Mahogany jewelry box - Part 3

With the case assembled and glued it's time to cut dados for the center drawer supports. I could have cut them with my router before I glued, but what fun is that?! Yes I need to get out more often. It's easy enough with hand tools. I lay it out and knife in the cut lines. With a crosscut saw, I saw the shoulders of the dado.

Plan was to rough out the waste with a chisel, and finish up with my router plane. But the dang thing was too big and I couldn't fit it inside without hitting the case, and I don't have a mini plane. So I just used the chisel for the whole operation. It worked fine, I just had to stop and measure quite often.

Moving right along.

Now that all 4 are done, I am going to level the joints on the dovetails and smooth the sides a bit.

Love this smoother, but this mahogany is a bear! I have heard about mahogany's difficult grain, but this the first time for me.

All this work with hand tools, I guess I better use a power tool to uphold my hybrid status. I need to cut a rebate around the back for the back panel. The router table makes it fast and easy.

Square the corners up with a chisel.

Now I work on the supports. Again, just like the case sides, I need to flatten one side by hand.

Finish up at the planer.

To determine the length of the supports, I decided it would be easier to cut a scrap to get a perfect fit. I started with the rough length and trimmed with a shooting board until the length was perfect.

Like this.

Then I use the scrap to set up a stop block on my crosscut sled.

Supports cut to length.

I am a fan of not cutting full width dados. I like making them narrower to help hide mistakes where the inside faces meet. So my dados are 1/2" wide and my stock is 3/4" thick. So I need to take off 1/8" from each side to form a tongue or a tenon to fit in the dado. I set my marking gauge and score my line, making sure to go as deep as I can.

I don't have a shoulder plane, so I thought I would try my router plane to remove the waste. I worked we'll enough.

Like a glove.

You may have noticed but I didn't mention that the dados are stopped dados. As such, I need to trim a bit off of the front of the tenons so that the front edge of the supports are flush with the front of the case. I set the depth with my combo square and transfer the mark to the supports.

Trim them up.

Now they sit flush with the face.

I got quite a bit done this weekend, and I am quite pleased. I sat the carcass up on the feet to see how they look. Again, I will have to refine the shape a bit, but I think they will be ok. My wife says they look good, so I'll keep playing with them.

Unfortunately I have to go change the oil in my vehicles, all 3 of them :( So that's it for now. I hope to start working on drawers and drawer slides this week.