Woodworker's Journal Summer-2008, страница 18

Four Methods of Casework Joinery

Once you eliminate the frills from a complicated casework project, building it becomes a simple matter of constructing a series of boxes.

By Lonnie Bird

always construct large furniture casework with dovetails. Even though the joint

is often hidden by molding, the strength

is unmatched and ensures the longevity of the piece."

Have you ever wanted to build a chest of drawers or dressing table but just weren't sure how to begin? Perhaps you saw a photo of a china cabinet in a magazine and you wanted to reproduce it but felt it was beyond your reach. Although large-scale casework projects can seem somewhat intimidating, building them is really nothing more than constructing boxes. Once you gain an understanding of the methods involved, construction becomes much easier.

Drawers, which are also boxes, are fit within the casework and slide on wooden rails or runners. Doors are often added as well to keep the contents of the chest hidden from view, although sometimes doors have glass panes, or "lights" specifically for displaying the contents of the case. The challenge when constructing any casework is to keep it square. As I'm sure you can imagine, it's much easier to fit doors, drawers and molding to a box with 90° corners than to a trapezoid or a parallelogram. But that becomes easy, too, once you realize that parallel sides of the box must be exactly the same length.

Over the centuries, cabinetmakers have developed a number of ways to construct casework, and each method has its own advantages. By understanding the various methods of construction, you can design your own casework to suit your needs. Once you've constructed the case or box, you can add feet, moldings, doors and other details to give your design distinction.

For the purpose of discussion, I've divided casework into four separate categories: frame-and-panel, post-and-rail, box construction and face frame. Although these categories work well for getting a grasp of case construction, cabinet-making is too diverse to always fit neatly into categories. Sometimes you'll find it necessary to combine construction techniques from two or more types.

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four methods of casework joinery