I got it one piece at a time

But I sure hope it turns out better than the Pshyco Billy Cadillac.

Most of the pieces needed for the 6 drawers of my dresser. I’m working on the drawers of my eternal dresser project.  This is the point where I’m either going to finish this or burn it for heat.  The drawers are made up of 9 pieces each x 6 drawers = 54 pieces!  That may not seem like a lot to someone who is feeding pieces of wood through a drum sander and router jig, but when you are working each piece to size with planes and joining them with saws and chisels, it takes a while. The best description that I have read on making drawers was written by the excellent Charles Hayward in Cabinet Making for Beginners.  He covered the topic so well that any further writing is unnecessary.  However, since that book is long out of print, I will hit some of the highlights.

 

Get all of the pieces to rough size.  This means making boards 1 inch or more too long and 1/8 inch or more too wide.  Why oversize?  Because every piece needs to be perfectly fit in it’s place in the case.  If you can do this with your tablesaw, feel free.  Here I marked the final size of each piece in it’s place, then continued the mark with my panel gage.

 

I final fit each piece with a hand plane and I check the fit often.  Accurately sizing each piece makes fitting the assembled drawers fast and accurate.  During this final fitting I make adjustments for any out-of-squareness of the case (especially drawer openings).  I generally fit the width (height) of each board, then mark the length (on right).

I fit the drawer fronts following the same steps as with the sides.  Remember, my drawer openings are not perfectly square, so the drawers fit the opening.  If anyone studies my dresser with an engineers square, I’ll kick them out of my house. Drawer sides are best made from quarter sawn materials.  Unless you want to use white oak or cherry, QS material is really not available.  For this dresser and my chest of drawers, I made my own QS stock.  To do this, I bought a really wide cypress board that was cut near the pith (center) of the tree.  I cut it into drawer sides (length and width) and resawed 2 sides.  It worked pretty well since the sides need to be 3/8 inch thick and the original board was 5/4 (1.25 inches) thick. Once all 4 pieces of a drawer are fitted to the case, plow a groove at the bottom (inside) of the front.  Not actually on the bottom, go at least 1/4 inch up.  I made mine 1/2 inch from the bottom because these drawers are really deep and that makes it easier to hide the groove within the (dove)tails on the front.  Speaking of, I will not cover dovetailing the drawer, except two points.

1 – The back is shorter than the other pieces, to allow the drawer bottom to slide in place.  It is level with the top of the drawer. Remember this when laying out the drawer.

2 – Before you dovetail these parts that you have milled perfectly, PRACTICE on scrap!  Here is my first practice joint.  See any problems?  I practiced on 2 more to brush up on my technique before sawing my real parts.  

With the 4 corners dovetailed, it’s time for glue-up.  I clamped my front board to the workbench and that seemed to help the process.  I liked the benefit of the thin sections of the front being supported while I hammered the sides into place.

Check the glued-up drawer for square.  Check the length of the diagonals (right) and flatness (left).  Apply pressure to perfect the form.  Careful now.  Once it is square and flat, leave it alone for the next +8 hours. Phew! With all the drawers joined together it’s time to make the final bits and pieces, but that will wait for the next chapter.

Bob Jones