embroidery box with 13 drawers

[devonwoody]

Stop Press.

Couldn't wait to finish off the other joints, I had to have another setup.

Frames reasonably square.

First lot of boxes in with sliders in place.

All boxes and sliders together with top lids in place and fit.

Looks if I was rather optomistic about finishing this weekend, more horizontal bars to joint plus rear vertical frames plus a top handle and the 13 drawer handles etc etc etc etc.

 

[devonwoody]

Eureka! (seem to remember that word from a film in the 1950's about gold mining in Australia)

All frames have now been completed and since the photograph taken the joints have been cleaned up using a belt and the an orbital sander. Therefore its back to the kitchen this evening to do the last gluing on the frames setup.

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[devonwoody]

The first row of sliders are being glued in position with drawers holding the slider in place whilst PVA glue sets. Epoxy glue was not used in the finish in case there was a 24 hour handling period involved. The PVA I know from experience means I can put on another drawer set hopefully after 1 hour if fitting setup is OK.
This part of the build is slow going because if everything goes right first time there is 5 hours plus involved, longer if drawers are going to need adjustments to their base to allow a clean slide at each row.

A closer view:

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[devonwoody]

Three rows of drawers now fitted and hoping the remaining 4 pieces do not give me any stick. Gluing was restricted to the evening session again, and just afew minutes in the workshop machining up the handles for the drawers, which will again have to be done in the warmth of the kitchen later in the week.

However I am feeling very relaxed knowing that I must be approaching the last round up.

 

[devonwoody]

All runners and drawers together with fitted lids are now complete, this only leaves handles and compartments inside boxes .

Two of the runner strips snapped owing to wild grain but were easily replaced by breaking off runners at glued point and then cleaning out remaining strip left in rebate. The runners were cut from some reclaimed teak timber. I reckon good old English oak like the first piece of furniture would have been more suitable with hindsight.

The three photographs attached today show a front, side and rear view and the next insertion to thread should show the completed project apart from the finish which on my past history will be some time forthcoming. I dont mind making pieces but the finish of a piece never grabs my immediate attention and sometimes in the past it might be some weeks before that stage happens.
However it will be a number of coats of shellac and then wax polish applied, no staining is anticipated.
front view

side view

rear view

I did also have a further mishap and severe warning yesterday, I set up my mitre/chop saw to start cutting the 13 handles all to a uniform length of 66 mm and put a stop block on the right hand side of the saw table, in addition I clamped down the lefthand end as my usual practice, when I pulled down the saw the right hand end shot off and has not been seen again. It went off with such force it could have gone through the concrete block walls of my shop.
I want to use the chop saw and not my tablesaw because the cut is much cleaner. Comments and advice on correct usage of chop saw for this kind of cut much appreciated.

 

[orangetlh]

Hello, love the project so far, cant wait to see it finished! Im guessing the reason why the handles are flying off is beacuse they are dropping into the gap between the back fence and the blade, jamming up and the blade is throwing them out. Try making a false fence to cover the whole of the opening and then put a single saw cut through so the handles cant fall into the blade.

 

[woodshavings]

Hi DW - what a great project - your work rate puts me to shame!
Regarding your mitre saw issue, I seem to remember reading in one of the Dewalt handbooks that you should always leave one side of the workpiece free so it removes any likelyhood of binding if the cut skews for any reason.
John

 

[devonwoody]

Went out to the workshop this morning and it felt cold, around 1c and frost all around so left it until after lunch and went back in again and then found the frost was thawing off the underside of the roof at around 4c. So what did I do? , I took the day off and went flying. Got out the Cesna and did a flight .

However the day was not wasted because I have solved my problem of crosscutting with the chop saw as per pictures below.

A fixed stop is fixed on the right hand side and then the correct size spacer (cut by hand) is placed against the stop, the length needing cut to this spacer size is then placed against the temporary stop, finally the temporary stop is removed and cut can then be made which will not be trapped .In addition I will certainly put that false fence into operation mentioned above by Orangeth. By the way the flying trip was made using Microsoft flight sim.

 

[devonwoody]

The temperature reached double figures in the workshop today and forcast the same for next few days.

Very messy sort of day which also involved a force start. Handles were eventually cut OK using the setup mentioned previously.

I then proceeded to drill a hole for screw support after handles were cut to both the drawer front and the rear side of handles.

However the wife called in the workshop and said the handle alignment was making her feel giddy. They did not go up the furniture in a straight vertical line.
So the drawer hole was left at its original setting but the handle was top and tailed so that the hole no longer aligned. I then put a bearing stick each side of the handle position,

and put in some old engineering feelers, placed at each handle position to avoid handles sticking to each other and to provide some space between each drawer

Doing a follow on thread to accommodate more pictures.

 

[devonwoody]

Follow on of above thread.

screwed a temporary bar across and pushed in a wedge to keep the handle in place whilst glue set.

I did have to resort to the kitchen for the gluing process and a bit of light woodwork like cutting the wedges and screwing on the temporary crossbars so I have shewn the disgraceful mess the kitchen finished in for the evening.

Seeing that the glue takes one hour to set and there are three colomns this is going to mean a second visit to the kitchen again tomorrow evening.

The wife did pop into her kitchen later in the evening, and she said, “Bluddy H ell” but fortunately the commercial was just finishing on the TV and she was again fully occupied by the boys in blue.

Nearly there
:wink:

 

[Anonymous]

DW

FANTASTIC!!! and mrs DW's work too :shock:

I am truly very impressed with both your efforts and supremely jealous of your 'free' time :wink:

 

[devonwoody]

DW



I am truly very impressed with both your efforts and supremely jealous of your 'free' time :wink:

Thank you Tony, when people say things like that to me, I know I must be living the best way.

 

[devonwoody]

Well the project was started I see the 29th October and 40 days hence I call the project finished, I know, I know, I know it has not had a finishing coat applied or compartments fitted but the woodwork is complete. So I will leave a little while in situ to acclimatize and if drawers continue to operate smoothly I will apply shellac and polish without any stain.

The finishing touches involved a couple of hiccups, two of the handles finished up around 1mm short, but I was able to cut a slice off an waste offcut with the bandsaw and glue on to the top of each offending handle.

In addition two more sliders have snapped (the grain of this teak does not seem to run the length of a strip and consequentially seems to have no guts) I have some oak offcuts purchased from the last Yandles show that was intended for small jewellery boxes so sometime I will cut out the rails and afix new oak runners.

So here are a series of photographs showing different angles of the embroidery box.

Its resting place will be here:

The original box will reside at the other end of the furniture line.

Thanks all for looking, together with all those helpful comments. These all made me stick at the job and committed me to producing what I consider a successful outcome.

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[syntec4]

Well done devon, looks very well made. What finish will you use?



Lee.

 

[CHJ]

Well done John, now what are you making for her for Christmas :ho2

 

[dedee]

DW, it really has been enjoyable watching this thread. Can't wait to see it with the finish on. Mrs DW must be really pleased


Andy

 

[devonwoody]

Is'nt it a shame how all good things come to an end