Popular Woodworking 2002-02 № 126, страница 74

ASIAN

Bedside Table

Building cabinetry can give you a serious case of Zen Buddhism. In fact, the contradictions in woodworking are sometimes amusing — if not enlightening. Cabinets, for the most part, are more air than wood.

To build a piece of furniture is mostly a process of removing wood. And to make a project look as simple and plain as this one does, it is quite a complicated process.

Now before you start worrying that this simple bedside table is too much for your woodworking skills, remember my favorite Bulgarian proverb: "If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water."

Frames and Panels

Except for two small pieces of plywood in the sliding doors, this project is made entirely out of solid wood. To account for the seasonal expansion and contraction of the material, the table is built using a series of frame-and-panel assemblies. In a nutshell, all of the frames are connected using mortise-and-tenon joinery. The panels all rest in ³/s"-wide x ³/s"-deep grooves in the frames. After you have milled all the parts using the cutting list and glued up any panels you might need, I recommend you begin by building the doors.

Lightweight but Solid Sliding Doors

The sliding doors on this table run in V4"-wide x ¹/4"-deep grooves cut into the frame pieces. Once this table is glued up, the doors are in

there for good. (You can easily make the doors removable by deepening the grooves in the top rail and increasing the width of the tongue on the top of the doors.) To ensure the doors slide smoothly for years to come, choose straight-grained stock for the parts.

The rails and stiles of the doors are joined using mortises and tenons. The plywood panel rests in a rabbet cut in the back of the door, and the slats are merely glued onto the panel.

Begin by cutting your ¹/4"-thick x 1"-long tenons on the rails. As you can see in the photo on the next page, the shoulders facing the outside edges of the door are ¹/2" bigger than the ones facing inside. This makes a cleaner-looking joint when you cut the tongue on the top and bottom of the door. Now cut the matching mortises in the stiles. Glue and clamp the doors.

When the glue is dry, cut a ¹/4"-deep x ³/s"-wide rabbet on the backside of each door. Square the corners with a chisel. Finish sand the V birch plywood panel and then glue it in the rabbet. When that glue is dry, glue the slats in place spaced 1" apart.

Finally, to complete the doors cut a ^1/4"-thick x ³/s"-long tongue on the top and bottom edge of the backside of the doors.

The Case

Begin work on the case by cutting ¹/2"-thick x 1"-long tenons on all the rails with a ¹/4" shoulder all around. Now use your tenons to lay out the locations of the mortis-

This frame-and-panel project is all about grooves,

tongues and

ancient proverbs.

We shape clay

into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.

— Lao Tzu, Zen saying

by Christopher Schwarz

Comments or questions? Contact Chris at 513-531-2690 ext. 407 or chris.schwarz@FWPubs.com.

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