You’re right, that looks more like a kitchen than a woodshop!  It’s been pretty cold here in Las Vegas as it has been through-out our country this week.  It hasn’t risen much above the low 40’s even with my portable propane heater and that is just not good conditions to glue up in.  I did one of the additional boxes and the glue squeeze out looked more like whitewash than glue!  I decided it would be wise to bring the pieces for this commissioned box into the house, let them and the glue acclimate to “room temperature” and then glue it up using the breadboard as a temporary work bench.  So, this one is complete and I feel good about the integrity of the glue joint.  The tech directions for the glue (Lee Valley Cabinetmakers) says “apply at room temperature” but fails to tell you what room temperature should be — I’m sure it’s not the low 40’s though!

You may recall my previous post about making the L-shaped fence for the tablesaw.  Here’s where it came into use for this project.  In a nutshell,  one of its functions is to replace the sacrificial fence we often put on a rip fence when cutting rabbets.  The top and bottoms of these boxes feature a rabbeted piece that will be glued to form a solid cube.  Here’s how that is done:

After making some trial cuts to check the adjustments the rabbet around the underside of each piece.

There was one more use for the dado head on this project.  The commissioned box will have a 2″ high lid which will require a dust check to have it close properly.  A trick you can use is to cut a dado or groove before you assemble the box.  The depth is equal to the thickness of the piece I’ll use for the dust check.  Now the piece is being guided against the fence and I’m being careful that the correct edge is being held against the fence.  This is where marking all of the pieces with the painters tape pays off.  So easy to flip a piece the wrong way!

Here’s all of the pieces with the groove cut, ready to be assembled.  The other piece is Poplar and it will be shaped to become the dust check.  Glad I’m able to take it into the house to assemble.  The weather forecast calls for this cold spell to continue for the next week and I need to complete this order within a specific time frame.  No problem now,  shellac isn’t effected by low temps as much as other finishing materials.