First real furniture project. Sideboard. Need some help.

[BearTricks]

Mostly been doing turning up until now. Aside from some small projects like boxes and a simple dining table, I haven't built any real furniture.

I want to build something similar to the attached image, with an extra drawer on the right instead of that hinged glass thing.

My main issue is that the boards I want to use are only 15mm thick, which seems a bit thin and flimsy to me. Am I right? My other issue is attaching the legs. I'll turn the legs on the lathe, but what kind of reinforcement would they need when I stick them on there?

 

[MattRoberts]

What material are the boards? Hardwood would be fine, but to be honest you'd be able to get away with softwood too as long as the structure was sturdy.

Alternatively, you could double up material and plane it down.

As for the legs, as long as they're vertical and not angled, they should be fine (assuming you're not putting a huge load on them).

Might want to align the bottom partitions with the top drawer too

 

[custard]

It's a banker's bet that the photo you posted is veneered MDF or ply, therefore there's no shrinkage to deal with so they fastened two timber battons, running front to back, and the legs fasten into those. You can just see the corner of one of the battons peaking out in the photo.

Going back to very early planked furniture that would also have been the traditional way of attaching legs to case furniture, but they dealt with the movement in solid timber by nailing through the bottom of the case into the battons, nails flex and allow a bit of shrinkage. I'd do something similar, but maybe with screws in elongated slots, if you want to glue as well then only at the front end of the battons otherwise it'll all split once you get it indoors near a radiator. Better still would be to build it from veneered MDF, that would be entirely consistent with the mid century Danish design and would spare you any worries about shrinkage.

As was previously mentioned, for Gawd's sake line up the drawer dividers with the case partitions, it looks terrible with them off-set like that.

 

[Bm101]

Think that hinged glass thing is a record player Bear

 

[gasman]

If they are hardwood - spell or iroko or aformosia etc - then IMHO 15 mm would be fine. Softwood not so good. It needs to be dry enough - I agree the pictured one looks veneered to me. You could always make 8 legs rather than 4 and have 4 of the legs under where the partitions are??
Mark