Subassembly

Continuing with some joinery after another "break," the grooves for splines were next. This spline joint is for a horizontal partition creating the drawer pocket on the right side of the cabinet. I am always nervous about this kind of operation. If you biff a cross grain cut like this, it is very difficult to come back from.
Luckily it worked out fine and dandy.

With that horizontal partition fit, this makes up the main body of the cabinet. To make the stand integrate as the cabinet bottom and to make a clean flush back, this portion will be assembled before assembling to the stand.
I feel it is a trickier and a bit more time consuming way to build a cabinet but it will yield a cleaner aesthetic overall. A little more literal interpretation of "less is more."

With the edges treated and other details done, I got taping and pre-finishing. I am only finishing the interior of the cabinet at this point. The exterior will need a little more work after this assembly. The finish on the inside is a few light coats of extra blond shellac. I'd like to keep the Oak lighter and would really like the fragrance of the Oak to come through. Not sure if that will work out yet but I'm hoping for that nice detail.

After pre-finishing the interior I first glued the left side to the back and the middle partition to the back too. Although it was a bit of a gamble, I felt more comfortable with a lager glue-up for the last this time. The left side to the back, the drawer division to the middle, back and left side all at the same time.
This would allow for the kind of clamping I would normally like to utilize. It all had to fit well and easily with little pressure for a successful glue-up like this. Though I normally wouldn't recommend it, it worked out this time. Phew!

This is what I meant by a little more work to the exterior. I joined the sides to the back so that the side will end up a little proud of the back. A little work with a plane and the back is nice and sleek. Neat.
A couple more details attended to I've started pre-finishing the exterior with oil. Looking forward to finishing the big assembly.