Paul Sellers' Desktop Organiser | Episode 4

[Music] [Music] let me just show you how my bottom my divider fits in I've got it fitted you may need to play in it just a little bit to get it to fit mine is great it looks good one thing I have done on some of my boxes in the past this is fitting down on the rail if you wanted to run a rebate in here just to gain an 8 and 8 them an inch in depth you can do that that's very similar to the way we did the underside of the rim of the lid I'm ready to move on to my front piece this is the exciting bit this is the draw building this is where we fit the draw front and the important thing again on this is that we have no gap between the side of the box working along the long axis and the end of the front of the drawer which I've got no I've got it planed up it's ready to go I've got no gaps and then I offer this right to that far end and then I'm going to mark this directly off the opening I want this exact I don't want it under sized at all now I know my box is square I know I've got everything square to where it needs to be and what I do is I make a very light pass with this knife wall here just to check something I want to check that the bottom of the box or the bottom of the drawer here lines up with the side of the box at the bottom as well just in case say this was slightly out of square or something like that I could micro adjust it I don't need to once I've got that wall established I go in here make a heavier pass and square that line all the way around I'm going to cut this to length I want this to fit perfectly if this fits perfectly then when I make my dovetails I'll make the draw exactly to size not expecting a gap because inevitably it does end up with a gap with the compression of fibres and things like that when you're making the dovetails it often ends slightly undersized so we go dead to size let's see how we do so this is what we're going to do we're going to chisel into the knife wall just to make the recess a little bit deeper so we have a step down for the soar to be guided by flick that out of the way do we need it on the top we don't really but what I'm going to do is I'm going to just come in here with my chisel I'm going to slide my saw up against that knife all you got my hand with each stroke that's just enough to guide the saw as I push through from the face now we'll follow that right into the knife wall each stroke lower lower lower until you've got that clear cut all the way through blow away the debris and then start dropping you home this is a very light pass with the hand I'm not pressing with my hand just pushing forward and pulling backwards that the weight of your hand the weight of your saw do the work now I'm pressing on the end with my fingers increasing the friction on the side of the place and micro adjusting to keep it in line when I do that with the knife hole all around I don't get any fuzzy bits any bits sticking out on the far side I can see my knife wall use a shooting board if you like shooting boards this is a skill I've developed just by doing it it's not something anybody can give you little circular motion will help you control and watch your front edge keep going to get a clear cut on the end offer this to the box press it down to the recess and that's where you need to end up that's about as good as it gets you don't any less than that pop that out set it aside because now we can focus on the two side pieces these are my side pieces and they pop in here and here so I've got this slightly shower from the front edge the drawer can actually be under sizable by whatever degree you want it to be I'm going to be slightly undersized by semi-finished that's my plan and the reason for that is when I put my bar across the front as I did on my original box the drawer has a pull and that becomes the stock so it stops the drawer and it lines it up with the front of the the box so I've got to do is lay out for my dovetails here I'm going to suggest it if because this is the color of wood it is it's hard to see I'm just going to go with some masking tape on here just to help me auntie you to see exactly where the dovetails are laid out and I need a ruler from the bottom edge or the top edge I'm going to come 3/16 of an inch from either side and then I find the middle between the top and bottom and then I mark three six three thirty-seconds on either side of that mark now if you're using Miranti as I am here where an T is quite coarse grained and it the grain tends to drag you off which is the tape really helps with that too so we come with a dovetail flip over if you're using this type of template over and that is basically the diff tails laid out what we need now is the depth of the dovetails because the length of these dovetails the front of the dovetail this is a half lap duck tail so the front of the draw will be continuous all the way through and it won't show any any dovetails if you do use the tape make sure the tape doesn't go over the edge because it will throw the square off the thickness of the tape down to my 3/8 mark make a line across there my dovetails this is coming out this comes out and this comes out that's the those are the thin recesses I put these two together the exact opposites now and put them both in the vise because I'm going to mark these out at the same time with the same references so everything lines up perfectly just square that line across those lines across the endgrain put the tape on and then lay out the dovetails exactly the same then they will all be exactly the same size dovetails [Music] we're ready to start dovetailing and with the dip tails laid out they what I'm going to do is put a small rebate on the inside of my dovetails do this on all my half lap dovetails it's just a method that I've enjoyed using through the decades and it's a perfect way for me to show you on this project so what we're going to do is we're going to take the line that we used for the depth which was 3/8 in from the end and I'm going to pull a knife wall between where the saw kerf will be going yeah like this right in between and on either side of the dovetails first um this up go into the knife Nick slide the better square up to it and make the cross wall across the the top and bottom edges I'm going to come on to this back face this knife wall is very important I want it to line up perfectly with the knife walls on the two sides like this once I've got that I can chisel into it and define that knife wall a little bit more deeply just carefully just rock that chisel just push the chisel until you feel it separating the fibers back on the bench square onto the wood and you'll see the purpose in this if you haven't seen me do this before you'll see that the purpose in it shortly now you can go ahead and use the chisel just to take off a little bit of that but to make sure you've got the depth let me stand this up in the vise I'm going to use my router as a gauge to get the depth over the edge there like that because this is so shallow I'm only going down now you you can go down about a 32nd to 1/16 and that would be just fine because it's so shallow I can go straight in with the router I just go on to the corner first and I work across that three-eighths depth until I've got a little step down on that side turn around flip this squiggly router the other way register it on the face press down on the surface and then work this cutting edge of the blade into the fibres like this now the end of this he's never going to be seen because it's hidden within the joint so but it's up to you just be careful so you get that crispness that we're looking for across that rebate and that's basically how we get that rebate nice crisp work there now we're going to cut the duck tails getting ahead of myself there and this is the most important we want these dead square so put your thumb along the side of the saw plate cut square across first and then angle your saw to the angle of the disc tail will follow the line stop above the line nothing it's square is important once you've got that you can do the cross shoulders go ahead and put a little nick in that for a step down that inside corner nice and crisp just the weight of your hand on the saw choose win to the corner clean up I'm just following the rake I'm not really cleaning up the face of the dovetail as such and it lines up with that tiny little rebate on the inside so this side we can go with a chisel just choose an appropriate size not too big I go right on to the knife wall here I'm on the inside chisel hammer gently flip over I'm going in the vise for safety as much as anything onto the bench top right on the knife wall gently now very very gently because this will show us a gap if you hit too hard it's looking good we work from either side towards the middle just like we did on the other diff tales these are a lot finer as you probably will know and we're close to actually being halfway already so I'm conscious of that I don't have strike too hard because it can rip there it already is it can rip out the root of the wood this is very crisp and clean inside here that's the dovetail cut I can take this paper off now and now I just marry that up to the front piece if I take this now I've got the markings on here to show me the position I know that this one is going this way so if I put this in the vise here pull this up against that very tiny rebate that I put on there line up the top and bottom I can trace around this now with my knife just like this everything oriented the right way tight into the corner almost as though you're reaching underneath the corner of the dovetail that rake it's almost as though you're trying to reach underneath it to keep it as tight as possible and now I'm going to do the end so I'm pulling it with my left hand tight against the shoulder and I'm going on to the end make sure the grain doesn't take you in a different direction try and go corner to corner and that's it so I'm laid out I can see my my dovetails go with my square down this face here to get my square lines sometimes it's not easy to see in these darker woods now my depth of cut this is very important because it's not the thickness of my piece of wood the overall as it might have been in another situation so I turn it around and I just flushed the dovetail itself because the dovetail is the actual depth I want to go to and I'm going to use a knife I'm going to just put my fingers to line up the edge and then bring a knife wall or a knife mark right on the inside like that that's the exact position I want switch to my square and pull the knife wall between the pencil lines that gives me the depth that I'm going to be working to for the tale recess now I've got to do circus on the side of those difficult to see I think for you but I place my saw I don't even go close to that line I'm a good probably 1/32 sixteenth away even if I want to be just take the corners out Oliver ray don't go past the front that's important if you go past the front it'll show on the end grain of the dirt of the draw when you open the door this is just to get a start really there we've got the knife wall into the vise I'm going to chisel into that knife wall with a smaller chisel a half-inch fit nope three eighths so just go in here push up to the knife wall just when I see the wood split I stop on to the benchtop knife whoops against the knife all constantly working with this knife wall accuracy this is very important don't go too deep with this don't hit too hard because hitting too hard will move your knife wall and your pit and your tail recess will be deeper than you want it to be which means the front piece will run past you dovetails and you can split right into that from the end grain here gently and we take out the bulk of the midsection first because that allows us to pare down the side of the F tails the recess at the death tailed angle I'm going a little bit more boldly now because there's enough knife wall of resistance there keep your bench top clean those little bits of wood that you're splitting out tend to stay on the bench top if you're not careful and that can Telegraph into your material and I'm half way little tedious it's in and out of the vise but it's what keeps the work that third hang just keeps the work secure for you to work with this gets a little difficult here because you want to gauge how close you're going to the outside face as well I'm staying away from the front knife wall for now then now I'm going to change tack a little bit this this miranti is very brittle so when you pair like this it just suddenly shoots away from you I'm going in the vise this way this time now I can see all my lines on the top I'm gonna start taking out the knife walls in a minute I think I need to go a little bit deeper yeah and only you can gauge this you're the one that are working on your pieces of wood depends on the type of wood you using and so on okay now then what I want to do is take out some of this midsection on the front knife wall here just to take the pressure off the side walls so I'm working down at very midsection first now I'm just a fraction off the knife wall now I'm working into the corner smaller chisel will help to clean out the waist and it will help you to get into the corners too I'm right in the knife wall here now in the midsection that and now I'm going down the side knife walls fairly close I'm in the knife wall now and I'm in the corner very pernickety this on this one up to but not in the knife wall now I'm in the knife wall in the corner I think I'm pretty good on this clean out the waste that's the first one I'm happy with I think real test is when we come to that fitting so I creep up on the line this time I'm in the knife wall they move out to the corner surprising how when you're making something like this how when you finish the DIF tail even the most minut gap looks like a huge coven I switched to a wider chisel like again then because I can use the flat face of the chisel to guide me as to flatness on that end grain here I'm in the end grain no rushing take your time when you're using hardwood - it's not like working with a softer wood like time because the pine has more compression to it and so you can rely on that but with hardwoods often you don't have that luxury so just got Chinese those tiny inside corners need to be really crisp if you can get them and I think that's as close as I'm going to get this goes on here fresh and there is my dove tail down that's it that's the half lap dove tail completed I do the same on the opposite side I'm going to start working on the back ones as well eventually [Music] [Music] I've got my front doth tails done I'm very happy with the way they came out and now I've got to cut the sides to length that simply a question of measuring from the front edge of the box to the inside back of the box and then deducting a sixteenth of an inch I'm going to take a sixteenth off because there's no point having it tight-fitting from front to back in this case because the unique feature of this box is the bar that goes along the front for opening and closing the drawer is the bumper that comes up against the front edge of the box and that lines everything up hopefully well it will it's going to line everything up perfectly and we want a little bit of clearance at the back of the box because it just is going to be that's all it needs us that's the practical reality of it so when I come to laying out the dovetails after I've cut the size to length and I cut my dovetails these dovetails are the same as the front they're three eighths 3/16 from the top 3/16 from the bottom and then centered in the middle is another 3/16 dovetail so that's what goes on these side pieces so I make those cut them I've got my back piece to cut to length that simple enough I just cut it the same length exactly as the front there is no rebase on this one not like the front we don't do any rebate so we use the thickness of the back to get the depth for the shoulder line for the dovetails the same on the pimpy so this is the pimpies we do exactly the same so they're just the same as they were on the on the on the the corner of the box so there's no issue they're double dovetail I think that's it that's how we put the box together there's no point repeating it you've already seen me do it you've seen me do the half lap dovetails this is very nice this whole box is coming together very nicely [Music] you

Channel: Paul Sellers

Views: 42,200

Rating: 4.9659286 out of 5

Keywords: hand tools, paul sellers, woodworking, DIY, workshop, joiner, carpenter, craftsman, crafts, furniture, joinery, Desktop Organiser, Dovetails, organiser, Meranti

Id: 3qgNxHhcaHw

Length: 32min 3sec (1923 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020