Random gibberish

After wondering for ages what to get swmbo for xmas I decided to actually make something. One thing she’s never had was a jewelry chest – and since she can never remember where she’s put her jewelry it might actually come in handy.
I had some cherry in the shop so decided to use that. Size wise I wanted this quite small – not tiny but not huge. I decided on a rough size of 200×120 (internal sizes). External sizes were going to depend a lot on how thick the wood ended up.
chose a couple of bits of wood to become the top.

Then i had a brainwave – rather than just thicknessing down to size I’d try to resaw the boards with the bandsaw. I’ve never had much luck with this. Wow, what a difference working with hardwood compared to pine. The bandsaw worked pretty well.

afterwards I was left with this lot: the plank on the right is for the drawers.
Now what sort of joints to use to fix the sides, top and bottom together. I really fancied using dovetails, so out came the saw and marking stuff. Some practice on spare bits quickly showed that I don’t have the skills to attempt that many dovetails yet – I think I’d still be trying to fix them this time next year. Fortunately Philly on UKWorkshop came to my rescue by deciding to sell his littlerat. £100 later and I had a rat in the shop.

I still couldn’t do dovetails as I only had 8mm dovetail bits and no 8mm collet for the T11 router (an insert has since been ordered) so I decided to go with finger joints. I used a half inch straight bit to create the joints and decided on an even spread.

I made the fingers oversize so I could cut them flush. This was my first attempt at something with the littlerat so I was quite chuffed with the outcome. There were a few joints with gaps in, but I reckon that just makes it look a bit more like hand cut.

sides, top, bottom clamped and glued up
Now to sort the bits for the drawers. I ended up with measurements of 35mm for each draw which left me a 1mm gap between them.
After resawing and flattening I ended up with this little lot.
The drawers are simply held together by a couple of rabbets and glue. A 3mm groove was cut into the bottom with the table saw so I could fit in the plywood bottom. Once assembled I routed in a 5mm groove to take the runners.
Unfortunately I’ve lost the photo’s of the drawers being made.
It was then I noticed I’d forgotten something. How the heck was I going to align the drawer runners one the case. The runners were just strips of cheery. Ideally I would have routed in grooves in the case as well as the drawers but I hadn’t. So to say it was a bit fiddly to get the runners in the right place would be an understatement.
Eventually I managed it and with a few dabs of CA they were held in place.

A few bits of felt on the bottom of the drawers and the assembly was finished.

Everything was sanded down to 320Grit.
Finish wise I put 3 coats of danish oil and around half a dozen coats of black bison to give it a nice sheen.

I did try to make some little knobs for the drawers but that went horribly wrong. Time ran out before xmas so some kind of knob will be added later.