drawer screw up

[stoutman]

I am in the middle of making a dresser (my first dresser) for my future son (due in Feb) and I screwed up my math when determining drawer spacing. It has three overlapping drawers which were supposed to be equally spaced. Unfortunately after glue up I noticed that the center drawer space is a 1/2" to short.

The solution I came up with is to continue to have all the drawer faces the same size, but make the center drawer face overlap the drawer dividers by

1/2" and make the top and bottom drawer faces overlap by 1/4". I hope this solves my problem. The only way anyone would notice my screw up is if they removed all the drawers from the carcass.

Anyone ever do this before??

[John B]

G'day Stoutman, Normal Operating Procedure. The important thing with a piece of furniture is functionality and looks. You will have both of these so no problem. Even if someone removes all the drawers they would probably need a tape measure to see the difference and then you'd have them guessing " Wonder why that was built like that :) If you don't tell they won't know.

regards John

[DonkeyHody]

Well, I never did THAT before. But I've made about every other mistake a feller can find a way to make and still keep his fingers. It goes with the territory I guess. Good Save.

DonkeyHody "Give a hungry man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day. "

[Swingman]

Only once ... the big question, since math mistakes are inevitable, is what are you going to do to keep it from happening again?

[Earl Creel]

You have just re-discovered the fact that overlapping/overlay drawer fronts can hide a multitude of sin. Inset drawers are less forgiving. No one looking at the dresser will notice, but now God and the thousands who follow this news group know of your transgression. Christ was a carpenter he will forgive you but the wood terrorists may attack! Earl Creel

[Joe Gorman]

Might not hurt to make it obvious which slots the drawers go in. That way they'll fit the first time when someone else takes them all out, then tries to put them without finding the wrong slot. Joe experienced multi-drawer size installer

[George]

Stoutman,

Anyone can do woodworking. An experienced man can fix screw-ups.

I once watched a 72 year old carpenter working on a new house when he discovered the architect screwed up and put the stairs 12 inches in the wrong place.

He reread the plans and took just 20 minutes to build a box to puh the stairs out where they had to be to work. That was to me the sign of a craftsman.

It is not our ability to make a drawer, but to fix our inevitable mistakes as we go along. Good going on your fix-it.

Bill in New Mexico

[Frank Boettcher]

Yes, but not to that extent.

You do realize that no one will ever notice the mistake unless you bring it to their attention. The only thing you have to work on is getting it out of your own mind. I've made many pieces of furniture and all of them have flaws. I know that they are there but the reaction of those looking at my work is Wow, great work.

Don't worry about it.

[John Grossbohlin]

Never did that... however, judging by the amount of overlap you anticipate using it sounds like the dividing styles are pretty wide. If they are wide enough, is it possible for you to make them narrower, i.e., take 1/4" off the middle drawer side? The power tool approach would be a router and guide and clean out the corners with a chisel. The hand tool approach would be to use a marking knife to incise a deep line to which you could pare with a chisel. Of course this all assumes you haven't put in all the internal drawer guides, etc.!

John

[Frank Ketchum]

Thank you for your honesty. The authorities are en route to confiscate all of your woodworking tools for making such an error!

But seriously, don't sweat it because, believe me, nobody will notice it unless you draw it to their attention. I have come to the conclusion that a large part of a woodworker's skill is his ability to fix / hide his screwups. I have yet to build anything that hasn't required some unplanned attention to some detail or another.

BTW, when you have a screw up that you can't quite fix or hide completely, it becomes a "feature" of the finished product.

[Lee Michaels]

It depends on your area of expertise/experience to even be able to notice such things.

I do woodworking and design and build some gym equipment. I notice things like this if I am looking for it. My wife makes clothes and is a quilter. Anything to do with fabric or colors, she can spot ir from a block away. I look right at it when she is telling me about it and I still can't see it.

It all depends what kind of "eye" you have.

I remember having a conversation with a portrait drawer/painter. The attention to detail this guy had and noticing the little stuff was surreal. Again, he would point it out and I still did not "see" it.

[Mike Berger]

[Oleg Lego]

The Frank Ketchum entity posted thusly:

Hey, if it works for Microsoft, it should work for woodworkers!

[stoutman]

Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement to all that responded! Luckily my drawer dividers are wide enough to accommodate the mistake (1"). I just need to put it out of my mind after it is built.