Need advice on wide pine boards

Wedding is over so I finally got a little time in the shop the past few days. This wedding present is going to be a little late

Got the case assembled, put the front and back pieces on as well as the stiles and rails. Drawers are all cut. I should get to the dovetails tomorrow. I still need to route a 1/4" roundover on the fronts as well as put the breadboard edges on the top.

Just once I would love to make something without making a stupid mistake or unintentionally signing the project in blood. I made a measurement error on one panel and had to glue up another one, and on a smaller piece I put the rabbet on the wrong side. No real big disaster just dumb careless mistakes.

Bob Gibson said:

I dont know why I always forget about HF, they have a store in Worcester Mass. about 2 hrs. south of me. I will have to pay sales tax though, In NH we have no sales or state income tax. The DC's on CL never contacted me.
Thanks for the heads up Don!

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Bob, "Before" you go to the HF store, ............ get a copy of Issue #193, (Oct 2009) of Wood magazine and look on pgs 76 & 77 for the HF ad with coupons. One of the coupons is for the HF 2 hp DC for $139.99 and in the fine print it says the coupon is good thru Dec 25, 2009. If you don't have a copy of that Wood magazine, you may still find one at HD or Lowes in their book/magazine section for about 6 bucks which still leaves a good savings with the coupon. (That should at least pay for the Gas for the trip).

Good Luck

Thanks Norman, I completely missed that.

My Rockler dovetail jig fought me all the way to the end but I finally won. It nearly became a permanent part of the landscape Finally figured it ( after about 6 hours) out and got the drawers done.
The problem was that I'm making 1 pc. offset drawer fronts and the lousy directions that came with the jig had the wrong pictures and instructions for this type of drawer. They had the directions for a rabbeted drawer transposed.
You can see that I went through quite a bit of scrap before I figured out that I had to make additional spacers. The end result was pretty good.
Besides mortising in the piano hinge I'm ready to sand and finish. Hopefully I will get it all done this week.

It's looking good Bob,
I scrolled through the posts and was surprised that no one mentioned the direction of the wood grain.
In a 6 board box the 4 sides with the dove tails joints would all have the grain in the horizontal direction, so that the wood expands about the same amount on both sides of the joint.
With your design, the end boards have the grain vertical and the front has horizontal grain. This means that the front board will have greater dimensional changes than the end boards with changing humidity.

This is certainly a no-no with glued joints. A dove tail will probably not fail, but there might be some cracking.

Thanks for the comment Paul much appreciated , I kind of thought that I was talking to myself here.
Good eye on the grain
I got the plans and video from Norm Abram. Thats the chest my daughter saw and wanted.
He addresses the wood grain direction very specifically in his video. The only glue I used was on like grain joints. The other joints are rabbeted and nailed. I agree though. I'm sure that there is going to be some movement of the wood. I hope it doesn't develop any cracks. I guess time will tell.
The chest he copied was a couple hundred years old and was made the same way. It didn't appear to have any severe cracks. I can olny hope that mine won't either.

But, I wouldn't make this design again.

Comments and suggestions are really welcome.

I just realized that this thread evolved into a project thread rather than the question on pines boards thread that I started.
I should of started a new thread. Sorry about that.

Anyway, the chest has been done for a week or so and my daughter and her new husband are coming over for dinner tomorrow to pick it up.

It came out OK. I'm about 80% happy with the results. I see all the little mistakes I made.

I'd be 100% happy with that Bob I thing it came out excelent, and I bet your daughter and SIL will think the same Well done Bob

Bob Gibson said:

It came out OK. I'm about 80% happy with the results. I see all the little mistakes I made.
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Only you will see the mestakes.. exellent piece.