A Range of Tongue and Groove Joinery.

Pursuing the work on my TV stand project, I had time during the weekend to work on the middle shelves section. This section will form a box with a middle shelf and a bottom board will close the box and be lower shelf. That box inner dimensions will be 10"1/2 deep, 14" high and 16" wide to be able to store a TV cable receiver and DVD player.
The first thing to tackle is to dimension the required pieces as follow:

• 11"1/2x14" boards (2) as the two side panels.
• 16"1/2x14 board as the back panel
• 11"1/2x16"1/2 board for the middle shelf.

As I want a straight cut and the board is too wide to fit properly on my miter box, I set a fence using a scrap piece of wood and a clamp and used the long backsaw from the miter box to make the cut.

Using a fence to cut straight...

...and using the long backsaw.

I check the cut from squareness and cleaned the end grain using my low angle block plane.

 

Considering its dimensions, the back panel is made by assembling two 7"1/2 boards with a 3"1/2 board. The assembly is done using standard tongue and groove joinery, 1/2" deep, made using my Record 50. 

I started by making the tongues on each of the 7"1/2 boards.

Using the Record 50 to make tongues and grooves.

I then made the grooves on each side of the middle board and added side beads.

Dry fit of the back board assembly.

Next is to glue up the assembly. In theory I do not have to glue it as it will be seated between the two side panels but as the back panel will support the rear leg I prefer to glue it so to make it stronger.

Gluing the back board assembly.

This back panel will be set in a rabbet made at the rear of each side panels and the join will be reinforced with dowels. I used my Record 778 to make the rabbet on each side panels.

Using the Record 778 to make the rear rabbet in each side panels.

That plane is cutting very well and the fence having two rods it does not tend to move like is doing my Craftsman plane that have only one rod. I still need to practice though as I have the tendency to slightly shift down the plane on the left side resulting in a tilted rabbet.

The middle shelf will be set in a dado made in each side panels too. First I noticed that the shelf board is slightly cupped so I used my wooden Peugeot plane to get it back to flatness.

Using my wooden Peugeot plane to flatten the middle shelf.

This plane is truly amazing. It rides on wood so smoothly and its iron cut like nothing else. The board has a big knot on one side and this was nothing to plane. The iron cut through the knot as smoothly as through butter and without a hick up. 

Flattening the board reduced its thickness to 11/16 so I need to take this in account when making the dado.

I used a marking knife to mark where to make the dado on the side panels, then used a chisel to make a kerf on the inside face of the dado. I then used my Record 42 shoulder plane to start the dado cut while tilting it.

Using the Record 42 shoulder plane to start the dado cut.

When I reached the bottom on each face of the dado, I switched to my router plane to finish the cut.

Switching to the router plane to plane the dado's bottom flat.

Finally using a chisel I cleaned the corners and I was done.

A clean dado.

Time to try a dry fit of the shelf to check if I did it right (or wrong).

The shelf fit...

... pretty good fit.

That is all for today. Next will be to make tongues and groves so to assemble the box with the face frame, to drill the holes for the pegs and to assemble every pieces altogether.

I am thinking to first finish each piece before assembly as it would be easier to apply stain and shellac on each piece than on the fully assembled body. 

My plan for the finish is to apply and sand a coat of white shellac to seal the wood and prevent blotching, then a coat of stain, then few coat of shellac and finally to wax the whole to get a nice sheen.