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Drawering to a close…

FinishingShedSidecar Cot
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Woodworking

The idea was to get the last bits done today. Didn’t quite make it, but came close.

Got the cot out of the shed first so I could do some work. Looks nice in the sunshine…

Then made up the glue blocks I was thinking about yesterday to support the top panel.

And then gathered all the tools up…

The #778 is there to cut a small alignment rebate on the inside of the tails for the dovetails, in what Rob Cosman refers to as the “140 trick”. I don’t have a Stanley #140 (it’s a rather expensive skew-blade block plane) and the #778 is a little finicky for this, but it works if you’re careful. The idea is that you cut a tiny little ledge in the tailboard and after the tails are cut you sit the pinboard up against the tails and on that ledge to align it and let you mark the pins more easily (and it works quite well).… Read the rest

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Drawer prep…

FinishingSidecar CotWoodworking

…is done. Phew. The thicknessing, as I might have mentioned, is interminable donkey work, but it’s done. Even with a freshly sharpened scrub plane and using that chamfer-down-to-the-line-so-it’s-easier-to-see-what’s-left-to-come-off trick, it’s still a long-winded pain in the arse.

Yes, yes, very clever, shut up.

Back of the drawer was the easiest to do because of the shorter run, but it’s over-wide. Also, you see how it’s such a small, compact board? Yeah, well, take a quarter-inch thick board that size and turn it into even thick shavings and this is what happens:

No time to clean it up yet, have to get the crib finished and then there’ll be a long tidyup afterwards and a clean-down. And a memorial service for one of my bench cookies, which managed to fall off where I’d perched it and in between the OSB sheeting lining the walls and the outside wall of the shed.… Read the rest

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Drying day.

FinishingSidecar CotWoodworking

My original plan was to make the drawer today, but that plan didn’t take into account things like drying time on glues given the current low temperatures. Titebond PVA glue would be grand, but hide glue is something I’m still figuring out, so I’m giving it lots of margin for error. Especially as I found today that I almost had a major error during the glue-up; the use of a mallet to drive the top crossbar and back support into the mortice put torsion stress on the two end joints, as I knew it would (stupid mis-steam-bent upright) but I thought it’d be safe enough.

Nope. Small (1.5cm long) crack right there. Not critical; the wood is now stabilised by the glue and it’s holding well; but enough to give me a moment of thinking “wow, that nearly destroyed a week or so of work without the raw material available to do it over…”

I might just try to get a little glue in there and clamp it closed tomorrow, just to be safe.… Read the rest

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