Arts and Crafts sideboard

I have just finished the Craftsman styled sideboard for my wife Karen. This started out with plans from a book from Robert Lang entitled "More Shop Drawings of Craftsman Furniture". The sideboard basic measurements are from the #800 Sideboard by Gustav Stickley.The main wood is Quarter Sawn White Oak.  I altered the sideboard a fair amount. I changed the sides to reflect more of the Arts and Crafts look. The drawers are also much different on my version. The original Stickley had one very large drawer along the bottom. I did not care for that look so I made the three with ascending steps for the other drawers much like a Tansu cabinet.

The side panel ply is made of European oak. With the quarter sawn white oak making up the dividers and the post and frame. I made my own ply using my vacuum bag and UniBond 800.  (A word hear about the vacuum bag. I have had one for many years that used the compressed air from my compressor to run a venturi vacuum. This actually worked well, but it tied up my compressor for the day. I purchased a electronic pump version from "Joe Woodworker". This system is fantastic! I have another marquetry project that hopefully will be completed in a week or so. )
On the front of the sideboard, I made cloud lifts that match the other A&C furniture in the room. This furniture can be seen in older posts.

The clearance was found by using shims of formica samples.

All of the drawers are made of soft maple and all of the dovetails are hand cut. For those who do not know what I mean here, it means that I used a handsaw, coping saw and chisels to make the dovetail. It really much easier than it sounds. For those of you that know about hand cut dovetails, I do not use any sort of measuring jig, angle jig, etc. I do not try and space them evenly because I feel that perfectly spaced DTs look boring and non-hand made.

This is a drawer side locked into my Moxon styled vise. I use either a LN or a Wenzelhoff carcass saw to cut the tails.

The upper rail is dovetailed into the vertical upright leg.

 The middle rails are tenoned into the vertical legs. This pic. is a view of the horizontal middle rails. They are in a vertical position in this picture.

This is a picture of my jig that I made to hold my drawers as I am preparing them. At this point, they do not have drawer bottoms, but the dovetails are glued. The jig is adjustable for different sized drawers. It allows me to plane and scrape the sides.
All drawer sides are finished with shelac. The cabinet itself was finished with 8 coats of de-waxed shelac and polished with wax.
Hope that you enjoy my latest cabinet. It was sure fun to build.