Popular Woodworking 2001-12 № 125, страница 34
With the drawer dividers assembled and installed, the moulding is ready to go on.The top moulding was made using a roman ogee bit in two steps, then nailed in place.The lower moulding is cut to provide the bracket base design using the scaled patterns provided, then an attractive profile is run on the top edge.The rest is simply mitering and nailing in place. The drawers are built to match the traditional style of the original piece, wth the backs captured in through-dovetails to the sides, and the fronts attached to the sides with half-blind dove-tails.The bottoms are simply nailed onto the sides, which would be a poor idea in anything larger than these drawers.Though the materials list doesn't call out the pieces for it, I added a very typical secret drawer behind one of the drawers. TrADiTiONAL DOVETAiLED DRAWERS Not only is the construction of the drawers traditional, the secret hiding spaces are as well.The spices kept in these boxes were already considered valuable, but the original builders wanted to make it possible to store even more valuable items undetected. Behind both second-tier, shortened drawers are secret drawers. It's a nice touch, but it's your choice.The sizes given in the materials list are for full-depth drawers in those spaces.You can change the dimensions as you like to add your own secret. Construction of the drawers uses half-blind dovetails to mate the fronts and sides,and through-dovetails to mate the backs and sides.The bottoms are simply tacked on to the sides and back using brads.This method of attaching the bottoms will prove sufficient to carry the amount of weight in these small drawers. Each drawer uses three dovetail pins per joint, and all that I made were hand-cut. Start by cutting the drawer fronts to fit in each of the spaces with about '/I6" clearance on all sides.With all the fronts cut, set up a router to cut a '/4" high x Vs" rabbet on the inside bottom edge of each front.The sides should align with the top of the rabbet, so go ahead and lay out your dovetails on the fronts, sides and backs and get comfortable. With all the dovetails cut and fit, cut the bottoms to width for each drawer, but leave them a little long. The length of the drawer bottom will serve as a stop against the case back to keep the drawer fronts aligned properly.The exception to this is with any secret drawers. Leave only a longer bottom on the secret drawer and make the front drawer bottom flush to the back.Assemble the drawers with glue, then tack the bottoms in place using a few small brads. Trim the drawer bottoms so that everything aligns in front nicely, then add the simple screw-on knobs to the drawers. Follow the same finishing technique for the drawers as for the main case and you're ready to start filling up your spice box. |
