I took the time first to plane the rebate for the rear panel. Knowing my spatial weakness of getting parts back-to-front and upside-down, I marked these when the carcase was a dry fit (and later briefly thought I had screwed this up!) ...
One of the benefits of mitred corners is that the rebate can be planed across without fear of it showing ...
The rebate is 6mm deep as the rear panel will be 5mm thick to bend it around the curved rear. The carcase is 20mm thick, and the rebate extends halfway into this.
I was curious to see how rebating on a curve would turn out. No problem ...
Here is the rear of the carcase with the rebate ...
Moving to the stopped dados/housings ... the centre panel is solid rather than a frame. I decided that this would be less work, plus there will be a series of stopped dados to be made. The panel is 10mm thick. This was made first, that is, the dados were sized to fit the panel thickness.
I made up a couple of templates. One was the height of the dado, and the other was the height of the dado plus the width of the dado. The inside of the carcase is marked on both sides using the same templates to ensure that they are exactly the same height from the base.
The lines are deepened with a knife, and then a chisel wall is created to register a saw cut ...
The end of the stopped dado is defined ...
A Japanese azebiki was used along a guide to ensure it cut on the vertical ...
Now that the sides are defined by the kerf, this could be deepened with a chisel (this is my current favourite chisel - a 1" Kiyohisa. Sublime!) ..
The waste is removed with a router plane ...
Check that the side walls are square ...
Completed side panels ...
I was so confident that the dados were perfect that I dry fitted the carcase once more ... and then found that one dado was a smidgeon too tight for the test piece. It turned out that a small section of a side wall was not as square as I thought (probably the saw did not cut deeply enough at that spot). The best too to clear this is a side rebate plane. Set for a very light cut to clear the waste, not the dado width ...
Perfect fit this time ...
Time to fit the centre panel. This has been shaped to size, but will need a little fine tuning at a later time. Note that the rear section is secondary wood (Merbau) ...
I had just enough time to slide the panel in. Nice tight fit. Not enough time to saw the rebates for the stopped dados. This will be done next time ...
Regards from Perth
Derek