Progress Report

American Cherry; the best cherry. Big league. Believe me.

Originally conceived with ten drawers.

I am not displeased with the way my 7 drawer chest is coming along. It's been no easy task, requiring the cutting of no fewer than 60 mortises and tenons thus far, and those are all hand cut joints since it was my objective to practice wood working and not machine tool operating. I've relegated the table saw and band saw to rough dimensioning and resawing (and even then, since my band saw can only handle a height of 5", I had to resaw the side panels and lower drawer sides from 6/4 stock by hand: a lengthy and effective upper body workout), and the power router is collecting dust. The hand router, hand planes and chisels are getting a sharp edge three time a day, however.

It's been slow going, as I'm not working from a definitive plan but rather from a rough sketch I did many years ago but never had the opportunity to develop. So, I've been adapting the basic design as I go along, which feels like a craftsmanlike approach, anyhow.

 

Frame and floating panel sides with pinned tenon construction

Dry fitting the web frames

The carcass glued up. Cutting the drawer components.

Fitting the drawer fronts

 

Building the dovetailed drawers.

It is an odd mix of frustrating and yet satisfying work; tactile, sensual and resulting in a real, solid thing that I made with my own two. A far cry from the usual desk chair computing I've been doing for the past two-three decades. And thus my regular trips to the pool are more about unknotting sore muscles (also sluicing sawdust from skin and scalp) than a desperate attempt to feel somewhat alive after 10 hours of soulsucking/mindnumbing virtual work. Not that I've suddenly become a Luddite, utterly rejecting modern technology. No, I'll get back to it soon enough but, man, it is nice to actually make stuff for a change.