On Dec 1, 4:01*pm, Swingman wrote:

Let me put it to you gently, Bubba ... I spent some time outlining what
an _experienced_ cabinet maker does to insure that he does NOT have the
problems you are experiencing, now you want to ... argue with me?

I'm not arguing. I agree, making things square is important. All
along I've made making things square a goal. For the most part, I did
the things you listed. There was nothing on your list that made me
think, "If only I'd done that my project would be better." But even
if there was...that part of my project is done. It's history.

If an experienced cabinet maker would burn my project and start
over....well, that really isn't useful information for me. If that's
the case, then I will end up with a project that doesn't look like it
was made by an experienced cabinet maker. That's OK, because I'm not
an experienced cabinet maker. I consider this my first real furniture
project. I want to know how to make the best of what I have. Being
told "you're screwed" is not helpful. I want to look forward, not
backward.

I tried to measure diagonals last night. Since nobody has yet told me
what the tolerance is I don't know how well I ought to try to
measure. I'll admit that I'm the type to analyze things a great
deal. But this issue of tolerance is fundamental. How square does it
need to be? If I don't know that, how do I know if the experienced
cabinet maker would burn the project or not? I don't even know the
right measurement instruments to use. Calipers? Tape measure? The
experienced cabinet maker knows the appropriate tolerance and doesn't
really think about it.

In any case, taking inside measurements on the cabinet back I
estimated the difference in the diagonals at around 0.02" in 40". (I
did this by using a bar gauge and inserting feelers at the end to
measure the gap.) Seems to me I can hardly ask for better. However,
an 8" square on the cabinet front drawer cavities shows deviations of
about 0.015" from square. This might be because I cut the dividers a
bit too long or the joint not quite deep enough. (The case is made
from four panels, dovetailed together with dividers inserted by
sliding dovetails.)

In the case of the drawers, I found the error in the diagonals to be
nearly 1/8" in the worse case out of a diagonal length of 27". The
other two drawers it was about 1/16" and the third was around 0.02".
I estimated that a 1/8" error could twist the drawer front by about
1/16", so that would seem to explain part of my problem. I can think
of two possible fixes: shim the drawer slides crooked or plane the
drawer front crooked.