Help: mounting bail pull

[chris Bodnar]

Important to know up front, I don't have a drill press.

OK here's my problem. Finished my first mission style chest of drawers. Got the following bail pulls from Paxton hardware.

love the look, but I've never tried to mount one of these before. After 3 sets of holes in one of my drawer fronts I still can't get it accurate enough to be acceptable. Looks like I would need a drill press and a lot of trial and error, and an extremely accurate jig to get this working. Definitely won't be doing that for this project. Luckily I'm using false fronts so if all else fails, I can make a new drawer front for that drawer. But if I can figure out a way to mount it, it will cover the holes I've made so far. I'm thinking of boring a few holes in the bail pull and surface mounting them. Some bail pulls I've seen do mount like this, not mine though. But I would need to find screws that match the bronze pretty well, so they would blend in. Any suggestions on where to find something like that? My other alternative is to go with a surface mounted bin pull instead, and I have found a few that would match well. For example:

suggestions?

Thanks

Chris Bodnar

[Bob S.]

Chris,

I'm assuming that these pulls have slightly raised posts on their backs that the screws go into. Several ways of doing this but I'll only address one.

Go to the borg and buy a couple of screws of the same thread size and about

1" long. With the bail on your bench, put the two screws into the pulls until they bottom out. Using a hacksaw or some side cutters, cut off the heads of the two screws. File the ends down to make them flat.

Mark a drawer (center line - horizontal and then where the first screw-hole should be) and place the pull (left screw for left side hole) over the mark, align the other screw with the horizontal line and then lightly tap the pull to make two indents on the face of the drawer marking exactly where the screwholes need to be drilled.

Now you need to drill two holes that are perpendicular to the drawer front. Take a small chunk of 3/4" thick scrap that has an 90 deg edge that you can hold next to the drill bit to align it. Hold it horizontally next to the bit, adjust the drill tilt left or right until it matches the side of the wood, rotate the scrap 90 deg, adjust drill tilt up/down - drill hole.

If that's to complicated, you can go to the borg and purchase the adapter that fits most drills that allows you to set any angle you want for drilling - its like using a drill press.

Other factors you may want to look at. Are you trying to go through both the drawer front and the false front? Typically, the screws are only long enough for 3/4" thickness. So remove the fronts, drill holes as outlined above then countersink the screw holes on the back side so the screw heads are below the surface when you put the false front back on.

There are other ways - making your own template, buying one, etc but I honestly don't see why you're having such a problem assuming you've marked the distance of the screws off on the drawer front and then used like a center punch to mark the spot and keep the drill bit from wandering off the spot.

If the screw holes are only slightly off, redrill one to a larger size to allow for some adjustment slop. Once assembled no one will see it.

And if this is a friggin troll....

> I love the look, but I've never tried to mount one of these before.

>> Any suggestions?