American Black Walnut Drawer Unit

[ByronBlack]

Wood choice for the drawers: I think any nice contrasting pale timber would be a nice. I've been working a lot with sycamore this week and it's really nice to work and looks lovely. I would use cedar for the drawer bottoms and possible the backs.

 

[Lord Nibbo]

The drawer front grain should I think be horizontal, this would also give scope to make some half-lapped d/t's for the front joints - Rob

Never thought of it like that. Of course it make sense to do it horizontal because of the dovetails. Many thanks. :lol:

I think any nice contrasting pale timber would be a nice. I've been working a lot with sycamore this week and it's really nice to work and looks lovely.

I've got a local supply of Oak, Chestnut or Tulip, dunno if he got any sycamore though, I'll have to find out if he got any.

 

[ByronBlack]

LN - I got a cubic foot of sycamore (in a single large board) from Scottish Hardwoods (Paul Conroy) on ebay delivered within 24 hours for £36 - might be an option if you wish to use this wood, alternatively you could pop over and grab some of mine, but not sure if you need it quickly or how far you are.

 

[Lord Nibbo]

Nice offer BB, but your about 20 or 30 miles from as far east as you can go before you fall into English channel, I'm near Polperro in Cornwall and only about an hours drive from as far west as you can go. :lol: I'm sure I'll get something local. Again many thanks for the offer.

 

[devonwoody]

Actually I read somewhere that it pays to use softwood for sides and back because hardwood wears, whereas softwood does not cause damage to runners and front stringers, or something like that.

 

[woodbloke]

Actually I read somewhere that it pays to use softwood for sides and back because hardwood wears, whereas softwood does not cause damage to runners and front stringers, or something like that.

DW - all timber will wear to a lesser or greater extent. Better quality pieces will have for instance runners, kickers and sides in hardwood so minimising wear. If a piece is made with hard (oak) runners and kickers and then drawer sides are made from something soft (say pine) then the sides will wear away at an alarming rate...this is why repairing drawer sides is one of the commonest forms of repair in the antique trade. Softwood sides running on softwood runners maybe the worst case as both will wear away quickly - Rob

 

[Lord Nibbo]

A better view of the back face panel with clamps removed and sanded. As a matter of interest when I clamped up for gluing I forgot to put some protective spacers in the jaws and it left some pretty deep grooves in the end panels. So I nicked swmbo's steam iron and with a dampened tea towel steam ironed the area for about ten seconds. Hey presto no more grooves.

Adding a rail front and back the full length and using the actual draw supports to get the positioning perfect. (note the colour of the old and new pine) the front rail (the one at the top in the pic) was positioned first and fixed using glue and 18g brads.
The rail at the back (the lower one in the pic) was carefully positioned to make the draw support exactly 90deg to the face frame.

A better view of the draw supports. Each one is .5 mm higher than the lower front rail, so when the draw is opened or closed it will not hit or rub on the rail.

Jig for positioning the guides. Using this jig as a mock up of a drawer it was simple to glue and brad the draw guides.

Draw guides in place.

Just need to fit some timber above each draw opening to stop the draw from tipping forward when pulled out then a good sanding, the front and sides have not been sanded yet.

Do you think I could patent the draw jig? :lol:

 

[spadge]

Looking really good and love the panelling at the back.

But I think you should have finished the panels before you assembled the carcass because now there is the danger of having a narrow unfinished strip around the outside of any panel that shrinks.

Not being critical, just passing on my experience because I did exactly the same thing with a chest of drawers that had floating panels for the back and sides. It was made of pine and I assembled it completely before staining and waxing it to match some existing furniture. After a few weeks a narrow white band of unfinished wood appeared round the edge of each panel as it shrank slightly in the centrally heated room Touched it up with a paintbrush but even though you had to look hard to see the repair I knew it was there. :x

Your panels are small and hopefully the wood is better seasoned than mine (and it will not have a dark stain) so it shouldn't cause a problem. Just be prepared to do a bit of refinishing if they do shrink.

Cheers

Grahame

 

[Lord Nibbo]

But I think you should have finished the panels before you assembled the carcass because now there is the danger of having a narrow unfinished strip around the outside of any panel that shrinks.

Cheers

Grahame

No problem there Grahame, the panels aren't fitted very tight at all inffact they are about .5mm thinner than the groove and as the first coats of finish will be cellulose sanding sealer followed by danish oil it will be easy to let it soak well into the grooves. Or thats the theory :?

 

[brianhabby]

Fantastic piece, really enjoying this post. Good WIP pics too.

Looking forward to seeing the drawers

regards

Brian

 

[giacomo]

Fantastic piece, really enjoying this post. Good WIP pics too.

Looking forward to seeing the drawers

bye

 

[motownmartin]

:shock: :? Whats that all about :shock: :?

 

[Gary M]

Very nice LN, a lot of work, but by the looks of it , well worth it =D> =D>

 

[RogerM]

What a great thread to get stuck in to on returning from holiday - and pinching lots of your ideas on how to use chamfers LN. This thread reads like a novel - a real "page-turner"!

 

[Lord Nibbo]

I'm going to pick up the wood for the draw sides, back and bottoms in the morning. Although he does have some cedar for the draw bottoms it is only about 3" wide, he does have plenty of chestnut. He agrees that cedar would smell great but chestnut will kill moths, not that it would be of any benifit but is that true?

The sycamore he has is again only about 4" wide so I might be in for a lot of glue up before I get to cut any wood up. He did suggest maybe using beech for the draw sides & backs but I'm not so sure at only 1/2" thick it won't warp badly. Whats every else suggest as alternatives? :lol:

 

[Lord Nibbo]

Draw fronts cut and just balanced in position, sorry if the pic is difficult to see but I had a complaint from one of the moderators that my pics were too big, if you want to see bigger pics just click on the Pics link at the bottom of my post.

A closer view of the chamered edges, hard to see but all three edges in the pic have been chamfered.

The Drawers
Ash planed & thicknessed to 20mm. I'm leaving them overnight to see if there was any stress left in them then I might re-plane them. Final thickness will be 12mm but this will be done after the boards are glued up nearer to their finished sizes.

 

[Fecn]

That's looking very good. It's going to look amazing when you get the finish on.

 

[devonwoody]

I would put the drawer sides through the bandsaw, might be less stress on the timber as well as the neighbours.

If anyone wants larger pics. the can always touch the 100% box on the toolbar at the bottom of the thread and increase it up to 200%, dunhalf show up any faults tho.!

 

[ByronBlack]

i'm with DW 8mm seems like a lot to take off with the thicknesser - and a waste of wood! Anything over 4mm I use the bandsaw as i always seem to find use for the off-cut.

 

[Lord Nibbo]

Took the advice of Devonwoody & Byron and cut the boards down to thickness before planing to thickness, infact I used the offcut for the draw bottoms.

The panel on the left is one of four for the sides and backs. The middle and right panel are the draw bottoms made from the offcuts.