A lot has happened in the last 6+? months since I started the sideboard. For one thing, I finished it.
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| Fin. |
But then I found a job in a new location. So my wonderful (7 month pregnant) wife and I packed up our giant Texan house and moved to a suburb of Washington DC. Just as we were getting settled, and I had started dimensioning the wood for the crib, our little boy decided to arrive 5 weeks early. Later, we stuck him in a pumpkin...not everyone had fun.
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| Ian |
Since I would rather spend time with my wife and son, than in my new fully functional but very very small shop, I bought a crib. The cherry allocated for the crib is still kicking around, but it is no longer an item of primary importance.
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| My new shop (with wood, for the crib?) |
Our new house does not have a small alcove for our receiver and DVD player like our old house. Until now they have been living on a wire rack, that is neither attractive, nor positioned well for use (the remote only worked from 1 cushion on the couch...first world problems). To remedy this I could either build a new low entertainment center, or make a small thing to lift the TV off the cabinet enough to fit the receiver and DVD player. Since this isn't permanent, we needed it quick, and I didn't have to buy any wood I decided to build the small lift thing. It is pretty simply and the dimensions were determined by the receiver. I did decide to complicate it by making the center support a sliding dovetail instead of a dado. Since there are lots of how-to's for through dovetails I didn't take pictures of that. I did take pictures of how I made a sliding dovetail by hand. First I marked the tail and used a marking gauge to define the shoulder. I used a board to keep the saw at 90 degrees and sawed to the line.
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| Cutting the shoulder of the dovetail |
I cleared the waste with a chisel then snuck up to the line on each end. By putting part of a wide chisel on the previously excavated section I was able to keep the slope pretty constant, and just worked my way to the middle.
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| Slicing the angle of the tail |
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| Getting tail size |
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| Transfer tail size |
I used dividers to transfer the narrow part of the rail to the pin board?...not sure what that part is called. The using a block with the same angle cut down to the correct depth making sure to offset the block the the saw kerf (though one could also flip the block over).
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| Cutting the angle using a guide block |
Most of the waste was cleared with a chisel taking care not to destroy the edges. Then a router plane to sneak up to the final depth. Once the waste was clear, I adjusted the fit and tapered the tail using the wide chisel.
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| After clearing the waste with a chisel. |
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| A few passes with the router plane to bring the slot to final depth. |
I finished this with a few coats of garnet shellac, and some wax. Now we can use the remote from anywhere in the room, and the college style wire rack is gone.
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| The sliding dovetail. |
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| Those other dovetails. |
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| The finished piece, nothing special but it works well. |
Next up is a canoe rack out of dimensional lumber. While the wood may not last forever, the joinery certainly will.
