A prototype isn’t a lesser object. It’s a thinking tool. A damn good one, at that. To be honest, I have no idea if something I’ve sketched up on paper is actually going to look good until its actually built. Drawings lie. Wood does not. The photos above depict a prototype small cabinet that I designed and built to see if I liked the form, proportions, combinations of wood, and other things like how would this design and style scale at different sizes. In this case the wood is a combination of cherry and quartersawn sycamore.

Sometimes the best or only way to find out if something is going to work is to just build it. Maybe it will, but if it does not, you’ll probably know what you need to do to fix what is not working – size, proportions, joinery, etc. Plus, if you screw it up real bad, you can just say, well, it’s just a prototype. It’s not supposed to be perfect. Even if it does not work out perfectly, you can use it for something most likely.

This one, even though its a prototype, was still constructed well so it could actually be used. I gave it to my daughter for her to use for whatever she would like.

Without getting into all the construction elements for how I made the prototype (to save some time) versus what I would do otherwise… Here’s what I learned with this one.

I would consider half blind dovetails for the drawers/fronts at this size. You’re really only talking about aesthetics here in that regard at this size. These are so small, the mechanical properties of the dovetail are overkill. And if I’m being honest, I don’t like the look of dovetails. Just because you can do something does not mean you should. I prefer to choose my joinery for reasons other than they might look pretty/show off how good I am at the craft. In fact, in most cases, I’d prefer that one never see the joinery in a piece, ever, if at all possible. Who cares what kind of joint you use so long as its appropriate to the functional and structural needs of the piece. So, in that respect, dovetails – they kind of insist upon themselves, no? Maybe at this small size, a small mortise and tenon. Or even pinned rabbets. Who knows. If the drawers were bigger, had to carry more weight, get more use, then yeah, dovetails are probably the way I would go.

What else, what else… Oh, yeah, I think this could scale up to much bigger sizes, but keep similar proportions. However, the interior compartmentalization – I think that would change depending on what the piece is going to used for, of course. That is to say, what kind of a person’s crap is going to be stored in it. Clothes? Office supplies? Shrunken head collection? All depends. That’s the point of a prototype. It answers questions you didn’t know you needed to ask. Cheerio