Four Drawer Dresser / Changing Table

[gee-dub]

There's a saying that "Life gets in the way".  That has been the story of my life for the last few months; lots of goings on that are outside my normal flow.  This put me a bit behind but, I have finally caught up on a few commissions that were lagging.  This frees me up for my next personal effort for a soon-to-arrive grandchild.  I still think I'll be done before he sucks air but, I'll have to stay focused as I am not a real speed demon.

Its always easiest to start at the beginning; for me that's material selection. 

I run 6500k lamps for high contrast in the shop.  When I am picking out material I shut those down and fire up some household incandescent bulbs that are in clamp-on fixtures overhead..

I've said before that design, material selection and finishing choices are a large part of the things that I make.  Building things is really just a matter of mechanics.  Deciding what you will build and how is where the fun comes in.

I use a jigsaw for breaking lumber down, It's quick, isn't prone to kickback and stores in a slot on one side of a shelf.

I have had a piece of cherry standing around for quite a while.  The color, sapwood and a split at one end have caused me to pass it by repeatedly.  If I tickle it just right I may be able to get the four legs out of it.  Its worth a try.  I lay out parts slightly oversized and mount a Woodslicer on the bandsaw.  This narrow kerf blade helps out when I don't have a lot of wiggle room.

The split gets lost in the spoil and the twist will fall prey to the jointer.  I often just finesse (read manhandle) my way through the 'teeter-totter' effect.  Since I have so little material to spare I want to be a little more  controlled.  I keep a bundle of thin cutoffs near the jointer and use them as a sort of sacrificial shim.  This lets me bear down on the material as if it were flatter than it is.

The flattened area didn't show well in the pics so I chalked it just for show.

At any rate I was able to squeeze the four legs out of it.

I continue to breakdown previously selected material to get the blanks down to a more manageable size.  They're not getting sanded, that's just the only free flat spot right now.

The material I have decided on for the top is wider than the jointer so the planer sled gets to come out of the overhead racks for a spell.

I am using typical frame and panel construction with M&T at the stress points.  The Mortise Pal takes care of quick, accurate, repeatable mortise work.  You can see that I have made my own templates to compliment those that came with it; really easy.

Most of the other joinery comes right off the tablesaw which is a time saver.

A quick dry fit before proceeding . . .

This is where I'm headed . . .

I couldn't remember why I took this pic at first.  Maybe because I use a ROS so seldom it was a novelty . . . Oh yeah, I wanted to share the "pipe clamp and bungee as hose and cord boom" method.  Handy if you only do this sort of thing now and then.

A discussion of a fairing stick or marking bow came up in another thread.  I had shared my shop made version and here it is in use.

Another part of that discussion was the difference in long and short stretchers and the arch height for them.  I have mentioned that I keep my arch height consistent regardless of length.  You can see in the next pic the difference in arch to keep the height the same.

[gee-dub]

I rough cut the arches on the bandsaw. 

You can smooth these on a spindle sander, using a card scraper or even a shaped piece of scrap and sandpaper.  I generally just take after them with a shave.

The frame and panel sides will have two panels each.  I resaw thicker stock to get book-matched pairs.  I layout witness marks and raise the panels with whatever plane feels right at the time.

Here's a before and after.

I dry fit the ends and move on to the top.

I picked this up somewhere along the way.  I joint the edges while ganged in the vise.  This way if I am not perfectly perpendicular, it doesn't really matter.

And the sides and the top go into the clamps.

Time for a cup of coffee

[wtnhighlander]

Nicely detailed journal, @gee-dub! Thanks for sharing.

[Eric.]

Good stuff gd. Nice looking material too.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Woodenskye]

Very nice!  Look forward to seeing it finished.

[Coop]

Looking fine sir! I didn't see any arches in the illustration?

[gee-dub]

11 hours ago, K Cooper said:

Looking fine sir! I didn't see any arches in the illustration?

Thanks all.

@K Cooper Here's another angle.  To be fair, the arches are only 1/2" high in the drawing, It was too subtle so I changed this to 3/4" high on the build.

 

[Coop]

I looked everywhere but down

[Mick S]

You're quite the talented guy! Very nice.

 

[Woodenskye]

1 hour ago, K Cooper said:

I looked everywhere but down

Your wife trained you well.  Her constant instruction was my eyes are up here.

[Coop]

1 minute ago, Woodenskye said:

Your wife trained you well.  Her constant instruction was my eyes are up here.

I wish for the sake of my constantly bruised arm, that always held true

[Alan G]

Looks great! Great journal as always. 

[gee-dub]

We have friends and relatives coming over for Easter so I have to shut down.  I'm happy now with the top's surface.

No real magic here; I just use the sled to cut the top to final length.

Take a moment to switch to a dado stack.  No need for a throat plate as I will use the sled again.

I have a variety of inserts for the sleds.  If I remember, I scrawl the last use on the piece so I can get a few uses out of them.

I didn't have a fence insert the right size from a previous use but, I make them so they can be flipped so I guess I'll have one next time.

And that gives me the tongue for the breadboards.

Someone's knocking, time to go.

[gee-dub]

Its things like this that keep us humble and honest .  My credo in the shop is "There is no shortcut to anywhere I want to go".  In gluing in the upper and lower rear stretchers, the ones that will capture the back-slats, I was doing the assembly on my bench.  This put the piece in an awkward position for the usual and customary 'check for square'.

I did a quick check from an odd reaching angle and although it did not seem quite right, I put it off to the odd reach I was having to make.  Once the glue was set and the clamps came off I realized I had very consistently made the upper adn lower rail 1/2" too short; there's no fixing that in place.

I taped off a narrow path up close to the leg.  This made an easy to follow guide whilst I jig-sawed the offending rails out of the carcass.

I then used a small router and a flush trim bit to clean up the excess.  Then a slot cutter to remove the old tenon from the slot.  New rails were grooved for the back-slats and had the stub-tenons cut on them.  Amazingly the correct sized parts made the carcass clamp up nice and square.

I moved on to fitting the breadboards and was once again reminded just how nice it is to have the right tool for the job.

To be continued . . .

[Coop]

Great recovery and the breadboard is SWEET! I should order one of those planes rat now!

[gee-dub]

Thanks Coop.  Let's just say I've had plenty of practice in recovering from boo-boos .  As any who have followed other builds know, I use a Mortise Pal for a lot of things.  There will be some decorative and functional walnut splines covering (or drawing attention to) the breadboard T&G joint.  I find I have good luck making the joint and then cutting the pocket into both pieces at once.

It turns out that I want a slot in a size I don't have a template for.  It just takes a few minutes to make one out of a piece of 1/8" hardboard at the drill press.  I use a commercial template as a . . . er . . . well . .. a template.  I just overlap the Forstner bit holes and touch it up with a file.

The point is, when you find yourself thinking "I wish I had a widget that would do blah". Think outside the box.  If you look around I bet you'll find what you need to cobble together a solution.  If it works well, make a better version to keep for next time and share it with us .

I put the template in the MP, cut the slot and then square the ends with a couple of taps on a chisel.

This feature will be more obvious once I get a little further along but, you can sort of see it in the SketchUp drawing earlier in this thread.  It will be similar to a feature I use on this cabinet.

In this case the breadboards and top will be flush as there will be a tray affixed to the top until the little guy is out of diapers.

[Chet]

This is some nice work gee-dub, keep it coming.

[Ronn W]

Great build.  Thanks for sharing.  I like it.

[gee-dub]

Pug asked about a drawer-lock bit in this thread.  I have the Whiteside I mentioned in his thread and so thought I'd show how I use it.  I cut the blanks big enough to do several drawer parts, profile them and then slice them into pieces sized for the drawers.  I find this gives me a better fit than trying to do drawers one at a time.

I already know that for 1/2" BB ply I set the bit to 11/32" high.

It is easy to get a close thickness on the material like so . . .

I then set the fence with that dimension.

Here you can see a "tall" fence I made for such tasks.

After cutting the fronts and backs horizontally I move the fence forward 3/8" (for this particular bit) and cut the sides vertically. 

And there's your joint.

Now I just rip the drawer parts off of the larger blanks.

[wtnhighlander]

Nice explanation, gee-dub. You're scaring me a little, though. As I recall, both ParticleBoard an HHH went into deep sharing mode, just before they rode off into the sunset ....

[gee-dub]

I see no sunset . . . I soldier on .

I have a method (or habit) when using a drawer lock joint made with a router bit.  I make the front and rear pieces 1/16" over-long.  This makes the drawer-lock joint have a proud tongue which I then sand (for plywood) or hand plane flush (for hardwood). 

It is an extra step but, has served me well and I'm not smart enough to stop doing it.  This does require a little caul when clamping so that the pressure is placed on the drawer side and not the proud tongue.  Pieces of scrap wrapped in packing tape work fine.

I have a couple of coffee cans stashed over by the larger bandsaw just full of little helpers like this.

My preferred method for mounting breadboards when hiding the joinery is to peg them from underneath.  I drill 1/4" holes and turn the middle and rear holes in the tongue into slots.  This keeps the front appearance aligned and lets the top expand toward the rear. 

I want to drill through the underside of the breadboard, through the tongue of the top and part way into the upper portion of the breadboard BUT, not all the way through.

Even though this is not a large top, it is too awkward for the drill press.  To inspire confidence (and to save me from having to make new breadboards), I use a drill with a stop and a guide.  To setup, I place a piece of 1/8" scrap next to the upside down top/breadboard.

I rest the guide on the surface that I will clamp it to and drop the drill through until it hits the scrap.  I now know that this depth will absolutely not pierce the top of the breadboard.

I drop the collar on and tighten it.

I use a stubby awl that my dear old dad made for me to dimple the location of the holes which I have previously laid out.

I slip the drill through the guide, use the dimple to locate the point of the bradpoint bit, slip the guide down onto the surface and clamp it in position.  Clamping is just extra security for me.  My shoulder is a little gimpy right now and I don't want to risk just holding the guide with my hand.

I drill the hole, move the whole procedure to the next hole and the next, etc.  The result is 3 holes for each breadboard; though the tongue and partway into the breadboard.

Now I just setup to "slot" the holes in the tongue and I can move on to some pre-finishing.

 

[treeslayer]

lots of good info and tips @gee-dub keep them coming and thanks for sharing, excellent work!

[gee-dub]

Thanks treeslayer.  I realized I kinda stopped at an odd point.  Here's the slotting method; I layout the starting and stopping points for the slots.  I start by eye but, use a clamp to help me stop consistently as I make a couple of passes to cut through.

This is the guide I pointed out when someone asked about them a few days ago. Don't recall the thread or I would link it.  At any rate, 1/4" hole at the front (from the original drilling), a slot at the middle and a little longer slot at the back.

Now off to do some pre-finishing.

 

[Chet]

Lots of nice tips gee-dub.  I have the same Bosch guides for my router, they seem to work pretty well.

[gee-dub]

Got a little distracted and failed to take pics of some of these steps . . .

Got the drawer dividers in and the "show" trim for those dividers in the clamps.

Our new member 'kyokahn' coined the term "Drawer Jenga" in this thread.  Cracked me up so I'm stealing it . . .

Drawer Jenga!

As shown earlier, the breadboard ends are pinned through a fixed hole at the front and slots in the middle and rear.  This keeps things aligned at the 'show' side and lets things expand at the rear.  Other details on this piece will be walnut for contrast so I will pin the breadboards with walnut doweling (not that anyone will notice them under there but, I have a twisted sense of humor or something).

If you watch the usual supply houses you can get this little miter and saw for about $20 on sale.  I've been using this one for about 3 years so I certainly got my money out of it.  When it goes dull I'll just toss it and open one of the two replacement saws I picked up as an unexpected bargain-bin bonus at Rockler.

In just a few strokes I have the dowel pieces I need.

I apply glue to a couple of inches at the front of the breadboard, chamfer the leading edge of the dowel and drive it home.  For the other positions I put a drop of glue in the hole, shooting for the stopped-hole end that receives the dowel and drive the other dowels in.

I'll pare these flush later.

I leave the top in the clamps and go in search of drawer front material.