I completed my all neander' project #2 today. I'm not sure if I should paint it, stain it, or just varnish it. Thoughts?
2020-08-10 19.51.32.jpg 2020-08-10 19.51.50.jpg
As you can see the two rails and drawer front don't terribly match. This is due to all the mistakes which necessitated tossing the initial rails which were cut from the same board as the drawer front. I cut them both too short and/or butchered them in other ways. So I had to redo pieces. This project was made entirely of leftover red oak from a bar top project, and the main point was for M&T practice.
It is going to end up in my pub/hobby shop as a stand for a paint rack, so I don't want it to look any more terrible than necessary. So, hence the thought that maybe staining or painting will help blend the front better together. If painted, not sure where to stop on the drawer? Paint over the dovetails/drawer top/bottom/front? Just the front leaving bottom/top natural?
2020-08-09 13.23.25.jpg 2020-08-09 13.23.09.jpg Dovetails fairly gappy... originally I cut them away from the knife line by a tad thinking the pine tails would better compress/fit in the oak pins... but it wasn't going in. After paring down they ended up like this. Oh well, I'm sure next project will be better.
PS If anyone was following my project #3 (Tool Chest), yes I finished that first. After I started #2 I was pretty frustrated by all the mistakes I was making with the M&Ts and even more so by my tool disarray. I set aside #2 and started #3. The tool chest was all-in-all way more fun, and it was rewarding to finally get my tools so much better organized. But as learning curve goes, all three projects were major gains to my neophyte hand tool and general woodworking skill set.