Sellers Home Chest Of Drawers: Episode 8
Posted 8 November 2023
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Bringing the last puzzle pieces together in the final stages of anything you make is always wonderful, and in this episode, it’s the drawer fronts that crown everything. Fitting these to the drawers themselves as appliqued fronts, cross-cutting, planing, and trimming is a pleasing pace for hand-tool woodworkers. Additionally, we make the actual handles too, and it’s creating and shaping them that reflect our workmanship as a bonus to the whole. So we hope that you will enjoy this stage in the piece we are making.
Just curious….i noticed in this drawer you just screwed the fronts on the drawers. Another method might be to dovetail the fronts to the sides of the drawer with a half blind dovetail.
Did you just do this for simplicty? It seems a lot more involved to make a half bind dovetail.
Is one method “better” as far as durability or is it just perceived quality? I can’t imagine these drawers ever coming apart , maybe there is a bit of snobbery because it’s not a half blind dovetail or maybe there is a real advantage ?
I am also curious about this. Until recently, Paul’s drawers were all done with half blind dovetails, if I remember correctly. But recently he has made some with screwed on “false fronts,” if that is the correct term. Screwed on fronts are quite common in manufactured furniture for obvious reasons. For example, they can hide not so nicely made drawers with a poor fit and metal runners. I am thinking here about the drawers in my kitchen cabinets which are just poorly made boxes that look okay with their false fronts when closed. They were quick and easy and cheap to make in some factory.
On the other hand, as Paul uses these false fronts, they seem to be a design element. The fronts extend beyond the drawer opening. This gives a very different look from fully recessed drawers. You can find lots of examples of well made drawers (and cabinet doors too) that are not fully recessed in one way or another. For example, a traditional way to do it is cock beading where the drawer itself may be fully recessed but has strips that extend further out: are proud. Since it is not any harder (though it is a bit slower) to make fully recessed drawers using half blind dovetails, I have to assume Paul is going for the design element.
I asked Paul and his reply is below:
I have seen more and more snobbery in furniture making in recent decades, when, in reality there is a place for both applied fronts and half lapped dovetails to create two different final appearances. Recessed drawers are best with half lapped dovetails and throughout the last decade I have endeavoured to show both types are fully acceptable. Overlayed drawers can be misconceived to be the lesser of the two types when in reality common dovetails and half lapped dovetails are as easy as each other to make neither is simpler than the other in my view. I do like the clean lines and both type offer this, however you have less lines in over lay draws or appliqué drawer fronts.