I'm getting ready to create 3 drawer fronts 6.5 x 15" wide. I've got wood wide enough, but am wondering if I need to rip the wood down and glue each strip with alternating growth rings or are these drawer fronts small enough that it's not an issue?
the wood will be 3/4" thick and is pretty much flat sawn.
TIA
dave
Dave, try to rip your wood into 3 1/2 in wide pieces then alternate the growth rings if possible. Some people say alternate rings some say not, just look for best grain match.
6 1/2 in. wide stock is most likely to warp.Maybe use biscuits to help align the stock. 3 1/2 inches is usually the widest stock size to use, anything wider is more likely to warp. Even for face frames this is the rule. I like to use plastic resin glue, the kind that is a powder that you mix with water. I have some cutting boards I made 25 - 30 years ago that are still in perfect shape, the glue joint never separated EVER. Even after MANY washings and beating on. Those were just butt joints too. If using plastic resin glue , clamp for at least 24 hours.HI!
What is the trade name of a plastic resin glue?
So just rip a wide board and turn one of the pieces around to the other side?
I can't hit the hotmail site any longer. I think it's toast. just tried again.
thanks for the tips and take care.
dave
FOW wrote:
I wouldn't ... with flat sawn wood you may end up with a washboard instead of a cup.
IME, quarter sawn is less likely to cup, which will be your most problematic issue with drawer fronts.I always try to choose QS for this purpose. IOW, the end grain as perpendicular to the face as possible.
How do you plan attaching the fronts to the sides?
No Need to rip & glue, on a peice this small George
I glued up the drawer fronts. They look fine by reversing the growth rings and using the opposite faces. thanks.
dave
FOW wrote:
too late now! if they look bad after a while I'll unscrew them (false fronts) and make new ones.
dave
Sw> I wouldn't ... with flat sawn wood you may end up with a washboard instead > of a cup.
they are false fronts. I dovetailed the drawers out of 1/2" baltic birch. I've got drawer screws so I'll drill a bigger hole throu the ply for a bit of wiggle room. the heads of the screws will hide the hole.
dave
Erik wrote:
Dave,
Just finished building a six draw mission style chest of drawers here at the school....when I saw your question I asked the instructor, Mr. Tom Laird. Tom reports that yes it would be the best to rip down the draw fronts into narrower slats, but we also build furniture for its look and the beauty of the wood. The drawers we built on this project was 9 1/4" 7 1/4" and 5 1/2" tall. We used the best and most figured quarter sawn white oak and used a single piece for each draw. Tom reports that this is the most pleasing to the eye and he was not too concerned with wood movement. We made the drawers from 1/2"poplar with half blind dovetails and then attached the white oak on the front of the drawers. We over sized the drilled hole on the poplar for wood movement and then tight into the oak from the back. Tom feels that this is the best comprimize. Good luck.
Mike from American Sycamore
Mike responds:
Wood movement with most quartersawn material is a lot less than with flat sawn: as an example, American sycamore is almost impossible to use without ripping and regluing, until you quartersaw, at which point it's stable enough for almost anything.
Charlie Self "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." Thomas Jefferson
Dave, if you are planing to dovetail the joints, you should not have any problems using the bard full width. I personally do not consider a board 6 or 7 inches wide too wide to use uncut if properly attached. I have a dresser that I built in 1980 that have 9" tall oak drawer fronts with no sign of problems so far.. ;~)
I'm typing this as I sit at a desk I made about 5 years ago with solid red oak flat-sawn drawer fronts about 8" high. Absolutely no sign of cupping or any other distortion. I _did_ finish both sides of the drawer fronts before attaching them.
I d>I'm getting ready to create 3 drawer fronts 6.5 x 15" wide. I've got
-- jc Published e-mail address is strictly for spam collection. If e-mailing me, please use jc631 at optonline dot net
Dave,
I have put together bunches and bunches of drawer boxes with fronts attached. Do you have to worry about warping. In this case, I think not. With the drawer front solidly attached to the drawer, it won't go anywhere, and warping is at a minimum. If it was a free-floating piece, I would consider other options, but for a drawer front, find the piece that looks best and solidly attach it to the drawer.
As far as alternating grain, read what Tage Frid ("Tay" Frid) has to say about it. If you alternate the grain, say on a table top, the table isn't likely to warp a whole lot in one direction, but it will alternate with an up an down rolling movement across each board according to the grain; something you can see in the reflection of the finish. If a piece is not attached well, this is the way to go. If it is attached well, put the end grain all in the same orientation. It can't go up and down because it is solidly attached. Also, you don't have alternate cupping of the individual boards.
Thanks everyone for your comments. Here's what I did this afternoon: since I wanted to bust my cherry on some modest glue-ups, and too anxious to continue with my project to wait for all your responses, I ripped the boards into 2 pieces and flipped one over so that the growth rings alternated. Then I tried different combos until the match was decent.
Now to digress to another thread's topic: jointing. I marked the boards so that I could keep track of which edges would be jointed (as opposed to ripped on the saw to approximate width) and jointed them. Held them up to the light and saw a tiny gap for the last 2 1/2 inches. Got out the dial indicator and reset the outfeed table up .0015. Reran the boards. PERFECT! yeah! jointed one face and ripped to approximate width. Biscuited with 3ea. #10's making sure to keep them far enough away from the ends so that they won't show when I detail the edges. Glued 'em up with titebond 2 by ganging them together and used 3 clamps, and then added 2 more, "just to be sure". :) I think I overdo everything.
Anyway, as much as I've bitched about the PC 557, it did me right today. The joints are dead even and the faces are flat as judged my a good straight edge. Tomorrow I'll sand them a bit and run the other face through the planer to get them down to 3/4" exactly. Then trim to size and route the edges.
I certainly have read ALL of your opinions as to the need to rip down the wood for these size drawer fronts. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I could probably have gotten by with not ripping them, judging from comments here and at home. Certainly they would look nicer if they were whole. The good news is I got another procedure under my belt, so that when I tackle a larger project, I'll just have to scale up what I did today.
If the glue-up is wider than my planer, I'm looking at Neandering the surface with a variety of planes; correct? sigh. One smoother on it's way and the other planes cost even more than the smoother...
Had I waited longer, after reading the sum total of your comments, I might have delayed "breaking my cherry".
My sincere thanks to everyone; the time you spent formulating a response was NOT wasted, as I NOW have a clearer concept of when I NEED to rip down a board. If it's a modest drawer front, secured to the drawer box, it's not going anywhere. If it was a much wider panel or table top, then narrow pieces and quarter sawn for minimum movement (my problem with quarter sawn oak though, is that it isn't visually interesting). Also, it's not a good idea to mix quarter and flat, due to "stepping", correct?
If I'm summarizing incorrectly, please feel free to straighten me out!
dave
Bay Area Dave wrote:
Dave,
If the pieces are not too big (such as an 18" x24" pannel) you need not overcomplicate the process.
here is what I have done successfully:
I can repeatedly get seam misallignment small enough to clean up and make invisible with cabinet scraper.
It does become a little more tricky (error prone) as the final piece gets thinner (I find that
Am I too obtuse, or is there really a set of circumstances under which an applied or properly restrained (dovetailed) drawer front would _ever_ cup enough to be visually unappealing? Badly glued will _always_ be so.
Snip
You will learn to not over do as you get more experience. ;~) I used to over build and over engeneer everything also... LOL
I thought you had replaced the 557 with a Makita...? Anyway, as you have seen, proper use of the 557 will also yield correct results.
Leon,
I spoke of getting the Makita, and would seriously LIKE to, but I can't bring myself to replace a new $200 tool so soon. I'm still thinking of a way to justify replacing my Dewalt planer with the 735. I've had the
733 for about 10 years or more. Trouble is, it works, so my internal dialog says, "don't be spoiled--keep it if it does the job".dave
Le>
On 16 Nov 2003, Bay Area Dave spake unto rec.woodworking:
You are probably in for some special effects when you put the finish on - ever notice how the color of a piece of wood changes, depending on how the light hits it? If you've reversed the orientation in your glue-ups, you'll have two-tone drawer fronts.
Would that your immediate ancestors had had the same foresight.
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