Well all the fitting of the front to rear bearers is now completed.  They have all been planed to mate flush top and bottom with the front and rear bearers.  This little detail is important when it comes time to fit the drawers.  Any deviation between the bearers will cause all manner of difficulty in getting the drawers fitted and running smoothly.  The standard bearers all have grooves for receiving the dust panels.  The bearers that are located at the divider are a special case.  They need to be wider and also require a groove for receiving the divider panel.  I still need to draw up these details and will post them as soon as I can manage.

The handle rails are now ready for the installation of the handles.  I had to add a deep counterbore to the interior.  The handle rail on the right side of the tansu also will serve as the drawer guide for one of the small drawers.  This means that the interior securing knot of the handle must sit at least flush to the face of the handle rail.  I also realized that I will need to install the handles before I glue-up the carcass.  At least on the right side for sure.  The drawer compartment is pretty small and there is no way I will be able to get my big meaty pawls in there to tie the securing knot after assembly.  Luckily the tarred nylon twine that I use to make the handles will not be affected by any finish that I choose to use.  That’s right, I still haven’t made a firm decision on what finish to use.  Stop pressuring me about it. 😉

I had a few bits of birch ply and was able to fit the divider panel and a couple of the small dust panels.  With that done I’m at a standstill until Friday.  Here is where my rant about Woodcraft begins.

Not showing anything. Just I thought is was a cool shot.

Woodcraft is headquartered in my hometown and I have tried to support them when possible.  But they are making it difficult.  Over the years they have dropped most the hand tool line and have added more and more power tools.  OK, I can see why.  During the 1980’s, the Norm years, everybody wanted a table saw, radial arm saw, jointer ect.  Business decisions have to be made.  I can’t help but think they would be dominating now if they had stuck with their hand tool focus.  Then, just when it looked like they were getting back to hand tools, they parted ways with Lie-Nielsen and introduced the Chinese made Woodriver line of tools.  I have one of these planes.  It’s a good tool but if I buy again, it will be Lie-Nielsen.  Then they acquired one of my favorite stores, Japan Woodworker.  I’m not sure what they are doing, but they have managed to make a mess of the Japan Woodworker website.  They started with a well organized site and turned it into an unnavigable mess.  It is almost impossible to find anything now.  None of the Japanese tools are organized in a logical manner any longer.  They also changed all of the metric descriptions to imperial.  Anyone who uses Japanese tools knows that they are metric and search for tools based on the metric sizes.  I figure this will eventually cause them all sorts of issues, especially with chisels.  They are selling the chisels with listed imperial sizes.  If someone buys these thinking they are getting a 1/4″ chisel, for example, and receive a 6mm chisel, tempers will eventually flare.  Now I’m suffering from their latest blunder.  I need (5) pieces of birch ply.  I could have ordered online and had it delivered in a couple of days.  I’m 10 miles from the warehouse.  I didn’t because I wanted to make sure that I would have it for this weekend.  So Thursday, on my lunch hour, I made a trip over to the retail store to order the (5) pieces, they never have more than (2) sheets in the store.  The gentleman who waited on me was very pleasant and ensured me that I would be getting a call that I could pick it up the next day, Friday.  The store is only 4 miles from the warehouse.  So Friday came and went with no call from Woodcraft.  Saturday morning I called them.  The voice on the other end of the line says “no, the order did not arrive yesterday.”  Fine, when can I expect to pick up my order?  The voice says, “next Friday.”

WTH!

Two days if ordered online and eight days if I order direct from the retail store that is 4 miles from the warehouse.

WOODCRAFT you have got to do BETTER if you want any more of my money!

So this week I’ll catch up on drawings and maybe make the handles and possibly a few knobs.  Plus find a new source for birch plywood.  Hida Tool will be getting my Japanese tool business for the foreseeable future,

Greg Merritt