the dovetail saw to cut the lines on an angle. This technique actually requires following 2 lines at the same time- the depth line into the board and the angle line defining the pin socket. A picture is worth a thousand words here so I’ll do that in another post. Anyway, by using the saw to cut the line, as opposed to chiseling the lines out, I gained some wiggle room that allowed me to make much crisper cuts along the layout lines with the chisel. It makes a big difference in the final result.
I also learned something important- never trust a square when checking the drawer for square. Always measure the diagonal corners to determine squareness. I spent about 4 hours trying to adjust the drawer on the slides only to finally determine that the drawer and the cabinet were racked thus preventing the drawer from fully retracting into the opening. Once I figured that out, I was able to tune the drawer up in about 5 minutes.
I’ll be altering my process for building the drawer in the hopes of doing it a little more efficiently. I’ve already begun gluing up the pieces of cedar for the drawer bottoms. I also used the dovetail saw to make an extra cut to help me remove more of the waste between the tails. The extra cut allows me to get the coping saw in more easily first. Second, it allows me to more consistently remove more of the waste from the tail board. I’ll probably do something similar for the pin board.
A few random notes. The aromatic cedar smells nice- but the wood is brittle. Also, the dust tends to stick and clump. I assume because of resins. All of my clear dust collection hoses are red now because of the dust. The wood does cut fairly easily, despite the brittleness. I started teaching myself to cut tails with my left hand so that I can see the cut line when I have to set the saw to the left of the line. Should come in handy for the pin board as well. Interestingly, after some practice cuts I was actually more consistent cutting with my left arm. Likely that means I should concentrate a little more when cutting with my right.
I’ve already started on drawer number two. I’ll post some pics as the opportunities arise.