Making of a jewellery cabinet

Remember I was talking in my last post about a project I was making, then came along the cold weather and put a halt to it.....

...let me pick it up from when it got warmer and I had finished the little jewellery boxes.

So this cabinet is based on an existing piece of mine - the drinks cabinet I made last year. The couple I am making the jewellery cabinet for saw the drinks cabinet on my stand in a show. They wondered if I could make another, but this one with drawers. Of course I can.

Building the carcass followed the technique of I used for the drinks cabinet (read  my blog from early last year to find out how).

This cabinet has drawers, and drawers always mean loads and loads of bits of wood. Twelve drawers with two sides, a front and two backs (yes, too backs). Add a few spares and you have a right good pile of wood!

Normally when I am making a piece of furniture that has drawers, machining the wood up for them is one of the first tasks I do.  Wood for drawers needs to be dry and stable. By machining the wood as early as possible, allows it to dry and move. Then it can be machined down to final dimensions when you are ready to make the drawers. Doing this gives a fighting chance of getting good stable components.

So I wave a magic wand....and 'hey presto!', here is a set of drawers.

The drawers 'hang' in the cabinet on runners that are fixed to the sides of the cabinet. A slot is made in the drawer side that fits snug to the runner.

As this cabinet will be used to store jewellery, nine of the twelve drawers will have drop-in lattice dividers in which the jewellery will be stored. The dividers are sized depending what will be stored in the drawers. So small dividers for rings, larger one for larger items! You get the idea.

I will tell you about the dividers in the next blog post.

For more information about me and my furniture, please visit my website.