lessons

the beauty of this piece lies in its complete lack of electronic assistance

countless weeks have been spent doing what a power tool could in a few hours

and certain duties common and easy in the power tool shop have required research and pondering

instead of jigs there exist techniques

clever ways to hold down the piece

so hand tools could do the job

I love my plow plane, in fact I think I'll never again touch the table saw to cut a groove

but what to do when there's no reference face to guide the cut

duhh,

same thing you do when you cut a dado in a carcass.

strike the line, chisel a kerf, cut it with a saw,chisel out the waste, then use the plow (sans fence) to even out the bottom (even though on a carcass you would use a router plane)

so many lessons, taught so many times

I actually caught myself today saying to a co-worker, "dovetails are easy"

and I heard him reply "yea well, you've got practice"

yea, every day, plus all day on weekends

no matter how tired, sore, hot and humid it is, I can still find the time for a few steps

I've been waiting for an Aurou rasp to arrive from France so I can finish the bottle racks, there's sixty eight nooks that need refining and smoothing, and I'm NOT going to do it with sandpaper

that means the outer carcasses can't be glued up, thus the final refinements to the undertop mortices, thus the finish smooth to the top

so

in lieu of all this, the drawers must go on

each piece must be resawn from 5/4 to 3/4 and a 1/4, the last bit being taken up by the kerf of my D-8 thumbhole ripper

one side becomes a side or back the other a bottom

two drawers are now complete and the matching ambrosia Maple is stunning

the back dovetails are pure function while the fronts are all about style