Small Tea cabinet - Carcase Buiding

The inspiration

I've wanted to build this small tea cabinet for a little while. I first saw it in Fine Woodworking. Not sure which issue, but it hit a chord, being pretty simple but a skill builder for me.

It is build by Mike Pekovich and is referenced in his book The Why & How of Woodworking: A Simple Approach to Making Meaningful Work as one of the first cabinets that started a whole lot of things. For a visual, if you visit Mike's web site, it is one of the first cabinet that is shown.

The included dimensions in the book chapter helped, but I adapted a bit on the dimensions with the wood that I have on hand. The main wood is Khaya for most of the components. The back panel boards will be out of maple, a nice lite wood. As for the Wood selection for the drawers, not really decided quite yet.

This small tea cabinet is not very complicated build. It includes very good practice on multiple fundamentals on joinery and very good layouts.

For now, I completed the carcase main joinery. The through tenons for the shelves are laid out (green tape on the pictures). I use some blocks to help for the layout, adapting on the dimensions between the shelves off of the carcase. The tenons have also been laid out, also referencing the side layout on the sides of the soon to become cabinet. Time to cut these through Tenons.

Challenges

Some challenges for me :

• Cutting the little tab on the sides to fit into the rabbet so the back panels can fit - Take your time for this one.

• I expect that the through tenons will be done with caution. Have not done too many

The build of the cabinet and its next steps will be covered in following blog posts.