60 joint assembly of dresser
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
Wood working becomes an exercise in options and choices and decisions prioritized on what is most important to the person building. For myself, it is most important to assemble a piece all at once and in a time frame where the last joint made is made quick enough that the first has not set permanently. I believe that this approach relieves stress on the joints and the whole of it settles into the most relaxed state, which leads to a square structure if the parts have been carefully prepared.
Assembly of this case involved 60 dovetail and mortise and tenon joints. This morning when I took the clamps off and measured diagonals they measured 1164 and 1164 mm. Square makes fitting drawers trivial.
I made a choice to not expose dovetails on the vertical dividers. This decision required sliding the dividers into the "blind" dovetails in from the back. This requirement required that the divider be installed, then the runners. If you think this situation through, and I didn't until it was too late, it results in a complicated assembly of the top section shown in Picture 3.
All these joints must be made at once while the glue enables easy sliding of the parts together. I was certain that liquid hide would not provide the assembly time I needed. I once said that epoxy has no place in fine furniture. It found itself into the top of this piece.
Given the way this jigsaw puzzle was assembled it could never be unassembled no matter the glue, which relieved my conscience of using epoxy for the first few joints. Liquid hide completed the assembly.
