Worth Your Time

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Marking the Pins

Place the pin board (in this case, the back of the drawer) in the leg vise, inside surface toward the bench, and make it flush with the height of your jack plane (or some object).


Push the jack plane back a ways.


Place your tail board on the jack plane and slide it toward your pin board.  The little rabbet we cut earlier bumps into the inside surface of the pin board.  Make sure the bottom edges are flush to one another and make sure you're using the correct end of the correct drawer side! :)


This tiny rabbet helps tremendously by allowing you to quickly ensure that the boards are square to one another before you trace the tails.


Using your non-dominant hand, press straight down onto the suspended section of the tail board and hold it firmly in place.  With your other hand, very lightly, very carefully, reach in with your marking knife and trace the outlines of those tails onto the end grain of the pin board.  Don't slip, don't shake, don't screw this part up!


When you're done, take a .3mm mechanical pencil and darken the lines, and shade the correct areas so you know which side to cut on.


Cut the pins (sorry for the lack of photos), clean 'em up, and test the fit.  This one ended up a bit loose, but is still perfectly functional.


Rinse and repeat until the entire drawer is done.  I didn't take any photos of sawing and cleaning up the half-blinds.  I should have.  I'll try to snap a few on the next drawer.

Notice that I removed the bottom half inch of the drawer back.  This is so that drawer slips and drawer bottom can slide in after the drawer is assembled.  8 drawers to go!


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