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A handmade home for woodworkers and admirers of woodworkers. Our community icon is submitted by @[email protected] whose father was inspired to start woodworking by Norm and the New Yankee Workshop.

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Night Stand work in progress (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by captain_aggravated to c/[email protected]

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I'm slapping together a night stand for my cousin out of crap I have lying around the shop, and I'm using the project as an excuse to try out some stuff.

Carcass is "hardwood" mystery meat 7-ply from Lowe's. Joinery is all dovetails; lower shelf and mid frame are sliding dovetails, upper frame is half-blinds. I did that to see if I could. Answer: Barely. The sliding dovetails were fine but the half-blinds wanted to blow the plywood apart.

Face frame is rift sawn traumatized pine. That's what I managed to salvage from a damaged section of 8:4, and judging by the growth rings that tree had been through at least one divorce. The curve on the bottom I laid out with a bowed spline. First time I've actually done that. It's attached to the carcass Norm style, with Tite-bond and #10 biscuits.

Tomorrow I'll build the drawer.

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[–] captain_aggravated 1 points 2 days ago

Project update: The woodworking is complete.

Side hung, center guided drawer with shop made pull, 5 position adjustable middle shelf, solid pine top. Over the next couple days I'll apply a Minwax I Can't Believe It's Not Tung Oil finish.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

traumatized pine > 🤣

it looks great! thanks for sharing your experience with the half blind dovetails in plywood. do you think you would have gotten better results with better plywood? Baltic Birch?

[–] captain_aggravated 3 points 5 days ago

That tree had a few awful years, a couple of the growth rings got really narrow, and around those narrow growth rings there were a lot of pitch pockets, and a third of the board had a crack running along it. I started with a rough sawn 2x8 and managed to get the face frame of a night stand out cutting around all the damage.

I counted at least 15 growth rings outside of that before I ran out of board, I wonder if it was the 2003 drought?

Oh I'm sure baltic birch would hold up to joinery a lot better than this stuff does. Especially the innermost plies seem to be very low in quality, I think it's made out of kudzu and politics. It held up do dadoing and tenoning reasonably well but I had to do the half-blinds as all climb cuts, if I tried any conventional cuts it would start blowing apart. Baltic birch is a lot better made, maybe appleply if you can find it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That’s just a “one night stand” lol Are you going to make a second one? Looks awesome, great quality should last nearly forever!

[–] captain_aggravated 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Just the one, she doesn't have room for another. I did build a fairly robust CAD model of this one to plan it out though, so I may use this pattern, or a modification thereof, in the future.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Oh that’s nice!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Oh very nice - your cousin should be very happy!

[–] captain_aggravated 1 points 4 days ago

Dry fit of the drawer:

This is actually my first proper rabbeted drawer front. Amazing how much of a pain in the ass that 3/8" gap is. I think I'm going to make the handle.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

looks really sharp! cant wait to see the finished product.

Love that your 'slapped together" is still full dovetailed

[–] captain_aggravated 3 points 5 days ago

Yeah with the way those dovetails fit "pounded together" is a bit more accurate.