Sliding Trays – Part 4
2012.01.10
Today I started working on the sides of the bottom tool tray. I crosscut the four pieces out of the two halves of the board I had resawn, squared the ends on the shooting board, and did some additional planing to the faces.
To pull the tray out when the middle tray is above it, I would need either a knob or handle of some sort, or just a hole to hook my finger through. I decided to go with the hole. When cutting out the various side pieces, I had tried to work it out so that the pull hole would replace a knot, with the grain swirling around. I drilled the hole with a forstner bit, using a cheesy drilling guide with my cordless drill.
2012.01.16
I started dovetailing the sides today.
2012.01.17
2012.01.29
After finishing the dovetails today, I quickly made some clamping blocks. I intentionally made the dovetails extra long, so that I can plane them back to the finished face after the glue dries. But this interferes with using the clamps to draw the joints tight. So the clamping blocks span across, allowing the force of the clamps to push where they need to.
2012.01.30
After clamping the joints overnight, I went around planing them down to the faces. They’re certainly the work of an amateur, but I’m reasonably pleased for my first dovetails in hardwood. On one set though, I had accidentally sawn to the wrong side of my lines, so during glue-up I added a couple wedges.
Sliding Trays III