custard
Established Member
Pity, I've just made up a couple of drawers and I could have done a WIP. Hardly a month goes by without making a drawer so if I think on I'll do one next time. Here's the underside of one of my nearly completed drawers.
In a decent quality drawer the drawer stop is almost always morticed into the front rail, so you need a free space of about 1/8" or 3/16" (or 3 or 4mm) between the drawer bottom and bottom of the drawer slips/drawer sides to accomodate the drawer stop. That gives a hard dimensional parameter for any drawer design. Because the grain of the drawer bottom runs side to side you also need to allow for initial shrinkage and seasonal movement that will run front to back, that's another key parameter of drawer design.
The brass screw at the back allows for this movement. You drill a pilot hole into the drawer back, and a corresponding clearance hole in the drawer bottom. You use a countersink bit to allow the head of the screw to sit below the surface, you saw out a slot, then use a chisel to extend the angles of the countersink hole as chamfers to the back of the drawer bottom. That takes all of about five minutes, in other words it's no big deal.
This is where it becomes a bit of brain twister (and as so often in cabinet making, I find myself full of admiration for the ingenuity and intellectual horse power of the craftsmen who dreamt all this up two hundred years ago). The drawer bottom runs in a groove in the drawer slips, and it also engages in a groove in the back of the drawer front. But here's the thing, those grooves don't line up! You can just make this out in the above photo. So the way you form the the drawer bottom is you work a rebate half the thickness of the drawer bottom at the sides, but you work the same rebate on the front of the drawer bottom from the opposite face. As I said, this is a bit of a mental juggling act, but it's this that allows you to have drawer slips that are completely flush with the drawer bottom, which in turn means any papers in your drawer won't get rucked up at the edges...plus it just looks about a thousand times cooler than those nasty, proud quadrant drawer slips!
Flip the drawer right way up and this is what the back end looks like.
This basic mechanical structure that I use for drawers is very similar to that of nearly every other custom furniture maker I've met in the UK (and as far as I can see it's increasingly common amongst makers right across the English speaking world). I know for a fact it was taught as the top end cabinetmaker's default method throughout the twentieth century, and I've seen examples on antiques back to the very early Victorian period that are the same in all relevant details. As Keith pointed out, once drawer bottoms had the grain running from side to side (from about 1800 onwards) then a new method was needed to allow for front to back expansion and contraction, so it's hardly surprising that so many makers quickly consolidated around this basic design.
Sure, there are some makers who plough a different furrow. Either radically different such as Wales & Wales who have abandoned dovetailing altogether, or in subtle details such as incorporating Rosewood as laminated strips on the drawer runners to reduce friction and wear. But this basic mechanical design for premium quality drawer construction is probably more consistent and accepted than most other aspects of furniture making. Practical experience has demonstrated that these style of drawers can last well over hundred years before needing remedial work, they can carry extraordinarily heavy loads while still being easy to open and close, and with a bit of care you can build them to fit with incredibly tight tolerances.
In a decent quality drawer the drawer stop is almost always morticed into the front rail, so you need a free space of about 1/8" or 3/16" (or 3 or 4mm) between the drawer bottom and bottom of the drawer slips/drawer sides to accomodate the drawer stop. That gives a hard dimensional parameter for any drawer design. Because the grain of the drawer bottom runs side to side you also need to allow for initial shrinkage and seasonal movement that will run front to back, that's another key parameter of drawer design.
The brass screw at the back allows for this movement. You drill a pilot hole into the drawer back, and a corresponding clearance hole in the drawer bottom. You use a countersink bit to allow the head of the screw to sit below the surface, you saw out a slot, then use a chisel to extend the angles of the countersink hole as chamfers to the back of the drawer bottom. That takes all of about five minutes, in other words it's no big deal.
This is where it becomes a bit of brain twister (and as so often in cabinet making, I find myself full of admiration for the ingenuity and intellectual horse power of the craftsmen who dreamt all this up two hundred years ago). The drawer bottom runs in a groove in the drawer slips, and it also engages in a groove in the back of the drawer front. But here's the thing, those grooves don't line up! You can just make this out in the above photo. So the way you form the the drawer bottom is you work a rebate half the thickness of the drawer bottom at the sides, but you work the same rebate on the front of the drawer bottom from the opposite face. As I said, this is a bit of a mental juggling act, but it's this that allows you to have drawer slips that are completely flush with the drawer bottom, which in turn means any papers in your drawer won't get rucked up at the edges...plus it just looks about a thousand times cooler than those nasty, proud quadrant drawer slips!
Flip the drawer right way up and this is what the back end looks like.
This basic mechanical structure that I use for drawers is very similar to that of nearly every other custom furniture maker I've met in the UK (and as far as I can see it's increasingly common amongst makers right across the English speaking world). I know for a fact it was taught as the top end cabinetmaker's default method throughout the twentieth century, and I've seen examples on antiques back to the very early Victorian period that are the same in all relevant details. As Keith pointed out, once drawer bottoms had the grain running from side to side (from about 1800 onwards) then a new method was needed to allow for front to back expansion and contraction, so it's hardly surprising that so many makers quickly consolidated around this basic design.
Sure, there are some makers who plough a different furrow. Either radically different such as Wales & Wales who have abandoned dovetailing altogether, or in subtle details such as incorporating Rosewood as laminated strips on the drawer runners to reduce friction and wear. But this basic mechanical design for premium quality drawer construction is probably more consistent and accepted than most other aspects of furniture making. Practical experience has demonstrated that these style of drawers can last well over hundred years before needing remedial work, they can carry extraordinarily heavy loads while still being easy to open and close, and with a bit of care you can build them to fit with incredibly tight tolerances.
