Sycamore Drawer Box Build Process

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It's been a very long time since I last posted in this build thread. We left the action a little over two months ago with me having chopped the end off a big lump of sweet chestnut and chopped it up into pieces.

A few days later, I spent a little time with a couple of planes to clean up the faces of those pieces and bring them to an even thickness:

While I was at it, I also planed the inside faces of the drawer fronts: these faces will be used as references when making the drawers:

I didn't want to plane the outside faces too early as they're covered in pencil marks reminding me what goes where. I'm glad I didn't as there was then a two month gap where I didn't do anything on the drawer box.

Today, I dug out a bit of sycamore to use as the bases for the drawers and planed its outside faces:

I then fed it through the bandsaw...

... and then planed the sawn faces of the two outside pieces down to about 4 mm thickness:

After labelling and drawing lines on the sweet chestnut pieces that will become the drawer sides and back, I clamped them to the edge of the bench and sawed slightly oversize with the Dozuki:

You'll notice the mix of clamps in that photo. I generally prefer the red handled quick clamp and would typically use two of them in a situation like this, but the pitch of holes in my bench was almost exactly wrong and the second clamp didn't have the right reach so I had to use the Gramercy hold-fast instead.

While I was at it, I also ripped the drawer fronts to slightly-over width, again needing to use the hold-fast for the same reason:

Finally, I chopped the back and side pieces up into individual pieces. I'd considered planing the edges while it was one long plank but decided it would be simpler to just chop it up now and handle each piece on its own:

That gives me this pile of pieces out of which I need to make two drawers.

I've got a spare length of the sweet chestnut, but if I make any mistakes with the other pieces I'll be most disgruntled!

I am a hobbyist metalworker and woodworker. I work as an electronic design engineer and spend most of my working days in front of a computer so I enjoy having the opportunity to use my hands and make things in my spare time. I particularly enjoy making tools as I can then use them on other projects. This website showcases some of the things I've made.

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