The top for the armoire ended up with slightly mixed results. Pictures are after the jump, but the quick and dirty version is the mitres came out very well, but the edge joinery ended up being off a little. In the end, I think my assembly procedure was in error.
Here are the two mitre joints. No gaps are visible, I just have to finish cleaning one of them up.
Pretty much the results I was aiming for. The gap in the second photo right at the mitre joint is due to a muff where the piece fell onto the floor. I hate that.
I’ll have to try a different approach in the future to eliminate the gap. I can live with it in this instance because ultimately, the top is going to be covered by the cabinet portion of the armoire. Thus, those gaps will be invisible. The mitres, however, will be plainly visible. But then I don’t have much cause for complaint with them.
Here’s what the top looks like:
I just have to cut it to the proper width. The front border and two pieces in the field are splined together. The spline in the middle actually extends out into a groove in the border. There are also splines between the endgrain of the boards and the borders pieces. Those splines are merely for support of the field. They are not glued so the field can expand and contract. One of the splines can be seen in the top left corner of the photo- between the border piece and the end of the board that butts into it.
To complete the assembly of this portion, I just have to deal with the following:
My options are to fill that gap with some kind of molding piece (which would be interrupted by the posts at the corners) or to lop off the posts so the top sets down onto the front and side stretchers. A molding piece would be nice for visual interest, but I’m not crazy about the posts interrupting the lines of a piece of molding. Obviously, cutting the posts would be quick and simple.
Details lurk at every corner it seems.