How to shave a few millimetres of some wooden drawer fronts?

I would use a pad sander for this and just keep an eye on the edges. A plane's too agressive unless you're really well-practiced in using one. A flap wheel likewise too harsh and uneven. Pad sander or do it by hand with a block and some 60 grit glass paper.

Router and fence if you have one...

1. A linisher (an upside down, fixed base, belt sander), here's an example from a quick search:
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2. Alternatively, make a jig such that the drawer fits closely into it and at each side there are shoulders that can support a home-made router sled (here's inspiration:
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   Alternatively, dismantle the drawers and put the sides through a thicknesser. How long/high are the sides that need reducing?

By a 'pad sander' do you mean one that vibrates a rectangular strip of sandpaper?

(The technical name being 'orbital sander' because the motion is circular, but everyone tends to think an orbital sander is one with a spinning sandpaper disk.)

That's a point! I do have a router and, while I'm not highly skilled with it, I generally find I can get it to do what I want.

Thank you for suggesting something I hadn't thought of but which is probably the best way! :-)

That looks quite fun! The one in the link isn't a silly price either, though I doubt if I'd find a lot of use for it.

Yes, the router solution would seem to be the most suitable, given that I already have a router (well, two actually).

There's four that are 290mm high and one that may need a tiny bit of narrowing that's 420mm high.

A few mm sounds OTT.

I would check where the binding is occurring and sand accordingly. If not obvious then treat the symptoms and apply a dry lubricant such as PTFE. If it still binds then areas of contact will be more obvious where the dry lubricant is wiped away. Wax is an alternative.

I wonder if there is a practical way to dehumidify the drawers & get them back to their original shape/size?

No point. Wood expands and contracts according to the time of the year and the prevaling temperature and humidity. You have to just choose a happy medium for your particular climate. Mine varies between 53% and

The linisher has a pipe on the bottom for dust collector output, and you would normally have a "collector bag" in the box, that would go over the pipe, and there would be a fitting to hold it in place. The "box contents" do not list a collector bag (it's a fabric that keeps the dust in the bag and allows the air to pass).

If you don't do that, and you run a belt sander in the basement of a house, everything in the basement ends up with a coat of wood dust on it :-)

and a belt sander is what I use when a woodworking job needs a dimensional adjustment, but a hand held belt sander can make for crooked work (taking off more on one end than the other). Practice on a "stick" of scrap dimensional lumber and see if you can achieve a result. I bet even the linisher could make a mess, if you're careless.

The router will do nice work, as long as it has something to guide it. We used to have a TV program on Saturday mornings, a father and son team, and dad would find the most ridiculous projects to do with the router, making all sorts of fittings to make the router "do tricks" and so on. And this wasn't "Tim Taylor" comedy, the two guys were dead serious. I was hoping for a little variety, like maybe juggling running chain saws to spice up the plot.

It looks like our local "public television", bought the series from PBS.

These drawer fronts are in the galley on a boat. I'm on the boat for the first time this year, I installed the drawers last year, during the summer (June/July) and it has been a **very** damp winter here in Northern France (much like at home). So I'm probaby seeing a worst case expansion.

I may just try removing just enough to make them 'acceptable' now and then they will be OK through most of the rest of the year.

Thanks for all the ideas everyone.

You will need to adjust the outfeed fence to account for the removed timber otherwise you will end up with a step or taper.

You say they are currently an 'interference fit' - that sounds a lot less than 2mm to me!

If it is only that sort of amount, then I'd go with the sanding over the router. I have seen the use of old-fashioned carbon paper to see exactly where two surfaces are rubbing, there is probably a more modern equivalent.

(I have something similar on one of our wardrobe drawers, will fix ... one day)

... French Chalk works very well

REAL wood™ is a highly unstable material: The craft of joinery is largely there to cope with that.

e.g. panelled doors are there to allow the panel - which must always have a cross grain direction - to expand in the frame - which is all along-the-grain on the larger dimensions.

I am surprised that drawer fronts have become proplematic though

Even damper in South and West France and both the Loire and the Seine are full to bursting

The shallower drawer fronts which are a single piece of wood with the grain horizontal are OK. Its the larger drawer fronts where the panel in the middle of the 'frame' (they are simple, shaker, style) has the grain running vertically that have grown significantly.

When I got them (last spring) they were 495mm across, now they are

So I have definitely proved that wood expands across the grain much more than along the grain! :-)

Curiously, inside a heated house, that will probably be drier...than summer

My doors stick in summer

Well it can be just as humid as winter, hotter air carrying more water vapour