I hate having two big projects going at once ..

.. especially when I’m so close to finishing my tool cabinet, but alas .. here we go.

I get this great opportunity ever quarter to use big machines I’ll never have room for in my own shop.  For $ 150 a quarter, I can sign up for Woodworking II at Seattle Central.  They have eight Saw Stops, a 20″ helix head planer, an 8″ helix head jointers and a big ass dust collection system.   The beauty of it .. I don’t have to maintain a single one of them.

So off to school with my big pieces a maple for my workbench project.  Class starts this week which is why I’m starting now.  Originally, all I did was a rough break down the stock.  Now I need start milling the pieces which is where the machines at school come in.

BTW, Seattle Central invested in $ 25 M (as in million) in a new Wood Construction Center building.  It’ll be opening later this year.  I’m sure it’ll be mostly for the day time classes, but hey, the evening crew is bound to get some benefits from it as well.

More drawer progress

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.

Some tips on making blind dovetails

This is were I got the idea to use the card scraper.  There are a few other tips to check out as well.

Shannon – you’ll notice how he orients the boards to prevent breaking the pins.  Doh!  Should have watched this again before I did it.