After the drawer blades have been prepared, we then need to perform a fair amount of jointery on the case sides. Here is a quick overview of the jointery involved:
- bottom of the case is half blind dovetailed to the bottom of the case sides
- bottom drawer blade is dovetailed separately to the bottom of the case
- upper three drawer blades are sliding dovetailed into the case front
- rear drawer blades are sliding dovetailed to the rear of the case sides
- finally the case sides are dado’ed to received the web frame for each of the three upper drawers
- front rail is half blind dovetailed to the top of the case
- two upper case stretcher are half blind dovetailed to the top of the case
Since there is so much going on with the case jointery we will divide this post into three parts
- case bottom – this article
- case middle -next article
- case top
Also worth mentioning is the case sides have been beaded with a 3/32″ radius bead on the inner most edge of the case sides, each drawer opening has a 3/32″ bead surrounding the drawer, mitered on each intersection.
1) Here we see the bottom of case being half blind dovetailed, also notice the bead on the inside edge.
2) The front most dovetail socket is actually a bare faced half blind dovetail, here we see a jig used to cut in the dovetail angle with a chisel
Finally the miter is being cut with a sharp chisel and a 45 degree block.
Completed front socket ready to receive the bottom of case drawer blade.
Here is the bottom drawer blade with the dovetail tails already cut, the front most tail receives a miter that will mate with the socket cut in the prior photo
