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Cherry dry sink
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This authentic cherry dry sink can serve a dual purpose
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By Konrad Sauer, photos by Dave Starrett, illustration by Len Churchill
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The flush-faced drawer runs smoothly without mechanical fasteners. Blind dovetails join the drawer sides to the face
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While the panel blanks are drying, mill the 1/4" dadoes in the edge of the rails and stiles to house the panels. A table-mounted router or tablesaw equipped with a narrow dado blade are the best options for this operation. Regardless of the tool you choose, make sure the grooves are perfectly centred.
Mortises and Tenons
Lay out and cut all the mortises first. There's lots, so a dedicated mortising machine or a drill press fitted with a mortising attachment makes sense. When all the mortises are complete, clean them up with a sharp chisel. Now layout the tenons using one of the mortises as a template. Make the shoulder cuts for the the tenons first, then the cheek cuts. Use a tablesaw fitted with a tenoning jig, or make multiple passes over a dado blade and remove the waste with a chisel. Once all the tenons are cut, dry fit the frames.
The Raised Panels
After the glued-up panel blanks are dry, remove any hardened squeeze-out with a chisel. Dress the panel blanks using a smoothing plane or well-tuned scraper. Square the panels to their final dimensions and mark the profile of the raised panel on the edges. The width of the raised edge is 1 1/4"-too wide for a router and panel-raising bit to handle. I raised all of the panels by hand, using a Stanley No. 78 plane with both fences installed to define the shoulders. Plane the end grain edges first, followed by the long grain edges. That way any end grain tearout will be removed when the edges parallel to the grain are planed. If raising panels with a table-mounted router is your preference, consider reducing the width of the profile and using a vertical panel-raising bit. Dry fit the frames and panels that make up the sides and back. Completed panels should float freely in their frames without being sloppy.
The Cabinet Corners
The front and back stiles are attached to side stiles to create the corners of the cabinet. These joints will be edge glued together with biscuits for strength and alignment. Before the corners come together mill a roundover on the stiles using a router, a hand plane or a dedicated moulding plane. The roundover is 3/4" dia. quarter-round cut 1/8" deep, and is stopped before reaching each end of the stile. Cut the biscuit slots before milling the roundover so that the biscuit joiner's fence will have a square surface to register on. Dry fit the sides and back together but don't glue anything yet.
The Bottom
I used antique pine for the bottom because it was cheaper than cherry (a detail which isn't out of place in antique dry sinks for the same reason). The bottom is attached to the sides with through dovetails where it meets the end rails. This dovetailed joint will be hidden by the applied cove moulding later on. Cut the tails first on the ends of the bottom and use them to mark the pins on the bottom of the sides. Use a dovetail saw, a coping saw and a series of chisels to make all the dovetails.
The Sink Bottom
The sink bottom has tenons on the ends which fit into the side stiles and a rabbet on the back edge which fits into a dado in the rear rail. Square up and dress the blank for the sink bottom. Make the end joints by cutting the mortises in the side stiles first and then use them to mark the tenons on the end of the sink bottom. Use a dovetail saw, a coping saw and chisels to complete these tenons. Cut the rabbet in the back edge of the sink bottom and assemble the sides, bottom panel and sink bottom together. Position the back in place and mark the position of the dado on the rear rail that corresponds to the rabbet on the back edge of the sink bottom. Cut this dado and dry fit all the case components you've built so far. With the case fitted together, mark the notches that allow the face of the front stiles to fit flush with the in the front edge of the sink bottom. Cut these notches with a dovetail saw.
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