At last we are nearly there, nearly finished this wretched drawer making. For the past three months, I have been telling you how to get the bits and pieces of drawer together and this month I am going to tell you how a fine drawer is fitted to the carcass. I usually wouldn’t bother to go into such huge detail to explain the technical process, however it is a curious fact that drawer making is seen as one of the tests of fine cabinetmaking. If you can make a drawer that fits like a piston in a cylinder and make it relatively quickly, then you are probably a pretty good maker and capable of turning your hand to most woody problems. So I thought is sensible to deal with it in some detail. Now we must go back to things I have said in previous months. In order to achieve a good fit, it is absolutely paramount that the carcass is properly prepared, that the drawer runners are not in wind, that the carcass sides are not bowed, and that the drawer components are individually fitted for that drawer opening. I have said it before and I make no apology for repeating it.

The fit of the drawer is created by the width of the drawer in relation to a properly prepared opening. The fit of the drawer is not greatly determined by its height. In the unlikely event of your having followed my instructions and prepared your components exactly and cut the dovetails properly, we should now be looking at a drawer that just doesn’t quite enter 1~

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the opening in front of us — now why is that? You have cut the drawer back to exactly fit the length of drawer opening, but the process of dovetailing will have slightly increased the width of your drawer. This is because we never want the pins to protrude right through the joint (see diagram 7). If now you take your plane and plane down to just on the end grain of the back, that drawer should exactly fit the opening. As you have got end grain showing at both ends of the drawer sides so you could use this to show you how much wood you must plane off your drawer sides in order to get a perfect fit. It shouldn’t be more that a few shaves of the plane to get firstly, a nice clean drawer side with beautiful sparkling dovetails and secondly with the same operation a perfectly fitting drawer. HURRAY!! There is however a trick to this. In order to accurately plane a drawer side it is helpful to create what is called a drawer board (see diagram 8). This is made from a 18 mm thick MDF board and slotted to give the drawer that you are planing proper support. If you try to avoid making a draw board what is likely to occur is either the drawer side will bow beneath your plane or you will damage the drawer by some clever clamping method. You will now find out why I said at the beginning that drawer sides should have the grain running from front to back for you will be planing from the drawer front towards the back. This prevents any spelching of the drawer front at a point where it would be very visible. Plane down to within a tad of

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the end grain, both at the front and rear of the drawer side. Check the fit and

then do the same to the other drawer side. When you offer it up to the carcass, it is as well to have the carcass back removed. It is at this stage that you will appreciate why the opening was lightly waxed. The drawer will probably enter the opening relatively easy, but at some point on its travel within the carcass, it will stick. Push the drawer in and out a few times then withdraw it and carefully examine the surfaces of the drawer sides. At some point you will see a glazed and shiny mark. This is caused by the wax rubbing on the binding region and creating a glazed area. Return to the drawer board and with a carefully set plane, just take off that glazed area, no more, then return to the carcass and try it again. You will find the drawer will go in a bit further this time and catch in another place, very patiently take it out and repeat the operation until the drawer fits exactly. Use your head at this stage of the operation, analyse where the drawer is sticking. If you can’t work it out, try using a light at the back of the carcass and try using feeler guages to check around the fit of the drawer front. I am frequently asked how tight should a drawer be fitted and my replay is the same one I gave at the start of this article. The fit of the drawer is created by the width of the drawer in relation to a properly made drawer opening. The fit of the drawer is not greatly determined by its height and it is that height which is affected by weather and it is that height which usually causes wers to jam. If like me, you live in a very

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damp and foggy county like Devon, you will fit the height of your drawers relatively tightly for it is quite usual for my furniture to go from damp and foggy Devon into a centrally heated London home, in which case the drawers will shrink very slightly. If however, your client is away for a few months and the house is not heated, it is quite possible that the dampness and humidity will rise causing the drawer sides and drawer fronts to expand and possibly jam the drawer in place. When an irate client rings you up and says that he can’t get at his knickers and socks, it will be no use telling him to turn the heating up. Try and avoid fitting drawers when the weather is unusually wet. Try and avoid fitting drawers in an unusually damp or for that matter an unusually dry workshop. Finally once the drawer is running sweetly, and it should run sweetly, sand with 180 paper and very lightly wax using a good hard wax, don’t overdo this otherwise you will get a build up of wax that will impair the run of the drawer. The purpose of the waxing is to give a bit of protection to the timber and to free any of the last traces of catching that are impairing the sweetness of the action. A good drawer will enter from two thirds of the way out when pushed on either corner with one finger. As the drawer is entered, the slight gap down either side should be even from top to bottom for the entire fitting distance. A good drawer should also have slight resistence to being pulled completely out of its carcass. Just as it approaches the last inch or so it should stiffen up.

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You may think you have finished now, but you haven’t, you still have to fit the drawer bottom to the drawer. I usually put these in after fitting because with the drawer bottom installed it makes it difficult to plane the drawer sides. The fit of the drawer bottom must be carefully checked because it can distort the drawer, so if your lovely drawer did fit like a piston in a cylinder before you fitted the drawer bottom and it doesn’t fit after you have fitted the drawer bottom, then you will know something is up. Usually we fit drawers with Cedar of Lebanon drawer bottoms, the clients like it, it smells nice and repels moths. The grain runs from side to side and they are fitted in a groove that runs around the inside of the sides and across the drawer front. The drawer bottoms would not usually be waxed as we have found that Cedar of Lebanon doesn’t take too well to being waxed. If a drawer is to be used heavily, we occasionally give a light seal with transparent shellac well diluted with meths. The drawer is not glued in but is held with either one or two screws into the bottom of the drawer back. In order to allow the drawer to expand and contract, it is necessary that these screws are fitted in slots (see diagram 11). In order to create this slot, what we have done is drill a single hole, countersink it then saw down to the hole and pair a bevel on either side. This gives a neat attractive finish that looks good with a single brass countersunk screw. The last things to consider are drawer stops. There are lots of ways to stop a drawer from clattering into the carcass back, but the best way that we have

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found is shown in diagrams 9 and 10. This is a small block of end grain hard wearing wood, frequently a contrasting wood to that of the drawer carcass. The idea is the block fits into a mortice routed out before assembly of the carcass which can be varied to allow the drawer to sit 1 mm behind the front of the carcass. The shadow cast by this will help conceal any irregularities in the carcass and will also help to conceal any poor drawer fitting. This will of course not be necessary! I hope that you have enjoyed following this series on drawer making. Remember it is only fitting one box inside another — there’s not that much to it really.