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Most frame and panel chests I notice have larger diameter posts at the corners into which the rails are mortise. Is there another way of joining the frame and panel sides of a basic box together without sacrificing strength?
Consider a basic chest with a lid on the top. If posts are used at the corners, they tend to intrude into the interior space of the chest. Not that I think this is a bad thing – just wondering if there is another way. One idea I was thinking of would be to make two dovetailed frames (the top and bottom members if viewed from the side). Then join these two frames together using vertical members mortise and pinned into the dovetailed frames. The raised panels would then fit in the spaces.
Workable idea? Suggestions?
Thanks!
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Howard,
FWIW, I am just finishing a Cherry hope chest that I designed lined with Tennessee Southern Red Cedar that is of frame and raised panel. I used splined miters for the corners.
Dano
*Howard, I've done dozens in various hardwoods, using a lock miter bit on either the shaper or the router table. Glue up the lockmitered corners FIRST, then shape the inside edges of the corners face down with the stile cutting bit, then do the panels and rails. Splined miters work, but the lock miter makes an easier joint to clamp.
*Rabbet the sides into the front and back. Make sure that the groove on the styles of the front and back is positioned such that the front will be slightly proud of the side when assembled. That way, it's easy to scrape the edge of the front/back styles to make them flush to the sides. If you use straight grained wood for the styles and rails, the joint won't be noticable.
*rob, actually from a clamping perspective there are no differences in ease of clamping when the spline is glued into the adjacent stile first.I do believe the locking mitre to be a stronger joint than the splined mitre. Since the chest that I referred to was made almost entirely with hand tools, I stuck with the more "traditional" spline mitre in this design.I am interested in your router set up to rout the stick and cope profiles on the mortise and tenoned stiles and rails using a rail and stile bit. In particular the cope profile on the end of a tenoned rail.Dano
*Dano, I use loose tenons. Put the cope and stick on first, then do all the mortises at the same time on the Laguna mortiser, at the same setting, all face down. I mark the nonface side with chalk, and put the same number or letter on both sides of a joint. If I can't see chalk, I don't mortise. For a chest, I glue up the front and the back separately, then all of the rails and the side panels and put in the bottom at the same time. I try to remember to put in the dado (or rabbet) for the bottom in the various parts before I start gluing anything. For 13/16" wood, I use a 5/16" loose tenon (Grizzly sells an extra long 5/16" straight bit), and leave 3/4" of wood on each side of the mortise. I make the tenons in 3' lengths and freehand each edge on the jointer at 45* (approx). This makes the tenon stock "almost round" at the ends. Then I cut to length on the MS, 1/8" less than the length needed to completely fill both sides of the mortise.I find loose tenons are more forgiving in assembly, and probably 10 times as strong as any force the joint is ever going to see.I have hesitated to do splined miters because it takes 2 passes thru the TS, you have to make the spline, and 2 gluings, so the lock miter saves 2 steps. Also I think the grain of the spline running parallel to the grain of the wood doesn't add much to the strength of the joint, and the resultant joint is only 9 times as strong as it has to be, instead of 10 times.
*rob, LOOSE TENONS! In 40 years I never thought of that! Thanks for teaching me something today. All these years I've been making applied mouldings for my raised panel chests, what a "ma-roon" as Bugs Bunny would say. I'm embarrassed to admit that. Thanks a ton, Rob, I appreciate it.DanoP.S. Ain't this forum great?!
*I'm always interested in better ways of doing things and this forum has been a great source of information. I hadn't even started thinking about the tenons joining the rails and stiles - thanks rob for the loose tenon solution. This is to be my first frame and panel project (suprise, suprise) - your feedback is sure to make it a better one :-)Thanks again!Howard
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