Pine chest of drawers

[Brian Gaff]

I have been given this and there are a couple of issues. The first is cat damage on one corner, so the surface is rough with a few splinters and I guess it needs to be sanded and filled. What is best?

Next the drawers have metal runners that seem to be quite loose but not up and down, yet the bottom of some drawers are starting to hit the tops of others, and I cannot see quite why. I was thinking of cleaning up and greasing the runners then taking the drawer fronts off and planing the bottoms, but was wondering if I might be missing something here. I don't know the history. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Hmm, the top most drawer is in fact two half width drawers and I spot some unorthadox construction that might well have a bearing on things. The centre downward facing piece with the runners for the two drawers seems to have been attached with some kind of metal rods with a slot down them. Whatever happened to traditional woodworking joints? At any rate predictably the devider is dropping away from the top of the unit. Seems that this will need some slim brackets or blocks to beef it up. Not impressed by the internal construction. although the whole thing looks well finished externally one gets the impressing its been designed by a wally. Grin.

Brian