Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Tall Chest of Drawers - Drawers


Drawer Parts

Here are all the parts of the drawer before assembly. The red oak rails will attach to the front and back stiles.


Drawer Joints

Four brass, flat head screws will hold the red oak drawer slides to the drawer sides. Screws will hold the rail to the stiles. (See the photo below.)  The slide is inset in a groove so that the load in the drawer bears on the slide and not on the screws holding it in place.  In the event of wear on the slides and rails, they can be replaced easily. I could have used manufactured self closing drawer slides instead of the wood ones, but my client, my wife, wanted wood ones. There will be a self centering bracket on the drawer bottom to assure that the drawer is centered between the stiles in the closed position. I’ll show that detail later. Please be aware that there are several variations on drawer construction.  Any design must have a way to keep the drawer centered and level.  Cheap commercial construction short-cuts this feature.  If you want to see a good example in the flesh, visit a Stickley showroom.

Rail Detail Showing Adjustment Hole

The rails on which the drawers slide must be adjustable up and down.  This insures that the drawer front and drawer are centered in their space between the stretchers. and the narrow space between drawer fronts is uniform. (Remember, each drawer front in my design closes against the stretcher, which I have carefully placed.)  I do this by drilling a 1/2″ (1.3 cm) diameter hole with a brad point drill, deep enough so that the adjusting screw head will not interfer with the drawer slide. Then I drill three 3/16″ (.46 cm) holes side by side. With a file or Dremel tool, I smooth the three holes into a slot, which will allow for adjustment up and down.
Posted by Chuck at 05:25:18 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Monday, April 14, 2008

Tall Chest of Drawers - Drawers

Using Porter & Cable Dovetail Jig Model 4211 to Cut Tails in Drawer Side

Last fall I replaced my Sears dovetail jig with a new $110 Porter & Cable jig.  Unless one makes drawers every day, these are very confusing jigs to use.  It is absolutely necessary to label all the parts of the drawer and their orientation - inside, outside, up, down, front, back.  Furthermore, I have never met a machine that doesn’t need some finessing.  (Even my 1995 Nissan pick up truck, though still nearly perfect, requires that I carefully hold the visor bracket with one hand while turning or lower the visor with the other hand, otherwise the bracket brakes.  I’m on my fifth or sixth visor.  I have to stop to do this, because I’m not good at driving with my knees.)

Shim Fix for Offset Bracket on my Porter & Cable Dovetail Jig

Here’s the finessing fix, a shim to adjust the offset bracket so that the top of the right hand drawer side and top of the drawer front line up.

Rabbeted Half-Blind Dovetails (Drawer Front Face Down)

Working slowly and carefully and talking to myself and triple checking and turning off the music, I got the dovetail joints for the seven drawers completed.

Labeling What Goes Where so Things Match Up

Label every operation on a drawer part, one operation at a time.  It you try to label all the operations at the same time, you will be hopelessly confused about which operation to do when.  Even labeling one at a time  can lead to mistakes.  For example, the groove is suppose to go where it says “groove.”  How could this possibly lead to mistake?  Easy.  On the saw I’ve put the wood piece with the note FACING UP so I could read it.  That means I did the operation on the WRONG SIDE.
Posted by Chuck at 05:34:51 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Tall Chest of Drawers - Carcass Assembly

Parts for One Side of Dresser

Here’s the layout of the parts of one side of dresser: the stiles, the top and bottom rails, the two panels and the mullion separating the panels. The next step is to locate and drill the holes for the pegs that secure the mortise and tenon joints.

1/4″ (.63cm) Diameter Hole for Peg

For all the joints I use a quater inch diameter hole (.63cm). I drill all the holes 1″ (2.5cm) deep, deep enough to pass into the far side of the mortise. A 5/16″ (.8cm) diameter hole and peg would have worked just as well. I do not drill the hole in the tenon at the same time.

Locating the Hole in the Tenon

To locate the peg hole in the tenon I clamp the two parts together to insure a tight fit. With the brad point drill I used to drill the holes, I mark the center of the hole on the tenon while it is clamped. (The tape on the drill bit is to insure the holes are the same depth, in this case one inch.)

Marked Center Location on Tenon

The circled dimples show the location of the hole, but I DO NOT drill at this location. I drill the peg holes in the tenon about 1/32″ (.8mm) toward the base of the tenon from the marked location.

Offset Holes for Mortis and Tenon Joint

The holes in the tenon are now slightly offset toward the base of the tenon. (This photo exaggerates the offset. If the offset is too great, the peg will break or deform too much to pass into the hole on the far side of the mortise.) When the peg is driven into the hole, it will pull the tenoned piece tight into the joint.

Peg with Grooves

I make the pegs from maple dowels. I cut them 1 1/4″ ( 3.2cm) long, 1/4″ (.6cm) longer than the depth of the hole. First I bevel the end of the pegs so that they will not get hung up on the offset hole in the tenon. Then with a pair of pliers I indent some glue relief grooves on the pegs to allow any extra glue to escape. I don’t make the grooves the whole length of the peg because I don’t want any indentations to show up when I cut the peg off even with the finished surface.

The next step is to glue and clamp the pieces together.  First I glue the top and bottom rails to the mullion and peg them.  Then I insert a panel into the grooves in the assembled rails and mullion.  Next I assemble one stile and the rails with its panel.  I tap in the pegs for those joints.  Finally, I assemble the second stile and the rails with its panel.  I peg those joints.  Even though the pegs are holding the mortise and tenon joints securely, I clamp the whole assembly until the glue dries. 

Posted by Chuck at 18:32:00 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Chest of Drawers Web Frame

One of the Seven Web Frames and Its Dust Cover

Detail of Parts for Web Frame

I‘ve cut all the members for the seven web frames, one below each drawer.  I take particular care to cut the tenon square so that when I glue and clamp them the web frame is square.  If the web frames are not perfectly square, the chest will not be square and the drawers will not fit or slide well.  This is just one of several different ways to make web frames.
Posted by Chuck at 04:57:10 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Dry Assembly of Carcass Framing Members

Dry Assembly of Carcass

I put together the carcass frame members to make certain everything fits and is square.  This is the stage for the first chest of drawers I showed last October 15th.  The next task is to cut the grooves in the side members to receive the panels.  If I haven’t mentioned it, I label every piece of wood identifying its name, location, matching joints, what side is up, whether its on the left or right, front or back.  I’m fairly good at imagining shapes in three dimensions, but when the parts are unassembled it’s difficult at times to remember their orientation in the assembled configuration, especially with the usual interruptions. 

Cutting Grooves to Receive Panels

Panel Grooves in Side Members

A few years ago I put a 4 ft. x 4 ft blackboard in my studio.  It’s made of 1/4″ Masonite painted with chalk board paint.  It is indepensible.  For this project I can write out the order of making parts and sketch the details I’m working on.  I only have to look up to check orientations, dimensions and what to do next.  Sometimes I even sketch a nude to start the day right.

My Helpful Blackboard

Posted by Chuck at 02:26:42 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Tall Chest of Drawers Finished

Original Concept for Tall Dresser, 55 3/4″ x 25 3/4″ (142cm x 65cm)

This was the original concept for the tall chest of seven drawers, sometimes called a longerie chest or semainier.  In my concept the drawers and hand holes diminish in size as they ascend.  Below is the finished dresser.  I have to varnish it yet.

Tall Chest of Drawers, 57″ x 26 1/2″ x 18 3/8″ (145cm x 67cm x  47cm), maple, poplar, red oak, pine plywood

Tall Chest of Drawers, detail

Tall Chest of Drawers, detail

Tall Chest of Drawers, detail

In addition to putting on a finish the only thing left to do is to build another one just like it.

Posted by Chuck at 19:20:39 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Tall Chest of Drawers

Drawer Fronts and Drawer Sides

Today I finished up the drawer sides and cut the hand holes in the drawer fronts.  I’m ready to cut the dovetail joints.  I have given up trying to get my Sears dovetail jig to do what I want.  I’m throwing it away.  Tomorrow or Monday I’ll get a Porter Cable jig at Woodworkers Supply.

Tomorrow, Sunday, Cathy and I are going up to Santa Fe to see the Gee’s Bend Quilts at the Museum of International Folk Art.

Posted by Chuck at 04:25:42 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Friday, November 2, 2007

Tall Chest of Drawers Update

Tall Chest of Drawers, 57″ x 26 5/8″ x 18 1/4″ (145cm x 68cm x 46cm), maple, poplar, pine plywood

I have glued up the case with two of the web stretchers in place and the back panel screwed in place. All the mortise and tenon joints are pegged with maple dowels. I am now working on the top, which will be a slab of five maple boards with hidden splines. The four panels, two on each side, are free to move. The relative humidity in my studio the past few weeks has hovered around 25%. If the piece were to find its way into an environment with normal humidity of about 70%, each 5″ (13cm) wide panel could be expected to expand by around 1/8″ (.3cm). The top, which is 18 1/4″ front to back, can be expected to expand about 7/16″ (1.1cm). This website discusses wood shrinkage and has a handy shrinkage calculator, among a lot of other useful information on woodworking.

Cathy and I paid a visit to the Simply Stickley showroom recently to look at drawers and how they slide. My initial idea was to use KV slides for the drawers. My preference for the slides is based on an antique three-drawer chest we bought nearly forty years ago. We dated the chest from about 1880 based on how the drawers were constructed. It was nothing spectacular, the kind of item one might have bought from a Sears catalog. It’s made of poplar. One hundred thirty years of pulling and pushing the drawers has produced considerable wear on the web frames and the drawer sides, so much that the drawers don’t fit easily in their spaces. There is no easy way to repair the wear, and the piece isn’t valuable enough to warrant the effort. The wear calculation is easy enough. One or two drawers of a chest of drawers will be opened and closed at least once a day. That’s 730 slides a year, 7,300 slides in ten years, 73,000 slides in a century. That’s a lot of wear. The modern Stickley reproductions use a traditional oak against oak slide. (I’ll show a detail when I get to the drawers.) Cathy prefers the more traditional approach used in better furniture. I’ll do the oak wood slides. Am I being optimistic about how long this piece and its mate (I don’t mean me and my wife.) will be around? I don’t think so. A soundly made and sensibly designed piece of furniture ought to last a century or more barring floods and fires. Think how much furniture was lost in Katrina-flooded New Orleans and fire-stormed-California.

By the way, at the Simply Stickley showroom a similarly dimensioned chest of drawers as the two I’m doing, were sale priced at $2600. Considering the quality of the materials and workmanship, I think that’s a good buy. That’s $26/year over a century.

Posted by Chuck at 03:31:29 | Permalink | No Comments »

Friday, October 19, 2007

Tall Chest of Drawers Update

Seven Drawer Chest, 57″ x 27″ x 18″ (145cm x 69cm x 46cm), maple, poplar

I finished the side panels this morning. Here they are in a dry (glueless) assembly. Everything is fitting together very well.

An artless week. No new drawings this week. Edna has a cold today. No working from the model tomorrow. Randy Cooper’s [http://www.randycooperart.com/] studio couldn’t find a model to schedule.


Posted by Chuck at 05:09:38 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Tall Chest of Drawers Update

Seven Drawer Chest, 57″ x 27″ x 189″ (145cm x 69cm x 46cm), maple

I have finished the basic structure for the chest.  Here I have put it together “dry,” not glued yet. There are 20 mortise and tenon joints. I have already grooved the sides to receive the four panels, two on each side. Next I will add the grooves to the styles to receive the web frames and rabit the back to receive the plywood back.

In this month’s, November 2007, Elledecor on page 132, there is a brief article on the semainier, the tall narrow seven drawer chest, with photos of ten examples in various styles. I have also found an example of a Frank Llyod Wright designed semainier. Semainier comes from the French word for week, semaine. This type of chest first appeared in 18th century France for storing the week’s linens. At any rate, calling a piece of furniture a semainier is so much more elegant than calling it a seven drawer chest. Thank you France.

Posted by Chuck at 17:47:50 | Permalink | Comments (3)