Tsuitate frame - some progress

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Just because I have not posted in a while does not mean that work has not been ongoing. Here is the state of the frame parts today (love that Blogger rotation feature):

 
All the pieces were dimensioned by hand from rough-sawn 3" or 2" African Mahogany. None of the boards were straight, the grain is interwoven and planing results varied greatly. To put it bluntly, I would not use this wood for any purpose again. But I will make do here.

The best planing results came from a freshly sharpened plane with a chip-breaker sitting as close to the cutting edge as you dare. I tried a higher angle kanna but it did not have a chip-breaker so results were worse. I do not have a high-angle kanna with a chip-breaker but that would probably be best for this type of wood. The pictures in this post show members prior to final planing. That will remove all layout lines.

 
The joints shown are mostly double tenons with shoulders on 4 sides. These are through-tenons except for the two that join the cap beam to the two posts. That will be pinned with a 3-bu square peg. The peg holes in the tenons are closer to the shoulder than the holes on the cap piece so that when the peg is driven in it will pull the cap and post together. Too much difference could cause the tenons to split. We'll see.
 
 

 Tool-wise I ripped everything on a table saw, roughed out mortises with a 1/2" bit in an electric drill, but thereafter it was handtools. Pictured below are a western router plane and edge trimming plane. I used a kikai-shakuri-kanna for cutting the edge grooves of the recesses, chiseled out the bulk of the middle area and then cleaned it up with the router plane. Recall that I am recessing the frame to accommodate the grid in the top of the tsuitate.






Still have some more grooving and hogging out to do to handle the hipboard and shoji insert but that should go quickly. More soon. 

Go to part II: Tsuitate Part 2

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