I find myself at the beginning of another tansu project.  This one will be slightly different from the last.  The drawer arrangement will incorporate an additional bit of joinery.  Specifically I want to add a divider to enable asymmetrical arrangements.  One of the hallmarks for Japanese tansu an asymmetrical arrangement of the drawers and doors and I want to be able to emulate this feature in my designs.  I think I have this new joinery element figured out but I want to get the frames and bearers dry fitted before I commit to cutting anything for the divider.

This HB Tansu will be for my drawing and knot tying supplies that I keep in the house.  This was what HB Tansu #1 was to be for, but the wife claimed that one as her new bedside  cabinet.  The drawers will be fairly shallow so that I don’t end up burying supplies in an overly deep drawer.  This tansu will be framed in cherry and the bearers and panels will, like before, be from pine and birch plywood.

The cherry I purchased a few months ago.  These pieces are sold as turning squares.  I’ve had them acclimating to the shop and believe they are ready to go.  So today I did a full-size drawing and ran the cherry through the planing jig.  I also laid out the joinery for the four corner posts.   Before calling it a day, I chopped a few mortises.  I usually work in pine so the cherry will take a little getting used to.  So far it has planed beautifully and the mortises were only slightly harder to chop.  I’ll need to sharpen up a little more often but so far I see no nothing to worry about.  Cherry is pretty mild as hardwood goes and I don’t anticipate any issues.

So once again, down the rabbit hole I go.

Greg Merritt