There's something about starting a new project which brings out the procrastinator in me. Writers sharpen their pencils and tidy their desks: a woodworker sharpens his tools, especially the larger and more time-consuming tools, like the thicknesser and the jointer. In fact there are any number of tasks which after weeks (years?) of avoidance can suddenly seem absolutely necessary, like turning all the three pin receptacles "upside down". A wayward atavism obliged me to instal them some twenty years ago with the apex of the triangle at the top (Late English Perpendicular) rather than the customary North American style, with the sharp bit pointing downwards. I didn't actually know that my way was wrong - the electrical inspector said nothing, but they don't say much anyway, being too concerned with maintaining an expression of tolerant scepticism and distaste for amateur wiring. It did dawn on me recently that perhaps the manufacturers of appliances with right-angled plugs did not in fact intend the cord to leave the wall-socket as if it were a runner-bean vine.
Here I'm transferring dimensions to a "rod", in order to determine shoulder lengths, mortice positions and depths, haunch dimensions, tenon sizes and so on. Rods contain only a very specific kind of information, and I remember much confusion when introduced to them by our instructor, Mr. Ford, in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, sometime in 1981. I can still get confused. Hopefully here I won't, but it's a complex project (frame-and-panel wise) with lots of tricky corners.
This is always a nasty moment - cutting a long and expensive board into short chunks, which may well be too short. (Remember the old carpenter's adage: "measure once and cut twice")
This is quarter-sawn white oak, which is expensively pointless for this job, since it's about to be cut into 2x2's.
Below are the planed 2x2 legs, being arranged to match the visible faces, as well as to hide any faults and sapwood. They're then marked with unambiguous symbols to ensure that they don't get mixed up tomorrow. This not as easy as it sounds.
By close of play yesterday, the mortices were cut and I'm wondering about how to deal with the drawer-rail connections. Tomorrow I'll post a drawing of the project; all this probably doesn't make total sense without it.
