Desk Progress
Hank Knight
I while back I posted about making French feet for a Federal slant top desk I'm building - with kudos to Bill Tindall, my teacher. I have been working sporadically on the desk since then, with major interruptions for a 50th Wedding Anniversary cruise, Thanksgiving and various other things. The interruptions notwithstanding, I've made a little progress. I've installed the drawer dividers and am working on the solid panel case bottom and upper writing surface which will be joined to the case sides with full length sliding dovetails. In order to get accurate dimensions for the drawer dividers, I made some temporary spacers to substitute for the bottom and writing surface. In any event, with all of these items in place, my desk stands alone for the first time.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2ctDg8x]
[/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2ctDg8x]IMG_4446[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/158680038@N03/]Hank Knight[/url], on Flickr
The drawer dividers are joined to the cause sides with half dovetails using the procedure Bill Tindall posted here a while back.The half tails are cut on the ends of the dividers with a router and a home-built jig. The sockets and hand-sawed and chiseled. It's surprisingly fast and I got better at it as I went along. Here's a socket and a finished joint;
[url=https://flic.kr/p/PfZ6ii]
[/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/PfZ6ii]IMG_4434[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/158680038@N03/]Hank Knight[/url], on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2cLDof5]
[/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2cLDof5]IMG_4449[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/158680038@N03/]Hank Knight[/url], on Flickr
You'll notice that the saw kerfs extend past the end of the dovetail socket. It is necessary to over cut the end line in order to get any significant depth of cut at the back of the joint. These over-cut kerfs will be hidden by the kickers when I get them installed.
Thanks for looking. If there's any interest, I'll post more photos as I move along with this build.