Progress report - dresser complete

The completed dresser, with one coat of finish.

Lots of progress...


I have been spending considerable time in the shop working on the bedroom dresser and chest of drawers for my son. Many hours of milling and cutting the many parts in these projects. I decided to complete all the finicky parts for each piece together so I did not waste time setting up the machinery twice. There was much consternation on the joinery on the drawers and I elected to go with a drawer lock joint instead of the dovetails I was planning (sorry Jason) - I figured this would be the only way I would complete this in this decade.



Here's a picture diary of the work to date. BTW, this project involved 84 mortise and tenon joints for the webframes and outside frames... (click to make the picture bigger)

All the interior and exterior pieces milled to finished dimensions,
time for some joinery.

84 tenons cut on all the parts, these are 1.5" long and 1/4" thick.
The cherry haunched ones are for the exterior frame.

Marking out all the mortises to double check the layout for everything.

Mortising out the parts on the benchtop mortiser - talk about tedious!

The side panels for the chest are complete with cherry ship-lap boards in the field.

Cleaning up the rabbet for the top webframe
and getting ready to hand cut dadoes for the interior webframes.

The dresser framing and assembly complete - time for some drawers

With so many parts to keep track of, I used this
handy filing system to keep everything straight.
The parts included all drawer sides, backs and front,
as well as the LV wooden drawer glides

Stealth Tool Gloat, this lovely 3/4" Brazilian Rosewood
Shoulder Plane arrived from Konrad Sauer last week, just in time to
help with the project. This completes my set (I think).

A first coat of finish on the carcase to keep shop grime from marking
the lovely cherry, also could not wait for the pop you get when that first finish goes on.

Starting the drawer assembly exercise, with all the parts milled this
went pretty quickly. Once each drawer was assembled,
the wooden drawer glide was glued to the bottom and the guide rail installed.

All the drawers installed with glides in their final position,
next the gaps between all the drawers and outside edges were trimmed.
Once I was comfortable with the fit, a chamfer on the outside edges and VOILA!

One complete dresser, ready for some finish and hardware.

Now to finish the chest...

Thanks for following along,

Richard

Next Major Project Underway - More Bedroom Furniture

Now that things have settled down and I have more time to focus on the shop and the weather is too shitty to get out and ride, I am spending lots more time in the shop.

I spent a little time cleaning small projects up after Christmas, as well as completing my Maloof chairs, which we are liking very much. I am replacing my old Delta lathe with a new Oneway 1640 and have some work to do to prep the area for the new occupant - this means no large turning for a couple of months until the new lathe is installed. I will use some downtime, (or glue-up waiting time) to re-organize that area.

Current lathe setup - time for renewal

The next big undertaking is to make a dresser for son #1's bedroom to match the bed, nightstands and lamps I made in the past. This project started out as a dresser and as I worked through the design and layout, it occurred that it is not much extra effort to make a chest of drawers at the same time. In fact the millwork and joinery for the outside frames and interior web frames require all the same equipment setups so this would be a very efficient approach.

Mini dresser and Chest (1" scale)

I have often thought about building mini prototypes of my new projects and had
been doing some reading on it as well. These pieces would be odd sizes to fit into smaller bedrooms so building a model was the ideal way to test out my design. I also wanted to model the various drawer front options to see what looked the best. I dug out some thin (3/32") cherry and the hot glue gun and in about 30 minutes had my models made. This approach was very revealing and confirmed my dimensions were okay and also the optimal drawer layout.

Only the beginning...

Time to finalize the layout, cut list and start milling some wood.

All ready to build, models, drawing and story stick with dado cuts for each (two sided)

And Heather could not resist having some fun with mini furniture...

The Crocodile Hunter returns!!