Wednesday 30 July 2014

The final stages

"Previously on Jonathan Pearce Fine Furniture....

.....I had glued the drawer frames to the carcass sides. Stay tuned for this weeks episode."

Once the sides had been glued together, it only seems logical that the top and bottom are attached. Yep, that is what happened. Here you can see the completed carcass, minus the back panel and foot assembly.


Carcass all glued up
The carcass is standing on a white platform the is square, flat and level. If it was standing on something that was out of true, then the carcass could also be pushed out of true. Something you don't want when fitting drawers. You see this out of true effect on flat packed furniture. When it is screwed together and doors fitted, often it is impossible to get good alignment. This is often because the floor is not level and is influencing the carcass.


Once the carcass is complete, the next stage is making the drawer boxes. It is a long process with many individual steps, most of which go unnoticed. But the thing that people do notice is the dovetails.

Each drawer has twenty dovetail joints, and with five drawers gives a total of one hundred dovetails!

I do my joints by cutting the tails first, and then marking up and cutting the pins. Some people do the reverse process. Neither is incorrect, just personal preference.


Marking up the 'pins' from the dovetails.

Finished - one hundred dovetail joints!
These drawers will have 'slips' and two central runners. A drawer slip is a small piece of wood that is glued to the inside bottom edges of the drawer sides. It gives the drawer more wood to run on, and also has a groove cut into it for the drawer bottom.

Drawer runners have three grooves - two for the drawer bottoms and one for a piece of wood that exactly fits into the runners (used to guide the drawer in and out of the carcass).


Drawer slips (on the left) and runners (on the right).

In this picture I am fitting the drawer fronts to the drawer boxes. Using yellow shims and masking tape to hold the drawer fronts, I can ensure that the gaps between the fronts are even.



Almost finished....just a need to fix the drawer fronts with screws, a final sanding and a final oiling.



To see more of my furniture, have a look at my website and the pictures in the gallery section.

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