Even though the parts are quarter sawn I always take the precaution of allowing free air movement on both sides. The time taken to make this board is well worth it, particularly as it may be a few days before I work on this project again.
Here are the grooves cut for the base, drawer runners and rear panel. This looks simple enough but great care was needed and I made up a scrap board to check all the dimension before cutting. The grooves were cut in two passes with a 4 mm router bit.
The top, three drawers supports and base were all cut to identical size on the table saw. Then to ensure a very slight taper (wider at the back) I used three stopped cuts on the shooting board on each edge followed by one through shaving. I marked the boards very carefully as if I got one of the tapers the wrong way it would be disastrous.
I then marked the depth of the tenons on the 3 supports and the base with a wheel marking gauge and used the same setting to mark the baseline for the through dovetails on the top. This ensures that fit of all five horizontal components is perfect. The tenons were cut to a snug fit on the shaper, just shy of the line and this was finished off with a sharp chisel. This was extra work but yields very clean shoulders.
Obviously the tenons were too long and these were trimmed back to just under 4 mm to fit the grooves. Above is the finished tenon.
Next it was time to mark out and cut the dovetails, all 17 of them. I used my double saw blade (see recent post) against a small square to ensure the tails were both square and perfectly even. I'll be cutting these free hand, a job for another day.
For anyone wondering what the finished chest will look like, here is a version I made a couple of years ago.
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