Abby's Dresser

[stvrowe]

This is my latest dresser project for my new granddaughter who should arrive very soon.  The dresser is built with Sapele, Padauk as an accent, and secondary wood is poplar.  There are several Greene & Greene elements used although I do not consider this a G&G piece.  Specific requests by my daughter for full extension slides dictated a rather unconventional approach (at least for me) in designing and building this furniture project.  The pictures in this post shows the completed dresser.  I will add some followup posts showing construction methods used.  This was also somewhat of a collaborative project as my son-in-law wanted to learn woodworking and participate and my grandson who just turned 5 also helped.

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[Wooden Skye]

Steve,

Like most of your work this is a great piece and I am sure she will get a lifetime of use out of it!  [thumbs up]

 

[Sparktrician]

Steve,
    That's beautiful!!!  Well done!!! 

 

[caseman]

Steve,
Classic design and outstanding work.
Don

 

[jacko9]

Beautiful piece Steve, she will be proud of her Grandfather.  I just made a kitchen cabinet for my son and his wife with undermount drawer slides with the drawers mounted like in your cabinet (they were 30" wide).

Jack

 

[dltflt]

Very nice Steve.

 

[Billedis]

Beautiful piece Steve.  She will have it for years.  Thank you for sharing.  Bill

 

[Gary in Texas]

Steve, as usual, outstanding work and a beautiful result.  I've always appreciated the Greene and Greene designs, nice elements of that style you've added.

Gary

 

[Ed Bray]

Very nice build and I am sure it will become a heirloom piece in your family.

 

[Stephen B]

Very nice build and I am sure it will become a heirloom piece in your family.

Given the quality of construction and the recipient, probably an heirloom piece already.

Congratulations Steve.

 

[nclemmons]

Excellent work, Steve.  Classic design.

 

[stvrowe]

Thanks for the compliments.  As promised, here are some of the construction techniques.

I did some resawing to make some thick bookmatched veneer panels with a plywood core.  I used Unibond 800.  The clamping force with 25" Hg vacuum was over 13,500 lbf.
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To account for using undermount drawer slides intended for frameless cabinets I constructed the carcass to be flush on the inside face.
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The top and bottom frames are joined to the sides with Dominos along two axes.  This is further complicated by the front and back rails are inset from both the front and rear face.  The key to solving this is to mill the domino slots in the front and rear rails, do a dry fitup and mark where the frame will rest on the side panels.  If you look closely, you will see the dryfit pencil marks used for alignment.  You will also note that I was about 1mm off on the mortises in the rear rail so I plugged and cut new domino slots.  The technique for milling the horizontal slots is the same as demonstrated in a previous thread (but without the jig).
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I used the MFS, some 5mm baltic birch ply and double sided tape to make the Blacker leg indent detail.  I only softened the hard edges with sandpaper instead of doing a roundover in the true G&G style.  Dimensions for the setup are roughly that outlined in Darrell Peart's book "Greene and Greene Design Elements for the Workshop".  (Note that this is a bit out of sequence - I did this step before end panel assembly)
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I predrilled the holes for the Hettich Quadro IW21 slides prior to carcass assembly.  I used the Mafell Duo Doweler and the template rail to do this.  This was to be an inset drawer so be sure to setup with the proper inset.  I did discover an oddity about these slides as the rear holes are not on a 32mm increment from the front hole.  (Evidently, they are on 32mm increments from the fourth hole).
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The drawer boxes were assembled with 5mm dominos.  Notches on the backs were made prior to assembly which is much easier than making them after the box is assembled.  The pin holes were drilled using the Hettich jig which is accurate, inexpensive and well worth the money even if only installing a few drawers.
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I will post more later.
Steve

 

[tiralie]

This is my latest dresser project for my new granddaughter who should arrive very soon. 

Is the middle picture a truer color of the piece? I like the color there vs. the other photos.

I predrilled the holes for the Hettich Quadro IW21 slides prior to carcass assembly.  I used the Mafell Duo Doweler and the template rail to do this.  This was to be an inset drawer so be sure to setup with the proper inset.  I did discover an oddity about these slides as the rear holes are not on a 32mm increment from the front hole.  (Evidently, they are on 32mm increments from the fourth hole).

ya, I'm not crazy about those Hettich under mounts myself. I like the Blum ones better.
Tim

 

[stvrowe]

This is my latest dresser project for my new granddaughter who should arrive very soon. 

Is the middle picture a truer color of the piece? I like the color there vs. the other photos.

Tim,
The brown color is more representative of the true color.  When the flash goes off, it makes it look red.
Steve

 

[stvrowe]

I have always loathed building inset drawers since getting them too look right took a lot more effort.  I decided to try using drawer front adjusters and now I am thinking what took me so long to even try these.  The back of the drawer fronts are shown drilled with 20mm holes followed by a picture of the drawer front adjuster with an 8-32 machine screw.  The adjuster and a 5mm hole for the screw gives about 2mm of adjustment.  Once the desired reveal is set, I then used additional wood screws to fix it in place.  This was the easiest inset drawer fitup I have ever accomplished.

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To make the breadboard ends, I used techniques similar to that shown in an earlier video but instead of "springing" the joint, I used Darrell Peart's technique of using a long sheet metal screw into the endgrain.  The Domino 700 was used to mill the 8mm mortises in the top field at the narrow setting.
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For the breadboard edge, three 8mm center slots were milled at the narrow setting (these are the only dominos that will be glued) and the remaining 8 mm slots were milled using the wide setting.  I did note that the wide setting on the Domino 700 is narrower than the middle setting on the 500 so there is much less room to allow for expansion and contraction.  Because of this, in the future, I will stick with the Domino 500 to mill breadboard edge slots.  I also milled some 5mm domino slots to accept a #8 x 2" sheet metal screw from the outside edge.
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The outside of the breadboard edge is a series of two stacked domino plunges set over the 5mm slots milled on the inside edge.  The first is 10mm to provide a sliding surface for the screwhead.  The second is a 12mm slot drilled 15mm deep for a plug.
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I ended up squaring the 12mm domino slot with a chisel and created a plug with Padauk that sets slightly proud of the edge.  I pillowed the plug edges.  The slot is glued and the plug is driven into place with a plastic face mallet until it bottoms out on the shoulder. 
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I then used cutoffs from the legs to turn mushroom knobs.  Finishing of the knobs were done on the lathe.
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The dresser delivery is complete and in Abby's room ready to be filled with little girls clothing.
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[bdiemer]

Beautiful design and details with stunning work. Congratulations  Steve.
                                                Barry

 

[tiralie]

The dresser delivery is complete and in Abby's room ready to be filled with little girls clothing.

Looks perfect there.
Tim

 

[jacko9]

Looks good Steve, what finish did you use on the dresser?

 

[stvrowe]

Looks good Steve, what finish did you use on the dresser?

The finish is General Topcoat wipe on urethane Satin finish.

 

[Rob Z]

Steve,

Thanks for posting this....I always get something to file away for future reference when looking at your projects.