Sideboard: Part 1

Instead of a changing table, which would later just be an awkward piece of furniture, Christy and I decided that a nice cherry sideboard would do the job, and serve a later purpose.  I started this one almost a month ago, but the last few weeks have been busy.  The last time I worked on this I got the wood S4S (square on 4 sides) and cut to rough length.  On the weekend of the 19th I finally got around to trying hot hide glue.  I would post instructions for use, but I think I still need to figure some tricks out.  For now I am using a small rice cooker, and a plastic cup.  Overall the glue-up went very well, you have to move fast, and the glue dries differently than any other glue (including liquid hide glue).  If I weren't so concerned about having screwed it up, the gel state of drying is great time for cleaning up the squeeze out.  The joints are strong and damn near invisible so I guess I got it mostly right.  Next time I will need to remember to continually add water, towards the end it wasn't spreading well, and the temperature was still right around 145.

My $7 glue pot, the lid is an old cutting board.

Moving quick to brush on the glue (look I got a tripod...I also need to clean my assembly bench a bit).

A nice glue joint after a few passes with the plane.

As you can see in the side panel this cherry has a lot of things going on.  The boards for the top look very similar but with some more dark sap streaks, should make for an interesting piece.  One thing I've been working on recently is hand cutting joinery.  Most of the time, I end up doing about half the joinery by machine and half by hand.  I have done a few hand joinery only projects, but they were pine, and for the most part painted.  For this project I finally committed to doing all the joinery by hand on a piece of "fine" furniture.  The first joints are mortise and tenon.  Step one is to set your mortise gauge (2 points or wheels) to the width of your chisel.

Set the width on the gauge, then don't touch it.

All 10 mortises are the same width, so don't touch the gauge till all the joints are done.  Luckily I have an extra marking gauge I made a few years ago to mark the length of the tenon.

All lined up, the marking gauge is the best tool for consistent marking.

For the first few tenons I ran my pencil down each gauge line to make it easier to see, though by the end, I didn't find that as necessary.  

All the lines marked, now just saw the line.

To cut the tenon I used the traditional three cut approach.  Cut one diagonal, cut the other diagonal, then saw out the triangle of waste in between.  This approach helps keep you saw cut square, as you are sighting down two lines.

First diagonal

I love my Bad Axe sash saw, but for the rear apron (7" wide) I went with my old Disston.  It is a bit longer, and is 9 TPI instead of 12 TPI.  This made quick work of the wide tenon, though it would have been a bit tiring to use for all of them.

Making the third cut, down to the baseline

Since the shoulder is a cut that will show, I make a small V cut with my knife to help register the saw.

It doesn't have be big, just enough to establish the shoulder.

Drop the saw in the line and cut.

I was very careful to not overcut the shoulder line when sawing the cheeks.  This left a bit of waste in the middle.  After I made the shoulder cut I popped off the little end pieces, and then carefully sawed the rest of the way to the baseline.  This allows me to see the entire baseline from one angle and ensures I don't leave any kerf marks.

Just a little more waste to saw.

Leaving a nice clean tenon.

There was a little clean up left to do.  The wide back apron gets 2 tenons, so I cut out the waste with a coping saw.  Then I cleaned up the waste left between the cheek and the shoulder with a chisel.

Carefully avoiding the shoulder.

Using a chisel (angled towards the tenon) to clean out the last bit of waste.

Once I had all the tenons cut I doubled checked how I wanted the legs lined up, and marked them for the mortises using the marking gauge still setup for my chisel.  To mark the length of the mortise I marked it directly from the tenon.

Marking the length of the mortise.

Ready to start chopping.

Something that has become very apparent to me as I spend more time chiseling is the importance of body position/sight lines.  As an example, when chopping/paring the waste between dovetails, the most important thing is the chisel is vertical relative to the baseline.  The chisel (depending on width) will naturally square itself side to side.  So the best way to place the wood is so you can see that vertical.  Initially when I started mortising the legs I set them up like I would for clearing out dovetail waste.  It didn't take long to realize that for mortises (especially when your chisel is skinny 1/4"), its much more important to sight vertical along the wall of the mortise, since the chisel is angled in use.  Okay that's a lot of words, hopefully this will be more clear with a few pictures.

With the leg like this I can see the the angle of the chisel in the direction of the chopping, which doesn't matter too much till I square up the ends of the mortise.

By repositioning the leg I was able to better control the angle of the wall of the mortise.  If the mortise were wider the width of the chisel would help keep the chopping vertical.

The first mortise was a little crooked.  Luckily because I like making more work for myself I sawed the tenons a little fatter than the mortise, and was able to adjust the mortise to square without compromising the fit.  The rest of the mortises were square and the tenons were touched up with a rabbet block plane to fit.  Hopefully in the future I remember that and have the confidence to saw to the line, and have a fit off the saw.

After getting the two lower stretchers to fit I removed the planer marks from the side panels.  I shot them to length and then planed the width to match the length of the stretchers between the shoulders.

Using a raking light helped me see where there were still tracks.  I need a few more passes on this one.

Two complete, and square side assemblies.

Now that I am back in town, I have to finish chopping the apron mortises, and taper the legs.  Then some more hot hide glue excitement.