Years ago, I made a hanging display cabinet for some beautiful collectible lead horses whose riders, armed to the teeth, were begging for a piece of furniture to be displayed in. On that occasion, for the wood joints, I cut the tenons by hand and made the mortises using a drill and chisel. The resulting mortises and tenons were quite “ugly,” but since they were hidden, it didn’t matter, and despite being somewhat filled with carpenter’s glue, they have shown no signs of failing so far.
Recently, I decided to make a similar display cabinet using the guides for routing mortises and tenons with the router and the guide for the circular saw. The original display cabinet has two doors, but this time it will have only one.
The dimensions of the strips I will use are also different, being larger in section as seen in the plans of this display cabinet, and although they may seem too thick for a piece of furniture of this size, I think it will give it a rustic look that will be quite attractive.
With the router guides well adjusted, the structures of the sides are relatively easy to make, and the most challenging part is centering the small 2×1 cm strip in the middle. These are joined with dowels, for which I drill the corresponding holes with the drill press.
The tricky part is drilling the hole perfectly centered in the head of the strip, so I don’t worry too much about finding the exact center of that surface. It is much easier to measure and mark the center of the edge on the head of the small strip and measure and mark the center of the large strip.
With a centering tool that I place in the hole in the head of the strip and the help of a square, aligning the marks of both strips, the centering tool marks the exact position where to drill, which doesn’t have to be right on the mark since the hole in the head of the strip may not be centered. Although now I have a vertical table for the drill press that allows me to drill the head of the strips easily.
Everything about how to make this wooden display cabinet