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Compact Kitchen Island

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Cutting rabbets for floorToday we start off by installing a dado head on the table saw and cutting the rabbets in the lower rails that will accommodate the cabinet's floor panel

Trimming posts to lengthNow that the glue in the corner posts has set up hard we can trim the posts to finished length.  We start by cutting off any raggedy ends, then trim to exact length using a crosscut sled.  This too is a shop-built fixture, not fancy, not as impressive as an Incra Jig, but almost as effective and for a whole lot less of our hard earned cash.

Laying out mortisesNow that the posts are to finished dimensions, it's time to lay out the mortises into which the tenons we cut yesterday will fit.  I lay out the locations with a very precise slotted ruler (made by Incra, naturally).

Cutting mortisesOnce they're all laid out, we convert the drill press into a mortising machine with a special attachment and yet another shop-built fixture.  This time it's a support table and fence that clamps to the drill press table to give the precise positioning needed to drill my square holes exactly where they are needed so all the parts will fit snugly and their faces will be flush to one another.

Dry fit case frameworkNow we get to see how we did.  By dry fitting the parts we get to be sure everything will fit as it's supposed to before we start making the joints permanent.  Since the joints are all nice and snug, the parts hold together well enough, even without clamps, to check it out.  The only thing that gets in the way here -- and we knew this was coming -- is that the rail tenons bump into each other at the bottoms or corners of their mortises.  This is because the posts and stiles were cut thinner than I normally would to make larger openings.  I could have shortened the tenons, but I prefer to keep as much length as possible here: less than 1 inch makes for a poor joint.

Chamfered tenonSo instead of shortening the tenon, we just chamfer the inside edges of the mating tenons, removing the offending corners and allowing both tenons to co-habitate inside the right-angle mortise.

Half-lapped stile & railThe point where the center stile crosses the drawer rail poses another problem.  Again there is not enough wood in this joint to make mortise & tenon joints that will hold together.  So I decide to use a half-lap joint instead.  By taking my time in setting up the cuts and sneaking up on the final dimensions, we come away with a perfectly fitting joint: no gaps, no wobble, no bumps.

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