I finally managed to get back to the kitchen island project last weekend (see part 1 and part 2). This time, I focussed on framing in the drawer slides and enclosing the sides and installing the bottom shelf. As fate, or luck would have it, I ran out of suitable lumber for the sides so I took the opportunity to put a Hud-Son Homesteader HFE-21 sawmill to work. I cut another 9-foot long length off the long-dead pine that I felled last spring. That tree will have yielded all of the lumber needed for the island except the top and then some. Even though sheet goods might make more sense for the drawer bottoms and the cabinet doors, I am committed to building the entire kitchen island from lumber grown and milled right here on the farm. I know that's no great feat for folks living in New England, but here on the Kansas plains, dead trees of any kind tend to get bucked for firewood, dozed into holes and buried, or dozed into piles and burned.

The kitchen island is finally taking shape. The pine planks and timbers will be painted or stained once we decide what the top will look like. We're leaning toward solid American black walnut at the moment, but that is subject to change.

This is only the third time in my life that I've built and installed drawers in cabinets. This time I am making old-fashioned wooden slides that I plan to lubricate with soap or hard tallow -- the slide framing is installed here. I broke down and used some carefully placed screws to help with the installation. As always, bore pilot holes for best results.

The Hud-Son bandsaw mill came in mighty handy for cutting additional planks from the well-seasoned pine log. One advantage to this mill over the Alaskan chainsaw mill is that it wastes much less wood. It's also faster, quieter and the little 6-horsepower Briggs engine didn't put me to sleep with both big barn doors open and the Kansas gale-force breeze blowing through. When not in use, it's easy to tuck the entire mill out of the way.

Planking the bottom was straightforward. I chose 0.75-inch rough boards, milled them smooth and nailed them to the frameworks. Rather than butting planks against one another, I cut half laps along their edges so they would overlap by about 0.75 inch. These ship-lap style joints will allow some expansion and contraction but prevent opening to daylight. For the sides (and back) I nailed 3/8-inch thick planks spaced about 3 inches apart. The joint cover-boards are about 4.5-inches wide with laps milled into both edges sufficient to overlap the planks by about 0.75 inch. I don't know what it's called, or even if you are "allowed" to use such crude joinery anymore, but that's how the back and sides were planked on a cool antique cabinet I saw at a flea market -- so I went with it.

Here you can sort of make out how the lapped board fills the space between the two wider planks.

This is the main reason that I believe the kitchen island's top will be made of American black walnut (pardon my shadow). It felt good to get the bulk of the largest downed walnut converted into some nice lumber. I'm still  not certain that the kitchen island's top will be solid walnut, or exactly how I will join the heavy planks. Stay tuned to find out.

For me, building a kitchen island with wood grown and milled into lumber on my farm is a labor of love. It's also slower than if I bought all the materials and didn't take the time to appreciate the process itself. In the first installment, I reported on using my drill press to rough out the mortises for the front and back frames. I decided to switch to hand tools for cutting the mortises for the framing members that connect the front and back and that will support the drawers. I still used the table saw to form the tenons. I was surprised at how easy it was to square and plumb the assembled frame. My thoughts are now aimed at completing the drawer slide framing, building drawers and then milling more lumber for the sides, back and cabinet doors.

I used a level concrete floor to plum and square the kitchen island's mortised and glued frame. In this shot I have not yet removed excess glue -- yes, I used Gorilla glue just like last time and it expands a bit as it cures and pushes out of the seams.

Chopping mortises is much easier if you remove as much material as you can with a boring tool of some sort. The ships auger chucked into an old fashioned brace makes for easy boring. Take care to keep the bit plumb and you'll have an easy time cleaning the excess material out with a pair of heavy-duty mortising chisels and mallet.

Since I only have a few bar clamps long enough to span more than 24 inches, I just use binder straps where practical. With two bar clamps and two straps, a little tapping, wracking, and setting a 100-pound plank on top of the frame it was amazingly easy to get it all plumb and squared up. It'll be a few weekends before I get back to this project, but at this point I'm very motivated to finish it. Stay tuned.