The raw material: some oak wainscoting we had removed from our family room earlier this year.
I trimmed the wainscoting on the table saw, and planed it into nice square boards. For free! Well, except for the cost of the tools.
Edges for the top, with the grooves cut.
I glued up some of the boards to form wider planks, and planed them thinner for the tops and bottoms. I routed tongues on the route.r table for the tongue-and-groove fittings
Ready for fitting.
Tongue-and-groove fitting on the bottoms. I cut the tongues off-center so the thin edge of the grooved piece was less likely to break.
Dry fitting the bottoms.
Gluing up the tops.
Tops assembled.
Before gluing up the boxes, I used the router to make a bunch of square braces.
With the braces and a roc strap I was able to easily clamp the boxes after gluing them up.
Glued and clamped.
All glued up.
Edge pieces for the removable shelves. I had to get a decent set of stackable dado blades to cut the center cuts just the right width.
Removable shelves dry fit.
Drawers assembled
I had to do a bunch of sanding and a bit of cutting to get the tops to align just right with the bottoms. From this point on, they were matched sets and I had to keep track of which top went with what bottom during finishing.
I made some drying racks, which were numbered, so I could keep track of what went with what during finishing.
Prestain drying
Prestain drying. Shakespeare's cups made perfect drying racks. The indsides of the boxes will have felt, so didn't need stain.
Stain applied. I was pretty happy with the woodworking, but not happy at all with the finish. I used a stain/polyurethane mix which I'll never use again.
Laying in the felt. It was a touchy process but it turned out well.
Local jeweler made me the plaques for pretty cheap. I just needed to drill the holes. I laid blue painters tape over the plaque and did my measuring and marking on that to get centered holes.
In 150 years when someone is wondering who made these masterpieces, this is how they'll know it wasn't Norm.
