As we had just had our kitchen countertop replaced I decided to build a laundry room cabinet as I did the demolition of the old countertop saving a whopping $400.....almost worth it but that's another story. I've built enough cabinets to feel comfortable with the process and that's the beginning of the problem. I've never had a great memory so as I age I realize it isn't getting better, at least I don't think so, I can't remember.

 

So I've gotten use to firing up AutoCAD and drawing out my intended project which usually keeps me on the straight and narrow. And this time I was going to try something I hadn't done before for the drawer. I was intent on using sliding dovetails for the drawer joints. How hard could that be for a 5" deep drawer with a 7" deep face? And I really enjoy using the router table I built but soon realized that after making the 1st stop dovetail slot that the second was going to have to be with the hand router as my table doesn't give me 20" behind the fence.

 

Marked off the needed space to clamp a guide board, set the depth by using the 1st slot, didn't think of the stop location yet...well not until I had just passed it of course and was able to recover with only about 1/4" too far but being on the inside I can fill it in. But this was the good part and I was still a bit cocky about how well I was doing. Wait til I make the side pieces which I actually got half right, but then I'm not making a half drawer.

 

The sides, what to do....well I have a dovetail slot in the drawer front so I need a side board with a dovetail to slide into it. Not rocket science. The bit in the table is the same height as before ( had a second identical dovetail bit for the hand held router) as it wasn't removed and just needed to adjust the fence and make shallow passes while I sneak up on the right size. That took a bit of passes as I was using the micro adjuster I got from Woodpeckers to advance the fence and that screw bolt has a lot of threads per inch.

 

Finally got a tight fit, really too tight I thought so I sanded it a bit only to find it was looser in the 1st half then the second. Checking with a caliper it turns out that the taper must be in the slot so I compromised with fairly loose to start to needing the mallet to finish but just medium taps not full over the shoulder two handed of course. Did I mention this was my 1st ever use of Ash?  And I thought Oak was hard and brittle.....but I like the grain.

 

So now we have a drawer front with a dovetail slot, two side boards with a dovetail in the end to almost match and a decision on the back board and I make the very brilliant decision to do the very wrong thing because I was too lazy to draw this out before hand that might have taken 20 minutes tops for a front, top, and side view just like my good old drafting days. I'm now the proud owner of a scrap back drawer board because I thought it best to put a dovetail in the other end of the side board Due to that brilliant idea I now have to make dovetail slots in the back board to accept the sides. Congrats, I didn't know it yet because I'm tired at this point but I've just made a wedged drawer which is still a ways from becoming obvious to me. You far more experienced guys, I hear the laughter and it isn't funny or polite. I'm just a 67 year old kid for gosh sakes.

 

Well the ash boards are 3/4" thick so I'm thinking I should have at least 3/8" of a shoulder to support the dovetail slot right? And not realizing quite yet how brittle ash is it probably should have been 1/2" at least. But go ahead and this one is easy because both are through slots so the router table can deal with this. My lucky day it is. So I cut the slots and all goes well. I made the dovetails on the side boards after deciding on the path I was going so the router table was already set from the other end and I cut the 2nd dovetails. And they fit well by golly. I'm getting good at this!

 

Do a dry assembly and proud of what I've built up to the point of checking square. which comes later because I want to install the drawer slides now. Funny thing is it seems I made a miscalculation and need to shim the slides. Done and the drawer goes in about a 1/3 of the way and gets tight....too tight, WTH. Now I'm beginning to thin something is amiss and take the drawer out to examine it more closely. I check for square, which I would normally do 1st anyway but..No matter what I do I can't get it square at opposing corners..So I measure across the front from side to side, 22-3/4" great spot on, and the back side to side.....OMG! What just happened. This is a wedge. It's 3/4" shorter at the back and it dawns on me. Had I used a dovetail slot on the back end of the sides and put dovetails on both ends of the back board I would have eliminated several problems I now had. For one, the drawer will never work with side slides as is and 2 it wasn't square. Intent to salvage at least some of my work I set out taking the back board. I may not have mentioned it but the back board was a bit loose so I used my pin nailer to "secure" it.

 

So out comes the chisels and I attempt to separate the back boar from the sides. Did I mention I didn't realize how brittle and hard ash was? I was now getting schooled on that fact very quickly. Once I made a decent scrap board I took the sides over to me Laguna 14-12, set the spacing from the shoulder to the end and used my tall fence to cut the dovetail off both sides back ends which I did mark. After all I'm not stupid some times.

 

Now I simply measure across the front from side to side, 22-3/4" just like before, and cut a new ash board 22-3/4" and drilled and screwed thus finally making my probably 6 hour drawer and if that's an exaggeration it certainly felt like it. I swear I have more time in this one drawer then the cabinet itself. I mean I ripped a 3/4" 4x8 sheet by myself, cut the 2 sides, bottom, ripped the red oak 3/4" for the plywood edges, cut and installed the slats to secure the old countertop, cut and installed the toe kick, used my Foreman to drill the holes for the pocket screws, and had assembled in under 2 hours. Not one mistake. And then is was time for "that" drawer. The drawer from....well I just don't know. And it all started with a "hey sweetheart, you want me to build a cabinet for the laundry so we can get rid of that rickety old metal book shelf?"

 

It was an experience and that doesn't include the workout from lift it numerous times on and off the workbench to get a good look at those sliders to see what the problem was. Problem was I didn't have a mirror. I have new sliders coming today as the 1st set got too stressed to work properly now. That's a $30 lesson.

 

In my defense, it was just hours after we had gotten our 2nd Moderna shot so I actually may have found an unknown side effect, temporary stupidity and/or delusion. At least I hope it's temporary................Pictures to follow when I get that drawer installed later today.

 

 

 

Quite the journey Steve!