Doors are Done!

Everything went pretty smoothly on the doors except the drawbores, which I've already mentioned, and the hinge I used to test-fit the hinge mortises got stretched a little bit, so there's more slop in that one than I'd prefer.  I'll be replacing this one hinge, as the other hinges are nice and tight and keep the front edge of the door from scuffing the inside of the front leg as the door is closed.  They don't stay closed so I'll be adding a magnet catch and door pull at some point.

I pre-finished the door panels, assembled the door, and tuned the fit.  Then I taped off the door panels and finished the rails and stiles.  I'm really happy with how they turned out.  

The bookmatched panels are a joy to look upon.  They don't have perfect symmetry, but to hear my wife praise that detail was uplifting.  She's heard me talk about the neverending steps in this project so often that she's turning into a furniture snob, too!  :-)

Soss Invisible Hinge

Doors almost done, drawers on deck

I'm putting the final coat of poly on the doors now.  Everything went smoothly except the drawbores.  The grain exploded out the back side.  In the future, on a small project like this, I don't think I'll bother with drawboring.  It's just a small 1/2" thick door, and I don't care to have accidents at this stage of the project.  I managed to use some wood filler and obscure it with some stain so that it's less noticeable, and the explosion is on the inside of the door, so ...not perfect, but good enough.

All of the drawer backs and fronts have been cut out and fitted to their respective openings.  All of the drawer sides, the same.  I'm to the point where I'm cutting tiny rabbets into the drawer sides, marking the tail locations, and beginning cutting the tails.

I've been hesitating getting started on the dovetails for a few days now, taking extra time to plan and make sure I'm laying them out correctly.  I came up with two variations and asked C to choose.  She chose #1 in this photo...which suits me just fine.   #2 has some pretty fragile areas that would be prone to cracking and I'm still an amateur at cutting dovetails by hand.

So I'm taking my time here.  I don't want to mess up.  Before chopping any waste I'll go through and sharpen all my tools again just to remove dull edges from the equation.  A sharp edge is much more predictable to work with, the results are cleaner, and work requires less effort.  Sharpening is time well spent at this point.

I think I'm 75% complete at this point.  Next up: Dovetails, drawer assembly, drawer slips, drawer bottoms...