small cherry dresser for finish room

[allen levine]

3 drawers,full extension slide, bought a whole bunch of a brand called Tru-trac. will be all solid maple(maybe some other assorted white hardwoods) machine dovetailed drawers.
I purposely made it a bit on the beefy side, as I like the look.
Solid cherry flat panels, 3/8th thick.
Top will be solid 1 inch cherry, back will be 1/4 inch ply, whatever I have around, drawer bottoms will be either 1/4 inch birch ply with a support down center, or 1/2 ply with no support. I have to check the shed, I believe I have a large piece of ply, just not sure what thickness.
All mortise and tenons.
I need to sand everything, rabbet out for the back, and turn around the front stretchers, as I put the bad sides foward(didnt use backer board when I cut the tenons, got a bit of tearout on 2)
This is where Im at.
Im way ahead of my build schedule, nice for me.

Ive accepted a space, 940 sq feet, 20 minutes from my home, for a new shop.
The current tenant isnt leaving until end of march or april, and the landlord wont throw him out, its a friendly rental, so Ill have to wait until he vacates.
400 amp service, Ill be able to get a larger jointer and planer.

This might be my last project in my garage, or next to last.

[larry merlau]

well allen that wont sag those rails are HEAVY,, looks to be 5/4 maybe 6/4.. sounds like that new shop space is gonna be great.. is it in a safe area so you wont have to worry about crooks?

[allen levine]

to be honest, I dont think there is anywhere on this planet that can actually be called safe.
Good neighborhood, the owner has had his partime business there for 15 years, and hes only been robbed by previous cotenants.(woodworker/contractor, go figure)
Theres no alarm, but it borders an active 24 hour a day truck lot. (utility company)

[allen levine]

after playing around and wasting time with the small little side table,(after putting on some oil, the screw hole errors just didnt look right for me) even trimmed up blanks to make 2 new legs, I gave one more try to cover up the holes from the pocket screws, came up with this, pegged tenon look, walnut plugs, put some oil on it to see how it looks, not actually finished, but I cant use oil (smell) for the next few days as Im having alot of people over.
I think Im not going to take it apart and put on new front legs. The walnut dots dont bother me as much as the patched up holes.

[allen levine]

I decided to use all the shorts and strips of maple and birch I had left over from the closet doors to make solid wood drawers for the dresser.
Afterall, they are inside and wont be seen, so why worry about uniformity, besides, with some poly, it will go unnoticed.
Still working out the dovetail jig problems, seems the more I try to fine adjust it, the more I get off, so I have a few with tiny gaps, but again, not worth addressing, or maybe a drop of colored epoxy before I apply finish. The drawer glueups and dovetails took me longer to make 3 drawers then the entire dresser.
Seems I measured the thickness/tenon/mortise off on the top stretcher and there is a 1/16 th gap.
I cut a fill strip to glue on to cover it.
First time Ive ever used full extension slides. Nice, I like them.
I purchased a brand called trutrac, at 6 bucks a pair for 100lb slides, 18 inches, I felt it was a good buy.
Rabeted out and used chisel to square out for back.
Now comes my nightmare, I have to make inset drawer fronts. If I dont like the fit in the end, Ill just switch to overlay drawer fronts.(easy way out, Im no glen, rennie,larry or gary)
Overall, Im completely satisfied with this piece. Way ahead of my build schedule as this was supposed to take me into spring.
Sorry about the couple blurry pics, shaky hands today, had to stop working.
btw, you can see in the drawer boxes how many different woods I used, even some nicely figured maple on one.

I strongly recommend to any beginner or intermediate woodworker, to build a solid wood something, with solid wood drawers, because its a nice experience as far as mixing hand and power tools.

[Doug DeVore]

looking good!

I think I will pass on the hand tools for now....I have a hard enough time setting my rip fence correctly :-)

[Bob Gibson]

Looks great Allen Thats some fancy maple in those drawer sides.

[larry merlau]

allen on the dove tails, is the side materiel the same thickness as the frnts? looks like you needed to set your router a touch shallower.. the best way to get them to look good is take some scrap the same thickness as what you are using and make some and try it then go and make the changes needed to get them right and then write that down.. a little adjustment goes along way on a jig allen..

[allen levine]

I cut the same width of pine, since I wanted to set the pattern and center the fingers on the jig.
The pine was 3/4 dimensional, and I have a feeling that tiny difference might have made the difference.
I should have ran the pine through the planer to make sure it was exact thickness to my maple pieces.

my wife made my life easier tonight, she thinks the drawer fronts should match the desk and nightstand and not be inset(flush as she calls it)
That will save me half a days work with hand planes. (Ill only have to rout an edge on them now)

I took advantage of the storm with strong winds outside tonight, I was able to go out for an hour or so and do some cutting to size up the fronts. No noise issues.

[James Lord]

Nice set of projects. The closet came out great.