A George III Mahogany Cabinet-on-Chest – Part Three
The fronts of these drawers are mahogany, but the sides, backs and bottoms are pine. The quality of the original cabinet-on-chest would suggest the linings would have been oak; however, good oak – let alone quarter-sawn oak – is virtually unobtainable here in the quantities required for these drawers or at a feasible cost. Good pine is no discredit though; many fine mahogany pieces from this period were lined with deal.
From the latter half of the seventeenth-century, the grain direction of drawer bottoms ran from front-to-back; side-to-side bottom boards didn't emerge until around 1760. The 5/16" pine drawer bottoms for this chest run side-to-side and are glued (they were occasionally nailed too) into rebates in the drawer sides – as was the practice from around 1725.
After rubbing the drawer bottom boards together with glue and tidying them up, each bottom was planed to size, glued into the rebates in the drawer sides, and nailed to the undersides of the drawer backs. The thin drawer runners were then rubbed up against the rebates and bottom boards.
Rebates were cut across the ends and along the bottom edges of the drawers to accept narrow cockbeading. The top cockbeads are wider, covering the entire thickness of the top edges of the drawers.
I made a quantity of 1/8" thick cockbeading from off-cuts and mitred them around the peripheries of the drawers.
To complete the chest, a pair of drawer stops was rubbed onto each drawer divider and second grade pine back boards were nailed into the rebates in the back of the carcase.