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Adjusting the drawer stops for the stand-up desk

April 7, 2010 By

The glue-up of the drawer stops worked well, although the shop temperature dropped into the low 60s overnight. The liquid hide glue set perfectly, which means I can now start on the final adjustments and finish fitting the drawers. Some tweaking might be required after I install the top on the desk.

The final adjustments to the drawer stops consist of trimming the front edge, a little at a time. I don’t want to trim too much. Each stop is trimmed with a little Stanley #75 rabbet plane, checking progress every few shavings:

Trimming front edge of stop.

Once a close fit is dialed in with the rabbet plane, the final step is to take a few shavings from the drawer front, to get it perfectly flush with the front desk apron:

Getting the drawer front flat, and flush with apron.

The final step is to get the reveal around the drawers as even as possible. Careful use of a block plane is essential, to keep the reveal as small as possible. I did not dare go beyond this point today:

Drawers after fitting and adjusting reveals on perimeter.

Once the top is installed, I will do a final-final drawer fit, to adjust the reveals and to ensure smooth operation of all drawers. Then I will start the finishing process.

— Al Navas

Filed Under: Blog, Design, Education, furniture Tagged With: , , ,

Drawer stops for the stand-up desk

April 6, 2010 By

If you follow the blog, you already know I dislike stuck drawers, and sloppy fitting drawers. In the sloppy category I place a drawer that goes into the opening crooked, such that you must fiddle with it to align it to the opening. The solution to avoid this is to install drawer stops, and to carefully trim them to ensure perfect alignment of the drawer front with the apron.I use a variation of the technique used by Mario Rodriguez, which he discussed during his presentation at Woodworking in America at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; I shot and edited a video that you can watch at this link.

To ensure proper alignment, I insert a drawer stop into a mortise I mark and then chop with chisels. I also use liquid hide glue, to make it easy to replace the stops if needed:

The right drawer stop.

The following photo shows the taper I put on the bottom of the front edge; this allows me to tweak the position of the stop during the glue-up (once the glue has cured, I simply trim the edge to ensure perfect alignment of the drawer front):

The left stop.

In the next photo I show the two drawer stops installed, and ready for trimming — I set each stop 2-5/8″ from the drawer openings. In this photo I have removed the drawer bottom, to make it possible to peek at the front edge:

Both stops installed, ready for trimming.

Once the glue has set on all stops, I will do the fine-tuning with the small #75 bull nose rabbet plane.

— Al Navas

Filed Under: Blog, Design, Education, furniture, Mortise Tagged With: , , , , ,

Drawer guides for the stand-up desk

March 31, 2010 By

Few things can be more annoying than stuck drawers; however, I find sloppy-fitting drawers quite annoying, too. As a result, this desk gets hefty drawer guides, to keep the drawers moving straight and without much sideways slop. This is accomplished with drawer guides attached to the dust cover.

For each drawer I size the guide a bit at a time, using a hand plane:

Tweaking the width with a hand plane.

To prevent binding at the drawer opening, some hand work is required to taper the guide near the entry point:

A smooth taper is essential.

Installed, the guide allow lateral movement of only a few thousands of an inch. As the drawer bottoms are oriented such that long grains runs the width of the drawer, this tight fit should be good – if not, a few thin shavings from the sides of the drawer will fine-tune the fit quickly:

One guide screwed firmly in place.

Up close and personal, this is the drawer’s view of the guide in place. The taper is key to allow easy drawer entry into the space:

View from the opening.

Sometimes the spacing between drawers is narrow; in this instance, the two drawers share one guide:

One guide shared by two drawers.

With the guides in place, it is possible to continue to place the drawer stops; only then can the final fit of the drawer fronts be done, to ensure good appearance on the front apron. While this appears tedious, it is actually rewarding work; the details do count!

— Al Navas

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Filed Under: Blog, Design, furniture, Tutorial

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