Cutting the pins, rebates, sanding & glue up the carcase.

First thing today was to get the back panels glued up.  I had already machined these to 6mm and just had to lay them out in the right order to trim to correct width. 

 

The panels are booked matched and once each piece was cut to width, I glued them up with Garrett Wade 202GF glue. I really like the Bessey K-Body clamps.

While the panels were drying I went back onto the dovetails. I marked out the pins on the side of the carcase, using my sharp Japanese marking knife.  This step is the most important step in the whole process of dovetail cutting.  If you don't mark accurately now, you will end up with gaps on your dovetails.  

Next it was onto the bandsaw to rough out the waste, using a series of lots of cuts.

As you can see, most of the waste has been removed.

Next it was onto the bench and a 32mm thick MDF guide was clamped on the work and I slowly chiseled back to the marking lines.

With the work in my main vice I further pared back to my marking lines.  This was very hard work in this exceptionally hard Fiddleback Blackwood. I had to again sharpen my tools 3 times for each row of dovetails.

Here is the result, after several hours work. A perfect fit.....

I was going to fit the two central dividing walls using a sliding dovetail from the rear of the carcase, however upon measuring the panels which I had already glued up, I found they were not long enough. Instead of machining some more wood I decided to just Domino them in.  This is what happens when you are not working to exact drawings or plans.

Next I went back to the back panels I had glued up earlier and measured them for thickness and set up the trimmer router to rout the rebates for the back panels. This was done using a 5mm router bit, in two passes.

Out with the Festool random orbit sander.  I sanded only the inside faces, using 120, 180, 240 grits.

Later in the day the whole piece was ready for glue up. I decided to do this in stages, as I wanted time to make sure the whole carcase was square.  First I glued and clamped in the two central dividers and made sure these were square. I then clamped on the two ends to the bottom.

After several hours I removed the clamps and glued and clamped on the top.  I again used Garrett Wade 202GF for this and watered it down slightly, as my dovetail joints were very tight.  Note the special clamping block I made from Plywood, to put pressure on the pins only. I checked the diagonal measurements to make sure the carcase was square and only had to make s very slight adjustment to my clamps.

I am very happy with today's progress.  I now have a nice perfectly square dovetailed carcase. Next I have to begin thinking about fitting the back panels and then it is onto veneering to doors and drawer fronts.