Dresser Help

[samlarsen]

Good folks of the forum,

My next home project is going to be a pine welsh dresser. Something along the lines of the drawing (one I did earlier!). The bottom dog kennel part is for.......the dog! The upper part is glass fronted, over a space so the doors aviod clutter on the cabinet top. I've put it on a plinth cos I like 'em!


http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/samuellarsen/detail?.dir=f2a9&.dnm=c602re2.jpg&.src=ph

The areas I would appreciate your thoughts are.

Cabinet strength: I have drawn a frame inside the main cabinet to support the drawers along with two triangular braces to give stiffness. Do you think I could delete the frame / braces and use wedged through tennons where the sides meet the top and bottom instead? The draw support frame could be fixed to the sides, and the cnetral divider tennoned into the top as per the sides. Sides and top are chunky. Sides 25mm THK, top 38mm THK. Would this be stiff enough?

What back?: Follows on from the above. With the braces gone will I need a more bracing back board? What is normal for the back of dressers cabinets / tops?

How to fix the top to the bottom? Is fixing required? Or fix to wall?

All the timber is to hand, all planed, awaiting jointing, and I have a week of peace as HID is away.

Be grateful of your thoughts / experiences to get the job on a roll.

Cheers

Sam

 

[JFC]

Hi Sam , Regarding fixing the top to the bottom a lot of older dressers leave the back of the top part longer and house it into the worktop and fix it to the back of the bottom dresser . Myself , i normally make a base for the top part and fix through the top of the bottom part into the bottom of the top part :lol: Did you get that ? :lol: seeing as you have the bottom of the top part open maybe you could locate it using biscuits or dowels and fix to the wall . I always rebate the back into the sides and use the back as my support so you could lose the cross members and let the back do the support work .
12mm board should be enough to give a good job but 18mm is also used , thats if you are using board ? Hope this helps .
Jason .