A contemporary take on a classic design
Some years ago, I had the good fortune of having a tall dresser I designed and built appear in Bill Hylton’s Chests of Drawers (Taunton Press 2002). Ever since, I’ve wanted to build a companion piece to complement it. Recently, after my wife hinted that her aging, hand-me-down dresser had seen better days, it seemed a good time to revisit that desire. The result is the piece you see here: a contemporary take on a classic design featuring two banks of drawers riding on internal web frames that also serve to hold the piece together. The front legs are tapered and set at an angle to give the piece some visual lift and depth. Solid joinery—mortise and tenon for the case, dovetails for the drawers—makes for a rugged build that should last for generations to come. But while the joinery has its roots in time-tested
methods, the techniques I employed make good use of modern technology in the form of Festool’s Domino loose tenons, and variably-spaced dovetails courtesy of Leigh’s D4R Pro. I used cherry for the case sides, top and front drawer rails, quartersawn sycamore for the drawer fronts, soft maple for the drawer sides and interior frame components and a bit of dark mystery wood from my stash for the drawer pulls but feel free to use any suitable hardwoods.
Frame and panel sides support web frames and dovetailed drawers
The case consists of two side frame assemblies, each with a front and back leg, two side rails, and a side panel. These assemblies are connected via a series of web frames. The web frames, in turn, are connected by vertical dividers positioned to separate the drawers. The joinery throughout is made with loose tenons. I used a Domino machine for the mortises, but could also have used a plunge router. Guides are fastened to the web frames inside the case to keep the drawers tracking straight. The front rail of the bottom web frame is made from 8 /4 stock, shaped to echo the dip along the bottom edge of the bottom drawer faces. This web frame also includes a foot in the center for added support. The top, with its beveled edges, is fastened in place with slotted screw holes to allow for seasonal movement. Each drawer is dovetailed together—half-blind at the front, through at the rear—and features slips to carry its bottom. For a detailed look at how the drawers are made, see Dovetailed Drawers. The pulls are shop-made and screwed in place.
Make the side frames and top
Mill the stock for the legs, the side rails, the side panels, and the top to size. Cut the legs 1” overlong. If you have a wide enough planer to accommodate the full width of the side panels, leave this stock a little thick, and then plane the panels to final thickness after you’ve edge-glued them. Edge glue the pieces to make up the side panels and the top. Mortise the legs and the ends of the rails for the loose tenons that will join them together. I did this with a Domino machine, making two overlapping mortises with their center lines 1/2” apart. Then I cut the Domino tenons to fit. Make a pattern from MDF and pattern rout the side rails to shape. Cut the bevels on the front legs, then cut grooves in the legs and rails to hold the panels. Also rabbet the back legs for the back with the same bit. Dry assemble one side frame and trace its inside shape on one side panel. Lay out a line 1/2” outside the traced line and cut along it to cut the panel to shape. Repeat with the other side. Then cut 3/4” wide rabbets around the panels, leaving a 1/4” thick tongue to fit in the grooves. Round the corners to fit in the groove and trim about 3/32” off each side to allow room for seasonal expansion. Taper the legs and cut the feet. Sand everything, prefinish the side panels and glue the side frames together.
Rout to shape. After bandsawing the side rails to rough shape, adhere them to a pattern with double-faced tape and trim them to final shape with an over-and-under pattern bit. Cut one slope with the pattern on top of the piece, then adjust the bit height and cut the second slope with the pattern underneath.
Bevel the front legs. Tilt the blade on your table saw to 45° and rip two bevels along one side of each front leg. Start with the fence a little too far to the right, and make test cuts until the bevels meet in a point and the flats on the sides of the leg measure 2” wide.
Panel grooves. Cut the grooves for the panel with a 1⁄4” wing cutter. On the legs, start and stop the grooves about 1⁄4” from the mortises. On the rails, the grooves can run all the way through. To help control the pieces as you begin the cuts, install a starting pin on your router table to pivot against.
Taper the legs. Set up a sled and taper the front legs from 2” wide at the top to full width at the bottom. Repeat to taper the rear legs from 11⁄8” wide at the top to full width at the bottom.
Cut the feet. Make a cross cut across the bevel on the front legs 2 5⁄8” from the bottom. Make the rest of the foot cut on the bandsaw, leaving the leg 1 1⁄4” wide at the bottom. Make similar bandsaw cuts on the rear legs, they don’t need the table saw cross cut.
Glue up the sides. Make two notched clamping cauls to cradle the front leg as you glue up. Check across the inside surface with a straightedge to make sure the clamps aren’t twisting the legs out of plane.
Make the web frames and drawer dividers
Mill the pieces for the web frames and drawer dividers to size, leaving the dividers overlong for now. Note that the lower front drawer rail is made from 8 / 4 stock. Mortise the drawer rails and the ends of the drawer runners for the loose tenons that will join the frames. Shape the lower rail with a pattern bit in a router as shown, then glue the frames together. After the glue dries, stack the frames to make sure they match. Trim if necessary and sand to make sure both surfaces are flat. Cut a 15-1/4 × 33” piece of MDF to become the guide for cutting the frame-to-leg mortises. Attach a cleat at one end to establish the bottom and lay out the frame locations measuring from the bottom up. Align the guide with the inside of the back leg and clamp it in place. Cut the mortises in the legs. Cut 6” off the upper end of the guide to use as a new guide for cutting the matching mortises in the frames. It is critical to use the same piece of material for both guides so the spacing works. Align one web frame with the back rabbet on one of the side frames and make a witness mark on the back rail even with the inside of the leg. Use this mark to set up the guide. Mortise the ends of the frames as shown. Fit the frames in one side and measure between them to establish the lengths of the drawer dividers. Cut the dividers to length and mortise them and the frames, referencing from your bench top. Rout mounting slots through the upper front drawer rail, countersinking them on the underside. Finally, glue the side drawer guides to the three middle frames and screw the center drawer guides in place.
Shape the bottom rail. Rather than make a template, I just used a straight length of MDF as a guide, aligning it with my cut lines and screwing it into the waste areas toward the underside of the rail. You’ll need to finish the points of the V-cuts with a chisel. Then cut away the underside at the bandsaw.
Mortise the legs. Clamp the mortising guide to the side panel with the cleat hooked on the lower rail. Cut the first set of mortises with the Domino machine registered against the guide. Then cut a 7⁄16” thick spacer to position the second set of mortises.
Mortise the frames. Dado a 2 1⁄2 × 18” fence into the 6” guide, 7⁄16” offset from center. Clamp the guide to the frame aligned with the witness mark and screw a stop block to the fence. Make the two mortise cuts, using the 7⁄16” spacer in between. Then flip the piece and mortise the front rail. Repeat on both ends of all webframes.
Mortise the drawer dividers. I clamped a few pieces of MDF to my bench to make a quick positioning fixture to hold the drawer dividers for mortising. I cut the first mortise with the Domino machine flat on the bench and then placed it atop a piece of 1⁄2" MDF to cut the second.
Install the center drawer guides. After gluing the side drawer guides in place, make a spacer to help keep the center drawer guides parallel and spaced properly. Screw the four center guides in place, then cut down the spacer for the two additional guides for the top drawers.
Glue up
After all that prep work, there is a lot at stake with this glue up. If possible, enlist some help. There are a lot of mortises to spread glue in, and long clamps to handle. If you have to do this solo, consider doing it in two stages. First glue the web frames to one side frame along with the drawer dividers. Just use single tenons in the other side without glue to help with the spacing. Once the glue dries, pop the second side off and add the remainder of the tenons before clamping it in place. I found it easiest to start with one side flat on my bench. I added the web frames and dividers vertically before turning the entire assembly to stand on its feet then installed the second side. I don’t have a lot of long clamps but I found I could make do with just four. I clamped the top and bottom frames with four shorter F-clamps each, then used three of my longer clamps to secure the front and the fourth to draw together the rear. After checking for vertical alignment I added F-clamps to seat the drawer dividers.
Notched cauls to the rescue. Double-face tape some notched cauls to the legs to avoid having to fumble with them as you tighten the clamps. Over cut the corners to avoid denting the legs.
Make the drawers and pulls to finish up
Mill the parts for the drawers to size. Make and fit the drawers as described in Dovetailed Drawers on p. 40. Before assembling the bottom drawers, be sure to shape their fronts to fit the V-cuts in the lower drawer rail. Mill one length of 3/4 × 1 × 20" and two lengths of 13/16 × 1-1/8 × 20" stock for the pulls. Bevel these pieces at 62° on the table saw. Then cove their back sides at the router table. Cut the individual pulls to length before drilling the mounting holes. Bandsaw the pulls roughly to shape, finishing them at the sander. After finishing, drill mounting holes through the drawer fronts and screw the pulls in place. To finish the case, cut tops of the legs even with the rails and glue the center leg in place. Drill mounting holes for the top in the upper rear drawer rail. Glue the drawer stops to the front rails, positioning them to stop the drawers about 1/16" inside the case's front plane. Cut the top to size and bevel the underside of its ends and front edge. At the tablesaw, cut the back panel to fit from 1/4" plywood. Sand and finish everything before screwing the top and back panel in place.
Fit the bottom drawers. Trace the shape of the openings onto the lower drawer fronts from inside the case. Bandsaw the pieces to shape and fine tune the fit with a hand plane.
Shape the pulls. After beveling the pull stock at the table saw, rout a 1⁄2" radius cove in the back side to create a finger grip. Make the cuts in several shallow passes for safety.
Drill for screws. Rip a scrap to match the pull’s 62° bevel angle. Position it against a fence on your drill press table to hold the pulls at the proper angle as you drill 7⁄64" pilot holes in them for mounting. Position stops to space the holes 7⁄8" on either side of center.
Sand to shape. Cut two MDF disks (31⁄8 dia. and 25⁄8" dia.) that pivot on a 1⁄2" dowel. Drill holes through the disks that correspond to the pulls’ pilot holes. Screw the pulls to the disks and sand them to a consistent shape and size.
