I got a chance to make my rabbets for the front and back of the chest. This project is still a surprise for the spouse so every time I work on the chest, I have to clean every thing (to hide the shaving) and cover things up. So my shop is cleaner than normal in the midst of a project.
I poked around the internet to find information on how to make a picture frame with hand tools. So except for some information that Shannon Roger provided in his Hand Tool School, I wasn’t really able to find anything. Everyone seems to be making frame with powered routers. Que post.
Here’s the final product with Boiled Linseed Oil finish.
I used my newly sharpened mitre box saw to cut mitres (thanks Matt Cianci) and my excellent picture frame shooting board (thanks Rob Hanson) for this frame. More pictures below the fold.
I got the chance to add my shelves into the bottom of the workbench. The solid wood maple shelf pieces will sit on the ledger strips that I installed earlier. Each shelf piece has a rabbet on opposite side edges so that the pieces fit into one another.
After the rabbets are all done and some notching to fit the pieces around the legs, it looked like this. Maple is, to me anyway, surprisingly beautiful. I’m absolutely wanting to make more with maple.
The picture doesn’t do it justice.
In the meantime, Inspector Kitten assessed the cat toy potential of the maple shaving.
I got a chance this week to installed the ledger strip around the base.
I used my skewed rabbet plane to make the grooves and cleaned it up with a chisel plane. The strip has a 1/2″ groove that’s about an 1/8″ deep. That fits snuggly into the groove cut into the stretchers.
I’ll be making the shelf next and then on to the deadman.
I was able to have some fun putting some details on my drawer fronts with an old beader I purchased a while back.
After that, I rabbeted the bottoms of the drawers with my skewed rabbet plane. Now onto the fitting process.
PS. Here’s the proper way to orient your board if you’re going to use the scraper to shear the fibers of the dovetail sockets.
sheworkswood.com 