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A lesson in fitting drawers

David Heim, contributor

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I've never had the pleasure of taking a woodworking class with Philip C. Lowe, who runs the Furniture Institute of Massachusetts. But I've learned a great deal from him, thanks to articles and videos he's done for Fine Woodworking magazine and FineWoodworking.Com.

Case in point is the cabinet shown in the photo. I've been working on it in my spare time (honest, boss). It's designed to hold scrapbooking supplies, so I designed the drawers to hold 12 x 12 in. sheets of paper and stuff, which is the standard module for scrapbooking. Since neither my wife nor I are scrapbookers, we'll probably wind up making a gift to a good friend who does pursue that hobby. All the more reason to do the best job possible on the joinery.

That brings me back to Phil Lowe. Making one drawer to fit an opening isn't that hard. But six at once? i turned to an article that Phil did in December 2004, which spelled out how to make a drawer fit a less-than-perfect opening. That describes the scrapbook case pretty well. I followed Phil's steps closely and--son of a gun!--nice, tight-fitting drawers. At present, they're just at the dry-fit stage; I'll do the glue-up and final planing next week. In my spare time, of course.

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