With the carcass, back, and front doors done, I'm down to items I feel confident in building. I've done a fair number of boxes so drawers are similar. I've done a fair number of Paul Seller's style clocks so I'm comfortable with round overs. If I stay focused, thing should go reasonably well.
As for the top, it's mostly a matter of deciding the desired overhang and then doing round overs. The top is an interesting piece. Though it is big, it is up high so you really don't see much of it at all. You mostly see the sides and overhang. As long as they look good, the rest doesn't really matter much. Sure, you will see the top from the inside but that isn't really visible. As such, this part of build doesn't require the best looking wood. Cutting and rounding over was relatively straightforward. I made sure to sharpen the plane blades before I started. Then, I just count strokes as I round over so it's consistent. If I were to do it over again, I might do a bit more round over than I did on this. To allow for wood movement, the grain is oriented the same as the sides. I cut long narrow slots in the back and used some long washers that Christian Becksvoort "invented" that you can buy via Lee Valley. The front is glued and screwed in place and the back part is just screwed so that it can move.
I really look forward to making drawers. I like making dovetails. Before I can make the drawers, I needed to put some "drawer runners on the side to account for the gap between the sides and front face frame. I used some off cuts for these and ran the grain in the same direction as the sides and glued them in place. As such, it should all move. Getting it clamped was a bit tricky but I managed.
For the drawers, I cut from one board so the grain flows across the three. Most folks won't notice this but it makes me happy. I cut the drawers so they were sung length wise. For the width, I took into account wood movement, time of year, and necessary sizing so they shouldn't bind. For the secondary wood, I used poplar. I really like working with poplar. To make life easy, the back of the drawer is 1/16th inch less wide and tall. I also taper the sides from front to back that 1/16th of an inch. That way, the only place I really need to worry about fitting is near the front of the drawer. Construction was straight forward. Half blind dovetails in front, full dovetails in back. I used plywood in the bottom. Glue up went well. There were some gaps in the dovetails but the look reasonable. If I had to do them over, I would have made the pins a bit more narrow than they are. The cherry knobs were purchased from Horton brasses and identical to the ones used on the doors. For the drawers, rather than have them flush with the front, I decided to inset them in 1/8th of an inch. Much easier to hide any variances this way.
All that is left is to finish the piece and that will be my last post on this series.
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