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Next came the drawers, and here I will elaborate a little
about Japanese tradition. Often, when Westerners examine a
beautiful old Japanese cabinet, their first impulse is to
open the drawer to see how the dovetails were made. However,
disappointment often follows, for instead of finding fine
dovetails, there are nails. Many might believe the cabinet
to be cheaply made, but this is a misunderstanding of Japanese
tradition; American and Japanese woodworkers have a very different
feeling towards nails. Japanese woodworkers often use hidden
dovetailed joints on small jewelry boxes or cabinets, but
on kitchen cabinet construction or larger cabinet drawers,
nails are common. Another point of difference is the drawer
bottom—the Japanese tradition is to place the panel
with the grain parallel to the sides, not to the drawer front.
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| Western-style
drawer. |
For
this cabinet, however, I decided to make Western-style drawers.
I fitted the drawer fronts carefully into the opening and marked
double-lap dovetails. Commonly, people use single-lap dovetails;
however, I like to hide the joint because first, this is a
bride's cabinet and second, my personal feeling is unless
it is necessary, I do not show structural joints. The back
is joined to the sides with a sliding dovetail. Often, I see
it slide from the top so the dovetail can be seen, but I slid
it from the bottom and the tail stops 3/16" from the
top edge. The bottom of the dovetail is covered by the bottom panel. The bottom panel grain is parallel to the drawer
front and goes into the side and front grooves. The panel
is then fastened in its front groove. The back has two small
slits and is held with brass screws and washers, like the
cabinet's back panel. Finally, I chiseled out the pattern
line on the drawer fronts.
Next came the glass door for the upper case. The small objects
which Pat will place into this cabinet are so special and
precious to her that I wanted to frame them like a picture,
so I designed this door for that purpose. I mitered the front
corners and pushed the unifying pattern motif toward the inside
corner using a 1/4" bead along the inside edge of the
frame.
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