Cherry Oxbow Chest - Making the Case Body - Step 2

We traveled to Middlefield Ohio last week to Byler's Kiln Drying Lumber.  They have a nice setup there with all the lumber in vertical bins.  They had a good supply of figured and plain cherry in a number of thicknesses.

Doug Moulder and I sorted through the bins and found some good looking boards.  One plus for Byler's is they skip plane everything so you can see what the grain and color looks like.  The minus is that the 4/4 is 15/16 of an inch.  This is usually not a problem.

Here is a 12 foot 8/4 board 16 inches wide that I purchased.  We cut it in half.  I will be using this for the drawer fronts and bracket feet.

I started with the chest sides.  I purchased a 10 foot 4/4 board that was about 10 inches wide.  The sides are 17 1/2 inches wide and 26 1/4 inches high.  So I should be able to get both sides from this one board.

To help with measuring, instead of going back to the drawings all the time,  I made a story stick.

The side dimensions are marked out on the stick and it is used to measure and layout the drawers, the drawer runners, etc.  Using my story stick, I cut the board into the four pieces that I need for the sides.  Then I jointed the edges.  I did not run them through the planer since they were already fairly flat.

Then I glued up the panels.

After the glue dried, I ran the panels through my wide belt sander to flatten them and to thickness them to 7/8 inch.  I made this home built wide belt sander about 10 years ago.  It has a 22 inch drum. Works great.

Two nice looking flat cherry chest sides.

Now I need to trim them to the exact dimensions and square up the ends.   I am using my crosscut sled here and hold the panel in place with a couple of clamps.

 Now to layout the dovetails.  I used my marking gauge and dividers to layout the tails.  They are about 2 inches wide.  It was arbitrary.  The bevel gauge is set to 14 degrees.   These dovetails are not seen since they are in  the bottom of the chest.   They look passable.

Now to saw and chop out the tails from the bottom.  I sped up the process in the video.  Wish I could cut them that fast.

Once they were cut out I matched them and traced them on to the cherry sides.  Then sawed and chopped out the pins.

Chopping out the pins from the cherry sides.  Cherry is a lot harder wood than the poplar on the bottom board and they are 7/8 inch thick.  I honed my chisel twice while I was chopping them out.

Fitting the sides to the bottom.  Nice tight fit.

All done with both sides.

Now I need to make a drawer blade which will be dovetailed at the top to hold the sides together.  I made templates for the drawer fronts and blades in the previous blog entry, so I was all set to go.

I put two  5/8 inch dovetails on the end of the blade.

Now I'll trace the dovetails on to the side and cut them out.   I will repeat the process in the back of the case with a straight piece of poplar since it will not be seen.

This pretty much completes the outside of the case.  Next will be to put in the rest of the drawer blades and drawer runners.

Here is today's video.  Hope you enjoy.
Dave