Photo 19- Using another boring guide to locate holes in the doors. You could use a dowel jig for these holes, too.

The two hung doors are not thick enough to take the cylinder of the Soss hinges, so glue extra pieces on the rear of the doors to give the necessary thickness. Make a boring guide to bore holes in the doors as in photo 19. Place the door in the cabinet next to the holes bored in the cabinet side for the hinges, and scribe onto the door edge the location of the holes. Use these marks to align the boring guide to the door, and clamp in a vise as shown.

DRAWERS

Photo 20- Cut a groove in the drawer sides at the table saw as shown.

Though dovetails are the strongest of drawer joints, the extra strength they offer isn't necessary on very small drawers like these, and you can save a lot of time by making a locking joint on the table saw. I used a thin kerf blade to do this but you could also use a regular blade. Cut a groove in the drawer sides as in photo 20, then a small tenon on the front and back pieces as in photo 21.

Photo 21- Cut a small tenon in the drawer fronts and backs as shown.

Use 1/8" plywood for the shelf bottoms. Cut appropriately sized grooves along the inside bottom edges of the drawer parts to fit the bottoms. The completed drawer joinery will appear as in photo 22. After you glue the drawers together, glue thin pieces of figured stock onto the fronts of the drawers, and once these are out of clamps, round over the edges.

Photo 22- The finished drawer joint.

BACK

The back consists of six equal sized panels held within a frame. The four main corner joints on the frame are open mortise and tenons. Cut these joints with a tenoning jig on the table saw, as in photo 23.

Photo 23- A table saw tenoning jig used to cut open mortise and tenon joints for the back frame pieces. You can also cut these joints with a band saw and carefully located fences.

After the main joints are cut, make grooves along all inside edges of the parts for the panel tongues. Next cut tenons on the internal frame parts to fit within the grooves. Cut these tenons on the table saw with the miter gauge as in photo 24.

Photo 24- Cut little stub tenons on the internal frame parts where they fit into grooves with a miter gauge setup on the table saw. Again, these can be cut on the band saw if you wish.

Dry fit the frame parts together, and measure the exact sizes of the holes for the panels, including the groove depths . Make the panels 1/16" less in width than the hole size you measure for them, to allow for expansion when humidity strikes. Cut 1/8" tongues around the edges of all the panels to fit the grooves.

When you glue up the panel, use C-clamps to squeeze together the four main joints after pulling the whole thing together with bar clamps and squaring it up. The back butts against the rear edges of the internal sides, top and bottom, and fits between the inside faces of the external sides. Screw it to the rear spacers that are glued between the internal and external sides.

TOP AND BOTTOM

The top and bottom are largely a matter of cutting mitered molding and plinth, then gluing and screwing in place with various glue blocks. There are just a couple of tricks.

First, cut a step into the lead edge of the external sides at the top and bottom for the molding and plinth to fit in (photo 25). Both the plinth and molding will come flush to the faces of the internal top and bottom, so the shoulders of the steps must be on the plane of these faces.

Photo 25- Making way for the plinth and molding in the external sides, top and bottom.

Note that the molding and plinth pieces cannot be simply glued onto place on the external sides because this is a cross-grain gluing situation. To allow for movement, glue the pieces at the front of the sides only (so the miters won't open up), and attach them with screws at the middle and rear.

You must use a special screw hole to allow the screw itself to move as the cabinet side shrinks and expands. Clamp the molding or plinth in place, and bore screw holes. Then remove the molding, and widen the hole on the face of the cabinet side that contacts the molding, with a countersink or larger bit. Then replace the molding with glue (at the front only) and screw together. This wider screw shank hole lets the screw move as the wood does.

Cut a 1/8" x 1" rabbet on the inside of the side plinth pieces, and butt the shoulder of this rabbet against the bottom of the cabinet side. This way the weight of the cabinet is supported directly by wood, rather than only the screws that secure the plinth to the side.

Use a long glue block behind the front plinth piece and front top molding to attach them to the bottom and top cabinet pieces.

The easiest way to attach the top would be to screw directly down from above, and then plugging the holes. But you can always see those plugs and in a high visibility spot like this they would be ugly. Secure the top by gluing strips onto it for screws to reach it from below and behind.

A strip glued along the front of the top takes screws placed along the underside of the internal top, which are then plugged off. On the rear, glue a piece both onto the bottom of the top, and to the top of the internal top, and screw from behind through one into the other.

FINISH

A wipe-on oil finish like Watco is a good choice for a piece like this that will not receive hard use, and that is intended to show off the figure and texture of the wood. A little wax in the sliding tracks will help them move nicely, too.

Resources For Building An Oriental Cabinet