I am currently building a head board book case cabinet for a water bed. The carcase is built out of white pine, and I have constructed the drawers for 4 cubbie holes that are under shelving.
The drawers are to be inserted into the spaces provided, however I am now dealing with sanding the drawers to fit the spaces. I am running into problems that create uneven spaces between the vertical and horizontal partitions and the drawer sides and fronts.
Can anyone share a tip on how to best deal with a properly fitted drawer? Mind you that an overlay technique would not work in this situation.
Replies
It would be helpful to know how you are planning (too late?) to build the drawers.
Usually, one first cuts and fits the front and back before cutting the sides. If you are looking for a good fit, do each unit separately and keep them marked. After fitting the fornt and back pieces for a clean fit, then do your sides in sets as well. Basically what you are doing is fitting the drawer before you build it, which is really a lot easier. Without other parts in the way, you can get each side to slide quite nicely, being able to see where it's sticking, hanging up, etc.
While it is important to have nice looking drawer fronts, it is of equal or greater importance to have and use good material for the sides. You want well grained (straight, not wild) wood that planes cleanly and easily. (There's a reason why you don't see too many drawers made in pine) And you want to orient to grain to help you plane it easily thru the fitting of the drawer, ie, for front to back planing of the top and btm edges and most importantly, because this will be the last part of fitting, the outer parts of the sides. If your sides hang up, you need to be able to cleanly plane them for fit.
I know a sander sounds like it would be easier and quicker, but believe me, a nicely tuned plane on the right drawer material makes for quick and light work, not to mention a good fit.
Scott
Producing a truly flat surface with a random orbit sander (RAS) is always a challenge for me. Like the previous respondent, I now try to plane whenever possible, and use the RAS only as a last resort. If your difficulty is having hills and dips in the sides of your drawer, due to the RAS, I have found the following very useful. I cut several pieces of 3/4" plywood or MDF just long enough (trial and error) with rounded ends, to fit snugly in a 4x24 sanding belt. I now have six of these puppies for 50, 80, 120, 150, 220, and 320 grits and use one or another more often than the RAS. If you problem still not addressed, don't hesitate to explain further. Good luck.
I recently made some drawers. The sides were half blind dovetailed to the face. As always it takes forever for me to get a job done. The piecees I'd cut to carefully fit the case didn't now fit as the RH in the shop had increased from 30 to 60 %. When I tried to get the dry fit drawer into the case it was off by about 1/16. I took the sides off and out of frustrationpushed them over the jointer set at its fines cut. It worked nicely and didn't break anything out and was faster then a block plane. The glued up drawers fit nicely.
It is a little scary pushiing small pieces over the jointer so be carefull.
Frank
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