Penguin Tool Chest #9: Slow Drawer Progress

My progress working on the tool chest has been very slow, mostly thanks to Colorado’s cold weather and my unheated garage shop. But I finally got something done on the first drawer. I made a mistake laying out the dovetails, and unfortunately had already cut the tail members before realizing, resulting in this fiasco:

Oops. I was able to fill the holes with small wood pieces glued in, then re-cut the angle on the pins and re-fit the dovetail. Now I know, I guess. The rest of the drawers will have smaller pins on the edges to hide the stupid dado. At least the dovetails came out reasonably tight for being mostly hand-cut (I cheat with the bandsaw on the tails).

I then sanded the insides of the drawer (a little too far, creating some gaps… next time I’ll have to take it easy on the inside sanding), fit a plywood bottom, and started the glue-up:

I use this room for generic storage right now. I want to get an assembly/glue-up table setup in the future so I’m not hunching over the carpet. I rubbed matching sawdust into any gaps in the dovetails, etc, while the glue was wet. Close-up of my new fancy clamps squeezing the drawer:

Here are the sides after a bit of light planing:

And now I have 6 drawers left to do. I hope each one doesn’t take me this long.