Sellers Home Side Cupboard

Making and fitting dovetails for a drawer is just about the most important skill a furniture maker must master, as well as stock preparation that gives the precise sizing for the joinery.

There are lots of different elements to developing a twist-free door, and each step we take ensures that the doors come out as planned.

The undercarriage of the project takes a little geometry to get the cross-halving just right and then the arching that helps the bulkiness disappear without losing the intrinsic strength of full mortise and tenons to the legs.

The undercarriage framework and legs carry the weight of the cabinet on four points, and we rely on well-proven traditional joinery that guarantees the full support we need to that end.

There are many panels to glue up on this project, quite large ones, in preparation for the dovetail joinery to each of the corners. Paul has combined different methods for removing the waste between the dovetails and the pins.

Marrying the second half of the dovetails was not so simple this time, but perseverance gets the result we need and strive for. We learn so much when we recognise that different woods act and react differently as we work them.

This wood is taken from the middle of the tree as quartersawn sycamore, with some accompanying waney edges. This has built-in issues Paul must deal with, so it’s a helpful episode for those facing the same challenges he has in this project.

In this project, Paul looked for differences without being too different. It’s coming together for him in his choice of three kinds of wood and rising some techniques and design elements from my other pieces. We hope that you will like it too.