Dovetailed Whiskey Cabinet

I find it very ironic that I, as a non-whiskey drinker, have such a fascination with whiskey cabinets. My husband loves highbrow whiskey, so I decided he needed a fancy way to display it. I had an ulterior motive in choosing this particular project for this article, because I have been trying to work out a more approachable way to build beautiful, one-off hanging cabinets regardless of their intended purpose — be it whiskey, heirloom tool display or toilet paper. Spoiler alert: this project didn’t get me anywhere near the “simplified, two-day build” design I was going for. All told, I have about 50 hours in this project. Granted, a lot of that time was spent head scratching and problem solving. So, in theory at least, the next few cabinets should go a tad quicker. Hopefully, this article and the accompanying project drawings will also help save you a whole lot of head scratching as well.

Hybrid Woodworking

I consider myself a hand tool woodworker, but now that my workbench is out of my laundry room and I finally have a proper shop, I am learning to rely on my electric “apprentices” more and more. I’m glad I learned to do so many of these operations by hand first, because I have a much better understanding about the hows and whys of things — but I can also thank my lucky stars I don’t have to hand-thickness lumber anymore, because I’ve done it many, many times. Knowing the time and tedium I’m saving with each pass through my thickness planer brings a big grin to my face these days. Using machines in conjunction with hand tools, at least for me, makes every project infinitely more enjoyable. Because this is a hand toolheavy project after the machines are off, I figured it was also a great opportunity to put Rockler’s new line of Bench Dog® Tools hand planes to the test.

Choosing, Preparing Stock

Part of the reason