Chest of Drawers

[motownmartin]

A friend asked me to make a box for their partner, I might add that they asked for it in November to be ready for Christmas but for health reasons it wasn't possible and I have only just finished it.

They had their own design which was more like a Chest of Drawers rather than a Jewellery box, this worried me a bit as I have never made drawers before, I thought that I would run them on some Oak but I think I gave too much clearance and ended up melting a lot of wax into the grooves, the other thing that I struggled with was getting them square.

How do you assemble drawers so they are perfectly square ?
And how much clearance would you leave for the runners ?

 

[andersonec]

Martin,
Couldn't you close the gap in the runners with some strips of veneer glued into the rebates in the drawers? you could glue in however many you want to centralize the drawer and also stop them slopping from side to side, just snug enough for them to slide but not tight, they could expand a tad.

I have a set of these for squaring up small pieces with limited access. http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-fo ... rod719400/

Nice work by the way.

Andy

 

[RogerBoyle]

To check for Square Measure the diagonals
when they are square the measurements will be the same

Roger

 

[motownmartin]

Martin,
Couldn't you close the gap in the runners with some strips of veneer glued into the rebates in the drawers? you could glue in however many you want to centralize the drawer and also stop them slopping from side to side, just snug enough for them to slide but not tight, they could expand a tad.

I have a set of these for squaring up small pieces with limited access. http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-fo ... rod719400/

Nice work by the way.

Andy

Hi Andy
I like the idea using veneer, I did actually think about it but had none on hand and it was a practice project.
About keeping the drawers square, they always seem to move when clamping, I wondered whether other folk used a jig of some sort, I measure across the diagonal and get it within 1mm but it still shows on the drawer.

Thanks for your input

 

[RogerBoyle]

Sorry I miss understood
If I plan on doing any more than one
What i tend to do is use a rod to square the drawer up then tack a piece if scrap from about the middle of the back to around the middle of the sides after clampingThat way I can happilly move them while waiting for the glue to go off with out worrying about them going out of square..

Roger

 

[marcros]

For squareness, if you were doing another, I would make up a square jig that you can clamp 2 sides to. I think devonwoody has something similar for his tissueboxes

 

[andersonec]

[/quote]
Hi Andy
About keeping the drawers square, they always seem to move when clamping, I wondered whether other folk used a jig of some sort, I measure across the diagonal and get it within 1mm but it still shows on the drawer. [/quote]

Martin,
Depends on what you are using to measure the diagonals with, it needs to be very accurate doing it that way.
As the other guys say, a squared, 90deg piece clamped inside on two sides works well, also when you have found out which way the draw is out of square, loosen the clamp on the long side and angle it slightly to pull the thing back into square (gently) keep checking for square while you tighten it, experiment to see which way you need to angle it to counteract the twist of your draw or box.

There was a previous post showing Andrew Crawfords 90deg jig which he uses to clamp his boxes with, third picture down here, box-making-course-review-t32335.html
but you would have to put an offcut in to keep the lips of your draws from snagging.


Andy