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April 29, 2010 By

Adjusting the reveal on drawers

The viewing angle on a piece of furniture shows differences in the amount of reveal around the edges of a drawer:

Viewing angle and reveal around perimeter.

I like to adjust the amount of reveal slowly, using a block plane; doing it this way removes a thin slice with each pass:

Adjusting the reveal on bottom edge.

This means I am now really close to completion. Now the final finishing touches with varnish, allowing it to cure, and it will be ready for delivery to my client.

— Al Navas

Filed Under: Blog, Design, furniture Tagged With: ,
April 7, 2010 By

Adjusting the drawer stops for the stand-up desk

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: , , ,
April 6, 2010 By

Drawer stops for the stand-up desk

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: , , , , ,