The pine board has been sitting under my bench - air drying - for about four months so it's nice and light now. Pine is a variable wood though, extremely soft straight grains with extremely hard knots and pins. I gave it the air drying treatment so that any knots or pins would work loose. If they do, it's a simple matter of filling them with 5 minute epoxy. The lay of the board though and the knots and pins all looked good, so no filler required just yet.
I build the cabs and heads with half-blind dovetails. Extremely strong joints. It takes a while to set up the jig but it's ten minutes of a job to dovetail the sides when its ready. I use test pieces to set it all up. If you have a dovetail jig like this, don't give up. Once you figure it out, it all makes sense and you will be producing precise dovetails in no time.
Here's a dry fit of the carcass:
Next, I wanted to insert the cross bar... for this, I used a Stanley No. 71 hand router. I'm not averse to using power tools but the hand router is just so much quicker than setting up a power router. If you can find one of these, snap it up. I don't think they make them anymore but they are a very useful piece of kit when you don't want to go setting up for power router. Of course, you could do this rebate with a sharp chisel and a keen eye but the no.71 will give you press-fit results every time... This one, needs the bit sharpening but for a hidden joint, it's fine.
Here's everything as a dry-fit. It's all nice and tight here, solid and I can handle this without anything falling out or falling apart.
Next, I will be marking and cutting out the template for the front panel cut out.
Which is where it is now. I will be giving it a second coat shortly and then leaving it overnight to cure. Ready for the tolexing tomorrow.
