Tool Chest Lid – Part 2

2011.07.30

After dry fitting the rails and stiles together, I measured for the panel and then ripped and crosscut it to size.  In a typical panel door, such as for a kitchen cabinet, the panel joint is a tongue-in-groove, with the panel thinner than the surrounding rails and stiles (at least where it fits into the groove).  To provide extra strength for the tool chest lid though, the panel is the same thickness as the rails and stiles.  Therefore, the connection is a groove-in-groove.  The panel will sit proud on the outside, and recessed on the inside.  I first plowed the grooves on the end grain, then the long sides.  In the first photo, I had clamped a scrap of wood to the far end to prevent the edge from blowing out as I plowed the groove across the end grain.  Better the scrap splits on the exit side than the workpiece.

Plowing groove in tool chest lid panel
Grooves plowed in tool chest lid panel

The first two tenons I had made went into the back rail.  A combination of errors had caused them to end up less than ideal, and so I had some concerns about whether there would be enough contact surface for the glue to hold.  Therefore, I decided to drawbore the tenons.

So I first rived some red oak and drove the pieces through my homemade dowel plate to make the pegs.  I drilled the offset holes in the mortises and tenons and got ready to glue the stiles into the back rail.

Making drawbore pegs

After spreading glue, I put each tenon board into the corresponding mortise.  Then I began to drive the first peg in place.  And that’s when everything went wrong.  It seems that I had drilled the offset too extreme for this combination of relatively soft yellow pine and hard red oak.  The peg just wouldn’t go through.  A couple good whacks with the hammer and at last it pushed through… except it didn’t. It never made it through the rest of the hole in the mortise board, instead the force split a large chunk of that board.  Aaaaaaaaaah!  Sorry for the blurry photo but I was in a bit of a panic.  I thought I would never manage to finagle the peg back out, all the while worrying about the glue setting up.  (Fortunately, once warmed up, liquid hide glue has a long open time.)  After I had extracted the peg, I practically flooded glue under the wayward chunk, pressed it back down in place, and added a small F-style clamp.  Whew.  Nevermind that drawboring business, I decided.

Drawboring gone wrong
Fixing blown-out mortise board

2011.08.06

Well, what to do with the drawbore holes, especially the one which had been torn out in the process of removing the peg.  I decided to drill them out to 3/8″ (they were 1/4″ originally), and fill them with some 3/8″ hardwood dowel I had.  Redrilling the holes larger by hand was not the cleanest result either, unfortunately, but after some face planing it will probably be ok.

Dowel to go through mortise and tenon
Dowels in mortise and tenon

I had to do some face planing on the panel and the frame to get the panel to fit, but at length it slid in.  To allow for wood movement, the panel is about 1/4″ narrower than the full distance from bottom of rail groove to bottom of rail groove.  It is nearly the full distance between the stiles.

Tool chest lid with panel in place, waiting for front rail
Tool chest lid groove-in-groove joint

I removed the panel one more time to add a small chamfer around the top edge.  Then I slipped the panel back in and glued the front rail in place.

Small chamfer on tool chest lid panel
Tool chest lid frame and panel glued and clamped

After letting the glue set, I sawed and planed the extra length from the rails to match the outer edges of the stiles.  The extra bits are called “horns”, and are to help prevent the end from blowing out while chopping the mortises.  These aren’t really long enough to be proper horns, but, that’s the idea.