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Fine furniture deserves great drawers

November 16, 2009 By

Drawers are a critical part of a project. Mario Rodriguez shared his insight into making and fitting drawers during a terrific session at the Woodworking in America conference in Valley Forge, PA. You can view a 19-minute video I shot and later edited, at this link.

As I work on the stand-up desk and prepare for the next step, Mario’s words have gained prominence. I extracted the following thoughts from that particular session, and I suggest you keep this list handy as you work on your next project:

  • What is the scale and size of the drawers relative to the size of the project?
  • Thickness of the drawer sides vs. front
  • Use of drawer slips, to minimize the risk of failure of the sides, at the groove where the bottom normally resides
  • Selection of suitable materials, with straight grain
  • Slips should be even with the bottom of the drawer sides, to increase the surface area bearing on the drawer support structure (frame, dust cover, etc.)
  • Use solid wood for drawer bottoms – and ensure the grain runs side to side, not front-to-back
  • Allow for wood movement – secure the drawer bottom using a screw inserted into a slot through the drawer bottom and into the bottom of the drawer back. Do not over-tighten the screws, or wood movement cannot take place

Now it is time to make four drawers that will fit the desk. If you follow my blog, you will remember that the drawer fronts and the front apron all came from one board of quarter-sawn white oak. This detail is important; I cannot afford to accidentally ruin any of the drawer fronts, as the grain on these is (almost) perfectly matched to the drawer fronts – in other words, I have exactly zero spare drawer fronts. I convinced myself that hand-cut dovetails would best suit this critical part of the project. For those of you who have asked in the past, I must repeat that I will not part with my Leigh D4 dovetail jig.

I spent time trying out various side and back board thickness, to get a better feel for the scale of the drawers vs. the size of the project. In the end I settled for 5/8-inch board thickness for the sides and back, vs. 7/8-inch for the drawer fronts. Drawer slips will be required to beef up and reinforce the sides; the use of slips will help minimize the risk of failure of the drawer sides at the groove that accepts the drawer bottom.

I normally am in the pins-first camp when it comes to hand-cutting dovetails; and, like Frank Klausz, I simply start cutting, eyeballing distances in the process. However, in this project I did something I have not done before: I first went through the steps of laying out the pins on the pins board, as I wanted a symmetrical look. And I also did the layout for the half-blind dovetails on the drawer sides. Then I started sawing.

I tackled the dovetail sawing with much concentration. For the back of the drawer I made a conscious effort to cut to the line on the pins board, and to leave the line on the tails boards (the drawer sides). And for the half-blind dovetails I cut to the line for the tails boards (the drawer sides), and left the marking knife line on the drawer fronts. Careful sawing resulted in very little or no paring required to assemble very nice, tight joints.

The following is my very-concentrated look, an actual action shot (!):

cutting-new-pins

The results, for the half-blind dovetails – before using any hand planes to smooth the sides:

drawer-box-half-blind-dts-front

The through dovetails on the drawer back – notice the straight-across cut near the bottom, to allow for bottom slips (in the photo after this one):

drawer-box-dts-on-back

I had a great feeling when I got to this point:

drawer-box-completed

This next photo shows a little more detail on the spacing available for the drawer slips – the slips will run the entire length of the sides:

drawer-box-awaiting-slips

I will write in a future blog entry some details of the preparation of the drawer slips, and on the machining of the solid wood drawer bottoms. In the meantime, three additional drawers await. I have milled sufficient stock, including some extras to match for color and appearance, just in case my saw starts to wander a bit:

drawer-side-boards

I hope to share with the client some of the recent progress on this desk.

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—— Al Navas

Filed Under: Blog, Dovetails, furniture, Joinery Tagged With: , , , , ,

Woodworking in America at Valley Forge: Making and fitting drawers, with Mario Rodriguez

October 23, 2009 By

Download this episode in Quicktime format
(In Windows, right-click on link above, then | Save Link As…)
Duration: 19:34 minutes

You can read a short description of the work by Mario Rodriguez at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop web page, and at FineWoodworking.com.

Making drawers, and fitting them well, separates a good piece from a great workpiece. As a result, it behooves the craftsman to learn how make drawers properly. Mario used a case containing two drawers to illustrate differences in fitting options.

Included in this session you will the following: milling the wood, letting it “rest” to acclimate to the shop environment, milling to final dimensions for a perfect drawer front fit, suitable material thickness, layout of the dovetails, fitting the bottoms, hardwood bottoms and grain orientation, drawer slips to beef up the thickness of the sides, drawer web with dust cover, and installation and sizing of drawer stops.

Mario ended the session with a verbal description of the technique he uses to cut and fit the dovetails by hand.

Although I edited the 90-minute session to less than 20 minutes, I hope you will find all the critical information to properly make and fit drawers in your next masterpiece.

If you ever have a chance, make the time to attend one of the Woodworking in America conferences. I know you will likely learn something new, will meet new people, and will enjoy the Marketplace and the terrific tool makers!

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——  Al Navas

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Related posts:
More Woodworking in America posts on this blog.

Filed Under: Blog, Conference, Dovetails, furniture, Joinery, Layout, Valley Forge, Video, Woodworking in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A very old drawer, in a very old chest of drawers

October 11, 2009 By

We are finally home, after 3,600 miles on the road in two weeks. Sandy and I traveled to Valley Forge, PA, to attend the Woodworking in America conference. Following the conference we drove into the Western part of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, a region commonly referred to as New England, for all readers not in the United States.

And now the job of cataloging photos of our trip begins, to make some order of the conference, the miles, the gorgeous views, and the wonderful people along the way.

As I started the job of cataloging the photos, I came across this photo of a drawer in an old cabinet from the 1800s. It is one of 8 drawers in an old cabinet at the Old Woodshed, in Intercourse, PA – I avoided flash, and used only very dim available light:

drawer-old-woodshed-3

I cannot find any reference to a similar drawer – I don’t have the resources, or the knowledge to find the information quickly, as I would like to try this look in some test drawers. And searching the Internet has netted exactly zero results.

I love the look of this joinery, but I am having trouble deciding whether this is just a variation of a rabetted side on the drawer front. Also, since every part of the joint is pinned/pegged, are the pegs likely the main fasteners, or are they mostly decoration? Are the pegs likely to be glued in place? And how is this joint made? I can see myself today making the half-rounds using a Forstner bit on the edge of the drawer front, but how would you make the perfectly-matching contour on the sides? Was this all made by hand?

I look forward to some enlightenment from readers who might know the answers to my questions.

Update, and acknowledgments:
I received input from Glen Huey at Popular Woodworking, and from Asa Christiana at FineWoodworking.com. The bottom line: This joint is called a “scalloped dovetail” or, more precisely, the Knapp joint. You will find additional information on this joint here and here. I also thank Chuck Bender, of Acanthus Workshop, LLC, for additional information; you can read his feedback in the Comments to this article. Once I had the name of the joint, I searched and found the following jig to make this joint (the image is from the Woodworkers Supply web site; note that Woodworkers Supply calls this by a different name, the “pin and crescent joint”):


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Filed Under: Blog, Dovetails, furniture, Joinery Tagged With: , , ,

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