Craftsman-Style Cabinet

What is it about this cabinet that you notice first? The door with its two center stiles? The four drawers with their hammered ring pulls? Or possibly the straight, even grain of the oak case? For a relatively small project, there’s a lot of details to “take in.” And there’s a lot of woodworking here too. The case is plywood construction. The solid wood base it sits on is an open mortise and tenon assembly with a mitered frame. And the top is a large, glued-up panel. Add to this an inset door and four drawers, and you’ve got a wide variety of cabinet-making techniques — and challenges. If all this sounds a bit overwhelming, keep in mind that all these techniques are pretty straightforward. Take the case, for instance. Fitting a lot of case panels together while you’re adding glue and clamps can be a real juggling act. But that won’t be a problem here. When it’s time to assemble the project, all you have to do is work from the inside out, adding a piece or two at a time. And the relatively small size of the case also helps keep the assembly from being unmanageable. So you won’t need an extra set of hands to build this project. Or how about the drawers. They’re built with a halfblind dovetail router jig and are mounted in the case on full-extension metal slides. These slides work great (especially when the drawer is stuffed full), and they’re fairly easy to install. Still, by the time all four drawers were in place, I had a pretty good list of installation tips, and the five best are included.