With the carcass now together, it was time to make the front and back panels. I decided to start with the rear panel so that I could get some practice/warm up before making the more visible front panel. I had just enough scrap thin cherry to glue up for the rear panel.
As for the mortises, I had an unfun experience making them for my tool chest. As such, I opted to use a mortise machine that I had recently purchased. Part of me feels like a failure and as if I am giving up going this route. What I simply need to do is practice making some mortises by hand. If I can dovetail by hand, then I should be able to mortise by hand. Making tenons by hand I find easy. What I think will help me is to make and use a simple alignment jig that Paul Sellers discusses when cutting the mortise. Again, one or two weekends of practice and I am sure I will feel confident. Till then, I will use the mortiser.
For the back, I decided to try a stop groove that holds the panel by using the mortise machine. It was actually annoying and time consuming to do it this way. The front will use a through groove and a haunched tenon. I'm not upset. I just need to try different ways to see what does and doesn't work. The tenons were cut by hand and refined to fit with a hand router plane. I learned this from Paul Sellers and it works very well to get the final fit. Glue up went well.
For the front, basically the same process in that I used the mortiser. Then, I used the plough plane to run the groove. It was much faster plus I like to do it this way. I was very happy with how well the groove came out. There was a bit of a learning curve to using the plough plane but I think I have it now sorted out. As for the panel itself, it was thicker than then 1/4 groove it would go into. The simple option would have been to put a bevel to make it fit. That would have been fine; however, that's not what I wanted. I felt that panel would be too thick. Since how I make something is important to me, I did it the way I wanted to do it. I used hand planes and took the maple panel down to 1/4" thickness. Forever more, when I look at the bread box, there will be a little internal smile knowing I made it the way I wanted to make it. Glue up went very well and the joints were tight on the rails and stiles. Starting to feel confident on making frame and panels.
Hardware install was straight forward using hand tools. A recessed magnet holds the door shut. As for the finish, I went with my favorite go to. I used shellac. Garnett shellac for the cherry and blond shellac for the maple. Parts of the finishing were done before the carcass was assembled and blue tape on the parts that were going to be glued. Partway through I denibbed. After letting the shellac "harden" for about 5 days to a week, I then used OOOO steel wool and wax. The piece came out nice and the wife is happy. I'm happy because it was my second piece I designed and it looks like the design I made. It is big but the specs for what it was to hold dictated that.
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