Thread: Can you spot the boo-boo?

No? Well, here's a close up.

Derek

Looks to me like the drawer fronts are almost bookmatched.

I assume the dovetails are hand cut?

No bottom in the drawer?
If it's any consolation I just cut two identical mitres on the last piece of window framing I am replacing, now have to go and get another piece of Tassy Oak so I can finish :mad:

You used pine??


Al

Derek,

I can see a couple of things - the end-grain of the sides is showing on the top (you should have rabbetted the underside of the top rather than the insides of the sides), and the web frames lack dust panels, which is OK, so long as he doesn't fill the drawers really full of clothes. I suggest that you add a second top with a moulding, and no-one will ever realize that you didnt plan it that way.

Rocker

Derek,

I think the answer you wanted was that the pins, on the drawer fronts, should be narrower than the tails on the drawers sides, rather than vice versa. But that could just be a feature rather than a bug

Rocker

Possibly the drawers are such a snug fit vertically, there will be no space to fit bottoms?

Neil.

Or quite possibly you are going to have a lot of trouble fitting all those drawer runners under the drawers which don't appear to have any space left for the fitting thereof.

OK folks, we have a winner!!

Outback, the dovetails are indeed all handcut - that is the general area where the problems lies. Not with the fact that they are handcut, per se. 99% of woodworkers would not notice what the problem there was, I'm sure.

Iain, no, the problem is not with the drawer bottoms - these just haven't been inserted yet.

Al, I did use pine (!). Probably will not do this again. I thought that I might use this project to experiement a little since everything here was done with hand tools. Cutting dovetails in pine is a real bear. It is much easier in a hard wood since pine has a tendency to crumble. The only way to do it is to pare (i.e. not chop, unless with the grain) and then with very, very sharp chisels (I have been using Berg paring chisels with 20 degree bevels).

Neil, the drawers are snug indeed, but tunable with a plane. But this was planned. No problems here.

The winner is Rocker! Only on the second attempt, I will gently chide (but I am nevertheless impressed). The problem is indeed tha fact that the tails are very narrow.

I really don't know how this happened. I got into a zone and cut all the dovetails over two weekends. Through dovetails on the rear, Half-blind on the front. 120 dovetails in all. And Saturday I began to assemble them. I thought something was odd. I caught it after the second drawer. I had made the tails as narrow as I had intended for the pins! Talk about having visual spatial problems!!! As I said earlier, 99% of the time this would not be noticed (in fact when I pointed it out to my wife she said that she rather liked the "design".

The question now is. "Will these drawers be stong enough?".

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek,

You didn't address the two points I raised in my first reply, other than gently chiding me Are you going to live with the end-grain of the sides showng on the top, or add a second top? There is probably not much you can do about the lack of dust panels at this stage.

I agree with Ozwinner, that it is a sin to spend that much time building a chest of drawers with hand-tools and then make it out of pine, when you have forests full of jarrah on your doorstep.

Rocker

Derek,

I wouldn't call it a boo-boo. I've dealt with hundreds if not thousands of drawers both antique, period & modern and many are identical to what you have done. In fact is there a 'rule' as such to follow in this regard.

Rocker

Mmm. I don't think that dust panels are necessary here. Certainly they make sense, but I do not recall a shaker design (such as this one is) using them. It is quite difficult to tell the dimensions from the pics, but it is quite tall and the drawers are reasonably deep.

With regards the "end grain", are you refering to the jarrah top? (I can't think of what you might be referring to otherwise, because this is the only area - other than drawer sides - where end grain in evident). The visible end grain on the top is part of the design. It is well-planed and the jointing of the boards used is fairly seamless. I was not tempted to go for a bread board end.

I agree that pine was the wrong timber when one takes the amount of work into account. I would not do it again. But I used this project to try out many techniques with different planes and tools, sometimes redoing parts when the results were not up to snuff. For example, planing dados with a Stanley #46 (a skewed-blade plough plane). Or cross-cutting with a handsaw and truing on a shooting board. Pine was just cheaper to waste, and I concentrated instead on adding refinements in jarrah. But I agree, I would otherwise never do it.

Bob, sorry I did not see your reply - our posts must have crossed in the ether. I'm tempted to give you the special prize for "best modification of a classic design" Runners indeed!

Shane, any comments about the strength of this design, from your experience?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Strength? Unless your a body builder I can't see you pulling the drawer front off regardless of how the dovetails were arranged.
I dunno, maybe I am missing something.
Fair enough theres possibly more chance for the drawer front to cup, but then if your using seasoned timber and its treated appropriatly for solid timber then that shouldn't be an issue either. And of the many many drawers I have dealt with over the years that was never an issue except on a couple of cases which were extreme. Not to say it dosn't happen.
I just don't think its a boo boo, unless your design & original plan was noted as having the dovetails opposite to what they are now in which case your a bad plan reader...hehehe...
If I had my old pic album I could show you a pic of a piece that has several major mistakes that most would never pick up but they are they :eek:

Cheers!!

Derek,

Oops. I didn't see the jarrah top. It is rather hard to make out in your photo. I grovel.

I take your point about Shakers not using dust panels in their chests of drawers, but Shakers probably had fewer clothes to fill the drawers.

Rocker