The medicine chest continued.The drawers.

It took a while to regain enough interest to continuing the build of the medicine chest. No idea why I came to a halt, but such things happen, I suppose also to others. I have been working on the door, but not much interesting to report on that job. Just chopping four mortises, cut four tenons and did a bit of adjusting to get a nice flat door with tight shoulder lines. I also flattened the door panel which had cupped quite a bit since the winter. No surprise there either. It has been stable for a few weeks now.

But before I start with the carvings on the door, I decided to get all the construction work out of the way. I made a start with the drawers. My cabinet is loosely inspired by the 17th century spice cabinets, like I wrote last autumn . These cabinets always had a bunch of small drawers, usually behind a door. These drawers were often crudely made and simply nailed together. But the 17th century also saw the rise of the dovetail joint in drawer construction. Usually very crude too, and the first examples often had a single dovetail per corner. Like in this example (with some nails to be on the safe side).

Dovetails, not for show, for construction purposes only. Showy dovetails in drawer design is more an 18th century invention.

Because I am only loosely basing my design on the 17th century I can do whatever I like. I happen to like these kinds of crude details, so that's what I made. One single dovetail. Half lapped in the front and a through dovetail in the back. The bottom is going to be nailed on.

A crude drawer. Dovetail not super tight, overcut in some places. Cherry front and back, while the sides and the bottom are made from oak.

One drawer dovetailed. Two more to go.