Thread: Timber suggestions for drawers

Real western red cedar (Thuja plicata) is very soft, you can crease most of it with a fingernail. While it's OK for carving, I have my doubts about making solid joints with it.

Up here, we've got a solid wood product called "drawer side" (how 'bout that?) It's aspen/cottonwood, 1/2" x 6". Quite featureless, you would want to stain it, very pale color.
Joints up securely. I carve it for wood-block print-making. I never would have found it without asking. You might find drawer side but some wood species that I've never heard of.

I prefer to use Qtr sawn Hoop for my drawer sides. I buy 50 x 150/200 rough sawn and slice off what I need from the short edge. Machine and glue up into the widths I want for the drawers. Ends up nice and stable. Not the colour you want though.

Finding Qtr sawn material wide enough for drawer sides is getting harder and harder these days.

Cheers
Bevan

Meranti

Originally Posted by Enfield Guy

I prefer to use Qtr sawn Hoop for my drawer sides. I buy 50 x 150/200 rough sawn and slice off what I need from the short edge. Machine and glue up into the widths I want for the drawers. Ends up nice and stable. Not the colour you want though.

Finding Qtr sawn material wide enough for drawer sides is getting harder and harder these days.

Cheers
Bevan

Bevan

Tassie Oak is generally sold quartersawn. This has become my first choice. However this does not match the OP's request, which was for a dark wood. Personally, I want a contrast for the sides of the drawer. I also consider Australian Red Cedar (this is a medium hard wood, and different from Western Red cedar, RV) to be overkill. ARC is rare these days, and expensive, having been overused in the past. Use it for a carcase, if you can get it, not hidden away in a drawer.

Whatever the choice (stain?), use quartersawn timber.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks for the ideas. I had some queensland red cedar years ago, and it was really soft - softer than WRC. I guess that's just the variability of wood.

Meranti is an interesting suggestion that I hadn't thought of. I went off meranti a while back, because it seems to be really variable, with some pieces really light, and having an almost balsa-wood fluffiness about them, and others almost too hard for joinery work, and colour variations from light sand through to dark brown. I'll have to look around and see if I can find some at the darker end of the range. Apparently meranti is a huge range of different species.

Tassie oak for the drawer sides, it will be stable, which IMO is the primary consideration

Maybe sides of camphor laurel. Then you will have moth repelling drawers.

Yeah Derek, I'm aware that Tas Oak/ Vic Ash (call it what you will) is pretty much all Qtr sawn. I just prefer Hoop for drawers because of the light weight, relative strength and nice bright creamy colour. I just reckon it makes the internals look larger. The greys/pinks of your ash/oak species just don't do it for me. Great for externals, but drab inside a drawer in my view.

Cheers

Hi EF

Tassie Oak comes in a few flavours, as you mentioned. The one I get is pretty light and even coloured. Below are a bunch of drawers ready to go into a chest. All but the Jarrah front is quartersawn "Tasmanian Oak".





Regards from Perth

Derek

Nice drawers - are you trying to make me jealous?

My drawer fronts are going to be camphor, so maybe the rest of the drawer wouldn't look so bad in a light colour. Hmm, gotta think about it some more.

Hi Derek,

Any particular reason for such small pins on your dovetails pictured here? Also, as for the number of tails front and rear, is that just for aesthetics?

Sorry to high jack the thread. Lovely drawers.

Hi CCS

The small dovetails were just a design/aesthetic feature. They are really quite strong or, do not lack for strength because of their fineness.

The drawers were part of a build I posted over the course of this year - it took that long! Curved sides and bow fronts, which lead to compound dovetails.




The obligatory dovetail picture ...





"Lingerie Chest", on this index page: Furniture

Regards from Perth

Derek

I'm with Derek all the way on this one.

I'm sure there are cheaper places to get it, but Bunnings sells what is, in my honest opinion, the best material available for drawer parts. It's dead quartersawn, totally clear, straight grained, hard wearing, and easily worked. You really can't go wrong.

It's probably the timber I took most for granted when I was living there, and now that I can't get it I really miss it!

Cheers,
Luke