I was in my shop trying to organize a jumble of cabinet parts, when a friend dropped by and showed me an old layout trick that has since saved me lots of time and confusion. After parts are cut to size, and before you lay out any joints, select the “show” face of each piece, orient it for best grain composition, and then organize the pieces on your bench in their desired relation to each other. Now it’s a simple matter of pressing the pieces together and striking a few lines across their faces to create a triangle as shown in the drawings. A glance at the markings immediately identifies the “show” face, the top, the bottom, and the left- and right-hand sides of each piece. To identify multiples, strike additional lines that extend across the mating pieces.
