Q&A - Drawer Slips vs. Grooves

I'm gonna call this Round 1 of Brady Kirkwood's Q&A for the Jewelry Armoire/Lingerie Chest build he's going to undertake.  He graciously agreed to let me publish his questions alongside my answers in case anyone else finds use in them.

From Brady: 

I am very much looking forward to getting started, it might be in a few weeks that we kick this project off.  I do have a few design/build questions for you:

1. Why drawer slips instead of integral dados cut for the drawer bottom?
2. If making the project again, would you put the panels in all the web frames between drawers or just keep them open? (you might be able to tell, I am trying to cut down the sheer number of piece parts in this project)
3. What would you do differently, either in the making or the design? What would you do to make the assembly easier?

Thanks again for all the support! 

My Responses:

Question #1 - Why did I use drawer slips instead of just plowing a groove on the inside of the drawer sides?

Much of my reasoning and justification for choosing drawer slips can be found in this conversation, compiled by Derek Cohen.

Point #1 - Grooves in thin drawer sides weaken the drawer sides too much

My drawer sides are only 3/8" thick.  Cutting a 1/4" or 3/16" deep groove into 3/8" thick stock would leave so little wood that it would weaken the drawer side too much, and it would weaken it right where the weight of the contents of the drawer are bearing down. Antiques with grooved, thin drawers have had their sides fracture off over time.

Point #2 - Drawer slips are the "finer" approach (my opinion)

Historically, grooves in the sides of drawers are very common in both European and American furniture from the 1700's thru modern day, whereas drawer slips are much more common in British furniture making.  I thought I had read somewhere that the groove method originated in a factory production setting as a way to speed up drawer box joinery, that it was mainly used for shop drawers, kitchen drawers, or more practical pieces where the finest approach wasn't necessary; the implication being that they were trying to keep costs down.  As I re-read about the topic now, it seems to mainly be a difference between the British approach, and everybody else's.  In any case, I liked it.

[From the same conversation linked above, emphasis is mine] 

Richard Jones: Drawer slips were in common usage in high quality British furniture in the 1700s... or at least that is what I've found in the restorations I've done over the years. Country furniture and lower quality stuff all the way through to modern work often uses a groove in a thick drawer side... which is the same as in most American furniture, even the antique American furniture that's highly rated by those that are supposed to be in the know.  
Contemporary British furniture makers almost exclusively use drawer slips in high quality work. They are common [...] drawer parts around here. Drawers without drawer slips, except in the smallest drawers, are generally considered of inferior quality suitable for workaday furniture, kitchens, workshop drawers, that kind of thing. As long as the side is thick enough it will handle a groove. The problem with thick drawer sides is reckoned to be their inherent ugliness. I have always found it a bit odd that truly attractive American cabinet furniture, whether new or old, usually had within it some drawers with thick drawer sides, 1/2" or more sometimes-- they almost always look heavy and out of proportion to my eyes, but I guess that's just me.

My goal with this project was to research and identify the "best" and most "fine" approaches possible and to push myself to reach for the standard of the master woodworkers of the past, if only to prove to myself that I can build to that level of precision and quality.  From my research, I found that the "finest" drawers were made with slips, so that's what I built.  

Interesting side note regarding another difference between modern and historical joinery methods: Evidence from antiques suggests that modern woodworkers' obsession with perfect dovetails is not something woodworkers of the 1700's and 1800's concerned themselves with overmuch -- that their dovetails were slapdash and quickly done, even on high end furniture, and that precision wasn't that important to them.  Reason being: a gappy or variably angled dovetail still holds perfectly well, and has proven to do so for hundreds of years.  That being said, I consider precision-fit dovetails to be a beautiful thing, and as I'm creating an object of function and beauty, I chose to be fussy with my dovetails.  :-)

So long story short: If you make your drawer sides 1/2" thick, you can do grooves if you want to, and they will serve perfectly well for the life of the piece.  I was aiming for delicate and feminine in my proportions and I thought 1/2" thick drawer sides would have looked and felt too thick and bulky, so I opted for thinner drawer sides, which led me to drawer slips as my best option for mounting the drawer bottoms.  

Point #3 - Drawer slips improve the wearing life of the drawer

Drawer slips increase the wearing surface that the drawer runs on.  Instead of riding on a 3/8" thick drawer side, the drawer box rides on a 3/8" + 3/4" wide surface.  Over many years, thin drawer sides will wear down, and thin drawer sides made of hard wood may create tracks in the front drawer blade if the drawer blade is made of softer wood.

Increasing the durability of your drawer sides by choosing a harder wood like maple, and increasing the wearing surface, will prolong the working life of the drawer and minimize any wear on the front drawer blade.  I consider this detail as important as maintaining the strength in thin drawer sides.

// End of Question 1.  phew!  This post is already too long, so I'll break the questions out into 3 separate posts.  Stay tuned!

The Slow Regard of Silent Visitors

I posted the Flip-Top Table project to /r/Woodworking as my first project post in that forum.  Several people immediately responded with kind words and commented that they've been following this blog for years.  Years?!

"WTF...seriously?"

Apparently it stopped occurring to me that this site was open to the public and it felt more like I was just speaking inside my own mind, all private like.  Come to find out there are other voices in my head now, and they like it here.

Well... alright then.  As you were.

Of the feedback I've gotten so far, it seems most of you love reading about my mistakes... so here's the latest:

Lesson #4,392 - Just because you started a blog mainly for yourself, for record keeping purposes, as a sort of journal, as an exercise in See One, Do One, Teach One, in an effort to lock in the lessons for your own benefit, and intended it for no one else in particular... doesn't mean no one cares to read it.  

Duly noted.

So a couple weeks go by and I get a private message on Reddit from a fellow woodworker saying he's been following my blog for years (like ya do), that he and his wife really like the Jewelry Armoire / Lingerie Chest I built, and that he wants to know if he can build it for his wife, using it as a project for his Twitch channel, where every Sunday he works on a project in front of a live audience using mostly hand tools.

So yeah.  Not only do people actually read this blog, but someone liked a project I designed so much that they want to build it for their wife, too.  That's... probably the coolest woodworking compliment ever.

Introducing KirkwoodWorking

Brady Kirkwood, the man behind KirkwoodWorking, is an engineer by day and woodworker by night.  He works out of his own shop in Northern Colorado where he live streams his shop time with a loyal following.  In the next week or two he'll begin his version of the Jewelry Armoire / Lingerie Chest in his Hand Tool Sunday! live stream broadcasts.

I can't wait to see how he approaches such a complicated build.  I'm gonna learn a ton just for having another set of eyes on it, and I get to see how another woodworker solves the same puzzle.  Be sure to check it out!  I know I will.

Jewelry Armoire / Lingerie Chest Complete!

It's done!  She waited through 2 birthdays, 1 anniversary, 1 Christmas, and 1 Valentine's Day... but it's finally done, and she seems to feel that it was worth the wait.  /phew!

If you've followed this blog this far, I won't make you way any longer.  Here are the photos:

The Butcher's Bill

In which I attempt to catalog what went right, what went wrong, what I've learned, and what mistakes I'll try to avoid in the future.

What Went Right

I've added several firsts in this project.

• First attempt to design a piece of furniture based on the Golden Ratio
• First handcut sliding dovetails
• First Stickley Aurora finish
• First solid wood drawer bottoms
• First drawer slips
• First drawer closing stops
• First velvet-lined drawers
• First invisible hinges
• First web frames suspended in each leg where the legs have mortises at precise elevations
• First mortise & tenons that meet inside the leg at a 45 degree miter
• 52" long quadrilinear legs!
• A real shooting board plane on an accurate shooting board is a thing of beauty, speeds up accuracy chores like nobody's business, and is totally worth the cost.
• I made my first donkey-ear shooting board attachment so I could plane accurate miters on 1/8" thick material.  It's just a quick jig so I could get back to work, so I didn't make it nice, but I've already thought of ways to improve it for the long term.
• I made my first sticking board so I could plow grooves in narrow stock.
• A carbide-tipped bandsaw blade is also worth the cost.
• A power thickness planer is absolutely worth the cost. 
• Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the grain orientation and selection for key parts.  The top 6 drawer faces all came from the same board. The bottom 3 drawers were from a separate board but the dye really evens their appearance out nicely.
• Zach at Dunham Hardwoods did a fantastic job, once again, in hand-selecting defect-free, color-matched, beautifully figured hardwood for my project.  Thank you, Zach.

What Went Wrong

• I broke the brass thumb screw that locks the depth stop on my Small Plow Plane.  Lee Valley was kind enough to send a free replacement, but that knob broke too.  I kept tightening down because the depth stop was still moveable.  Marty at Lee Valley worked with me for a few weeks.  He sent a brand new plow plane, 2 brass thumb screws, and another depth stop post so that I could compare.  They asked me to mail in my plane for their inspection, ended up mailing it back and asking me to compare it to the new one and keep whichever was performing better.  This level of customer service is incredible.  They really went above and beyond in standing behind their product.  If I wasn't already a loyal lifetime customer, I would be now.  I'm happy to say that we found a combination of depth stops and associated parts that lock the depth stop in place better.
• I broke the drill bit in one of my hollow-chisels for my mortiser.  I haven't been happy with the set that came with the tool anyway.  I should have saved my money and gotten a Powermatic, but I'll settle for upgrading the chisels before the next major project.
• I never replaced those phillips-head screws for the back panels like I said I was going to.  I got too tired and didn't want to wait for an order of screws.  Note to Chris Schwarz: don't look back there.
• The aniline dye bled into the maple drawer sides.  I attempted to tape these off to keep them pristine, but it didn't work out.  Next time I'll prefinish the drawer fronts and then assemble.  Then when I'm fitting the drawers, I'll just plane their end grain off.  If I go in carefully with a paintbrush I might be able to just darken them a bit without it bleeding into the maple.  The only other method I can think of is to make my dry-fit as close to the drawer opening as possible so I don't have to remove any material.  Not sure how I feel about this approach.
• I continue to have trouble with drawbore pins blowing out the grain on the far side.  Quartersawn White Oak is brittle in parts, so that certainly doesn't make it any easier, but I need more practice.
• I kinda wish I made narrower pins in the dovetails.  These look like they could have been made by a machine router bit.  I was super nervous going into that phase of the project so I gave myself extra room to screw up, but I think I've got the hang of it now and can start leveling up my dovetails.
• The top isn't perfectly flat because my workbench wasn't perfectly flat.  It's close though.  If I were to build another bench I don't think I'd bother with the split-top.  One solid surface seems like I'd enjoy it better.  Add it to the list!
• I took a bit too much wood off a few of the drawer sides when fitting them, removing the possibility of a piston-fit.  I had to glue some thin shims to the drawer guides in the lower drawer bays and then plane them back down until the larger drawers stopped jamming.  I admit I was impatient at this point and wanted the drawers in and done, but this is the worst kind of mistake after all this work.  It's so important to slow down here and take super light passes and keep retesting the fit over and over again.  Once you go too far it's too late.
• My drawer closing stops were positioned too close to my drawer guides, thus preventing my large shoulder plane from fitting in there to tune the drawer guides like I intended.  I could have bought a smaller shoulder plane, but I chose not to.  If I had it to do over, I would have used a rabbeted guide as Mario Rodrigues does (See Popular Woodworking - February 2009 - Issue #174 - 7 Strategies for Better Drawers).  
• I should have planned the assembly better in the design phase.  I think the main carcass glue-up exceeded 70 parts.  I did a ton of dry-fit practice runs beforehand, but still... stressful isn't the word.  Also, despite them fitting perfectly during the dry-fit, the sliding dovetail webframe fronts didn't seat flush with the legs.  They're probably 1/128" - 1/64" proud of the surface.  I beat on them with a mallet really hard, but no luck.  And since they were pre-finished, I couldn't plane it flush after assembly.  Maybe I won't pre-finish this type of assembly next time for this very reason.
• I'm officially done with my Benchcrafted Classic Leg Vise.  Moving that peg manually every time I change thicknesses bugs me.  I'll be upgrading to their CrissCross version in short order.
• I still hate machine routers.  I had to use it for the 52" long lock miters in the legs.  If I can figure out a way to do this by hand, I'll probably do it.  It'll be safer, quieter, slower, and with less potential for grain explosions.

The Aftermath

I've actually been having a hard time adjusting to not having such a major project occupying a substantial part of my brain.  I get home from work or wake up on a Saturday with nothing to work on.  It only took me two days to start getting the shakes.  I had to tell Carolyn: "Whatever happens, don't let me start a new project."

These past few woodworking projects have taken so much focus and dragged out for so many months that upon completion there's a real sensation of ...emptiness? at not having them within my care and attention anymore.  Still, I'm relieved to have this dresser completed.

When I brought it upstairs, Carolyn asked me how it feels to finally be done, and I guess I was sort of in shock about it because I just felt completely numb and thoroughly wiped out.  It was as if the cumulative weight of the entire project came crashing into me.  I wasn't allowing myself to pay attention to all the steps it took me to climb the mountain and only now turned to look back to see where I've been, and the length of the journey is daunting.

I started woodworking 5 years ago.  I had to go look that up.  It seems like it's been so much longer than that.  With each new piece of furniture I can see that I'm getting better and that my skills are improving.  This dresser is a huge leap for me.  The complexity and quantity of joinery and measurement and precision required ... man.  I still get a little surge of excitement when a piece of furniture ends up exactly as I designed it in SketchUp.  "This was in my head at one point, and now it's standing here in front of me."  

As with all of my work, I continue to see tiny flaws here and there.  Mistakes no one else will notice, and I've written them here just as a reminder to myself.  They don't really matter much, as they can't outweigh the beauty of the end result, but nowadays the flaws are in areas I wouldn't have anticipated.  It's not an obvious flaw like a bad-fitting joint or bad finish.  It's more about design, where I should have paid more attention to grain direction, or realized that a board oriented in that fashion would display flatsawn grain and not quartersawn or riftsawn grain (which would have been more preferable).  I don't think this is the kind of lesson I can learn from books or blogs... I gotta make those mistakes myself and consciously decide to avoid them in the next project - the sort of wisdom that comes with the actual experience of doing the thing.

For My Wife

You put up with me when my brain latches onto a complicated puzzle and can't let go.
You wait patiently while the project invariably drags out into several months, looking forward to the time when I can return to spend time with you and our family.
When you do complain, it's out of worry for my happiness in pursuing this hobby, am I enjoying it or am I pushing myself too hard?
You do without me so that I can have this activity in my life.
You carry the weight of my absence and keep our home in one piece.
You don't add anymore pressure to me than I've already added to myself.
You make it work.
You've waited and watched for years as I built furniture for other people.
...and you've never asked for something to be built for yourself.

For all of these reasons and more, I give you this.

The depth of my knowledge.

The height of my creativity.

The intensity of my focus.

The best of my ability.

The fullest expression of my love.

How to Make Ring Holder Foam Tray Jobbies

This was one of the fussiest and most difficult procedures ever.  I tried looking around online to see how other people do it.  I found one guy who sort of used this approach and it seems to provide the most consistently shaped rows, so that's what I picked.

Buy yourself some green foam at the fabric store.  The stuff is super expensive.  Why?!  We had a 50% coupon, so that helped.

But I bought 2" thick foam when we only really needed 1" of thickness.  Turns out, a bandsaw can resaw green foam perfectly!  :)  So that's what I did.

I made a sliding till that fits into one of the medium-sized drawers.  It's 10" long by 6" wide by 2" deep.  I cut a piece of hardboard to fit perfectly inside that till.  Then I used spray adhesive to attach the foam to the hardboard.  The guy online didn't do this, but I figured it was an important step and I'll explain why later.

Now that you have green foam attached to a solid backer board, you can mark out where you're gonna cut your rows.  Use a Sharpie, you're not gonna see any of the marks anyway as they'll get covered with velvet.

A serrated bread knife cuts green foam much better than a razor knife does.  Use your straight edge and cut through the entire thickness of the foam, right down to the backer board.

I spaced my rows 1" apart, and they're 1" deep.

Now comes the fussiest, most frustrating thing you're ever going to do.  

It starts out simply enough.  Cut a piece of velvet so that it's wide enough to wrap 1" onto the backer board, 1-1/8" up the side, and 6" over the face of your foam, 1-1/8" down the other side, and 1" onto the backer board again.  Easy peasy.

Keep the fabric long.  You don't really know how much you're going to need for this.

I wish I had more photos of this process, but it really took all of our concentration and all 4 hands at all times, so there wasn't really any opportunity to grab the camera.

We initially tried using spray adhesive on the foam and then shoving the velvet into each groove, but the fabric sticks before you have it placed where you want it and you end up with lumps and crooked parts.  Glue is not the answer here.

We found the stapler to be a much better option...and it's mostly undo-able, as long as you hide those staple holes when you reposition the fabric to try again.

So here's our approach: 

I honestly couldn't do this by myself.  I had to have Carolyn hold one straight edge at a time while I wielded the stapler.

Carolyn: Take 1 straight edge, preferably 1" wide, and place it into a groove.  This will help you fold the foam down and out of the way so you can get the fabric to the bottom of the groom easily.

Steve: Fold the sheet of velvet in half, lengthwise with the velvet side in.  Put another straight edge into that fold, so that gravity is holding the fabric taught.

Carolyn: lean the foam straight edge over, compressing the previous row of foam to get it out of the way.

Steve: Shove the fabric-wrapped straight edge into the groove.

Carolyn: Slide the foam straight edge out of the way.  We don't need it anymore.

Carolyn: Take over holding the fabric-wrapped straight edge.  Hold it firmly in place.

Steve: Carefully smooth the fabric out onto the foam so that it's not applying any downward tension to the foam. You just want to wrap the foam without compressing it.  Compressing the foam will introduce irregularities between rows, or within a single row, as you might compress one part of the foam more than another.  The goal here is to just wrap the foam as it exists, but not so loosely that you have excess fabric.

Carolyn: Continue applying firm downward pressure to the fabric-wrapped straight edge, but now lean it over so that the next row of foam is compressed and out of the way so Steve can reach in with the stapler.

Steve: Gently scoot the fabric-wrapped straight edge 1/8" out of the way.  While holding the previous row of foam out of the way with your left hand, staple at the very bottom of the groove with your right hand.  4 staples across 6" was enough to hold the fabric evenly and neatly.

This photo is an exaggeration of what I'm trying to describe, where the grey layer is the velvet, the green is the foam, and the brown is the backer board.

This took us over 2 hours.  What a royal pain in the ass.  But it came out really nice.  We had to remove a few staples and cut some more fabric, but it's possible.

Carolyn came up with a nice, neat way to fold the fabric when wrapping it around the hardboard and I just stapled it in place on the opposite side to hold it there.  Since the staples punched through the hardboard, I just used a flat screwdriver to clinch them over.

Apologies for the photo quality.  It's hard to get a clear picture with the fabric so dark.

PRO TIP:  Make your hardboard about 1/8" narrower and shorter than the interior length and width of the space it's going to occupy.  The folds of fabric wrapping around the hardboard will fill up this gap.  If you cut the hardboard to fit perfectly, it won't fit once it has the fabric on it.  This is another reason for adhering the foam to the backer board. Since the foam is glued down, it can't buckle when it gets compressed due to the extra fabric causing a tight fit.  The result is a nice, flat, fabric-lined block of foam.

Jewelry Tray Dividers & Sliding Tills

This was probably the funnest part for Carolyn.  She got to lay out all of her jewelry and decide where it was going to live.  Then I just took a few measurements and built these divider frames so everything would have a place.

Each drawer that has one of these divider assemblies followed the same approach.  

There is a 3/4" tall, mitered frame around the inside perimeter of the drawer.  The fit is so precise that you have to bend the last piece in order to get it into place and then that tension holds all 4 parts firmly in position.

The horizontal bars are 3/8" tall and a little over 1/8" thick.  First, they're cut to the exact length of the inside of the drawer.  Then they're taped together so I can mark and cut them all at the same time.  Each notch is as wide as the part is thick, thus allowing the mating piece of lock over it.

Same approach for the vertical bars.

Then just round over the sharp edges and put it all together.

The middle 3 drawers are deeper, so there was room for a sliding till to ride on that 3/4" mitered frame.   No sense wasting drawer space!

Make the till a tiny bit wider than the drawer and slowly plane it down to a perfect fit.  Tills are the most fun when they slide smoothly and don't jam.

Precise Magnet Catch Placement

I'm using a magnet catch to hold the side doors closed.  A rare-earth magnet sits in a little metal cup, which amplifies its magnetic force, and the door gets a little metal washer.  The only tricky part is locating exactly where the washer needs to be so that it mates with the magnet when the door is closed.

Magnet-in-a-cup

Magnet looking for Washer, must be attractive and enjoy dark places.

Sure, I could get it in the ballpark, but I'm fussy.  I want it spot on.  My first idea was to put the washer onto the magnet and then paint the other side of the washer with wet red nail polish.  Close the door, thus transferring the red paint onto a specific location on the inside of the door.  

That was the plan, actually, I was just waiting for my wife to get me some of her nail polish, but by the time she came back downstairs I had stumbled onto a much simpler, and better solution, and had the entire thing assembled.  

1) Put the screw into the washer and flip it around and slide it onto the magnet.

2) Close the door and press it onto the point of the screw.

3) Drill where the dent is.   DON'T DRILL THROUGH YOUR DOOR!  OMG, I've done this too many times...
 

You're done.  Enjoy the satisfying click as the washer is perfectly seated onto the magnet.  Open and close the door several times in a row just to hear it and feel the solidity.  Mmmm, quality.

How to Fix a Snapped Screwhead or Stripped Screwhole

I am the king of fixing broken screws.  I do it on every project now.  I pre-drilled holes for all of these little brass hooks and of course, the very last hook snaps off.  %&#@!

Take a drill bit and drill out as much metal as you can.  Put some glue on the end of a toothpick and shove it in there.

Wait an hour or so for the glue to dry and then chisel it flush.  Now you can drill in the same spot.... only this time, use a bigger drill bit.  Apparently the hole was too tight the first time.  Brass is soft, as is cheap hardware.  It can't really handle too much torque.  This is why I usually pre-screw any holes which will eventually have brass screws with harder metal zinc screws.  The harder metal pushes the wood out of the way, clearing a nice path for the brass to follow.  Even so, I'll put some paraffin wax on the brass screw threads before attempting it, just as an added insurance.  Brass is fussy.

All better.  Crisis averted.

Several hours go by, it's well into the evening hours.  I have 1 last drawer to put in place and the dresser is 100% done.  I'm so excited.... So of course another screw decides to strip out of its hole.  Sigh.  I'm lucky I own a 90 degree screwdriver.

Fit & Finish

Sorry for the delay.  I've been busy completing this project.  It's done now, as of 7/8/2014, but I haven't had a chance to take decent photos of the completed chest.  Glamour shots are forthcoming, in the meantime here are the photos I managed to take over the past month.

Here's my setup for planing the drawer sides down.  It's super important to be really patient here and only take one or two light passes at a time and then test the fit again.  I should have taken more time than I did.  Some of the drawers skew a tiny bit in their drawer bay and jam in place.  I glued a super thin shim onto the drawer guides in the drawer bay and planed this down to get it back to where it should have been.  You can always remove more wood from the sides of the drawers, but you can't add it back...  well I suppose you can, if you don't care about it looking like crap.

All the drawers are fitted.  Major milestone!

Not pictured:

• Fitting the drawer bottoms
• Cutting notches in the drawer bottoms and screwing them in place
• Fitting hardboard into each drawer between the drawer slips
• Using spray adhesive to attach velvet to the hardboard
• Drilling holes in the drawer faces for the drawer knobs.  Each hole is vertically located one golden ratio from the bottom edge of the drawer.

But!  I decided to try to take photos of the finishing process so you can see what the wood looks like at each stage.  There aren't a lot of in-the-act-of-doing photos because I didn't want to get dye or stain on my camera, but you'll get the idea.  

1) Sand to 120 grit.  Then vacuum the pores clean.

2) Dampen with hot water.  Hot water dries faster than cold.  I'm impatient.  Some people use distilled water for this, but I haven't found a problem with my tap water.  Water will raise the grain fibers like whiskers and they'll dry standing up.   These whiskers make the surface of the wood feel rough to the touch, so you want to get rid of them before you apply the finish.  Let it dry for a couple hours.

3) De-whisker by sanding with 180 grit.  The dye is waterborne, so if you didn't pre-raise the grain, it would have risen during the dye phase, and you don't want to sand off your dye.  So pre-raise the grain and de-whisker it before you apply your finish and you'll have smooth wood from here on out.  Vacuum the pores really well after this step.

I taped off all the dovetails because I wanted the maple drawer sides to stay pristine.  It didn't work perfectly.  The dye and stain bled into the maple wood fibers at certain points, which annoys me, but it doesn't affect the function any so I'm gonna live with it.  I'm not really sure what the best way to handle this is.  Glen Huey just sprays the front inch of his drawer sides with his HVLP system.  /shrug... maybe I'm not supposed to be fussy about this detail.  It was worth a shot, though.

Sanded, Wetted, Sanded, and Vacuumed

4)  Flood the surface with dye.  Let it soak in for a minute or so, then wipe dry.  Let it dry for an hour or two.  The dye tends to dry chalky and pinkish.  I panicked the first time I saw it, but don't worry!  It all works out in the end.  The dye is just adding a uniform undertone that shows through the next layers of finish.

5) Apply a coat of Boiled Linseed Oil to accentuate the figured grain.  Glen Huey floods the surface for 5 minutes and applies more oil to any area that sucks the oil in completely.  I've tried this before and it takes upwards of 7 days for the boards to fully cure before you can move onto the next step.  I haven't seen a real difference when I apply a decent, but much lighter coat of oil and dry the surface with a clean cloth after 1 minute.  Maybe the quartersawn white oak figure isn't as lustrous or as deep as curly or tiger maple (which he was using).  It certainly doesn't hurt to add more oil.  I just haven't really done the formal scientific visual comparison yet.  Add it to the list!

Boiled Linseed Oil applied.

6) When the oil has cured (could be a day, maybe 2.... I give it at least 24 hours), apply 1 coat of shellac.  This locks the dye and oil layers in place so that when you add the gel stain and start scrubbing rags onto the wood, you don't remove the dye.  Shellac dries pretty fast.  Give it a couple hours anyway.  You don't want it to gum up in the next step.

Shellacked.

7) Sand the shellac layer with 300 grit very lightly.  Change your sandpaper if you get corns (finish that gums up onto your sandpaper).  Don't sand so much that you remove the dye layer and reveal bare wood.  But if you do, it's okay, just add a little dye to that spot and cover it with some more shellac.

Don't sand the dye off!

8) Rub on the Gel Stain in a Mr. Miyagi circular motion.  You're trying to fill the pores with as much gel stain as possible, but don't put so much gel stain on that it never dries.  After you feel like you've filled the pores well enough, use the application rag to remove as much as you can without sacrificing the pores.  This helps it dry faster and makes it easier to remove the excess.  Wait 3-5 minutes or so and use a clean rag to scrub the excess dried gel stain off.  I swipe at a 45 degree angle to the grain direction and sort of buff the wood so there's no gel stain streaks.  Keep turning your rag to a clean spot.  Let this dry for 24 hours.  You should be able to take a clean white cloth and lightly wipe the surface and not have any (wet) gel stain end up on the rag.

The Gel Stain adds the dominant color tone of the finish.  If you apply the Gel Stain after everything is assembled, it tends to accumulate in corners and along seams.  You can't ever really remove all of it, so this accumulation has the effect of aging the piece.  Dust and grime accumulate in those corners over several years, so this is a shortcut to that effect.  I pre-finished all of my parts because I wanted the clean and new look and because I hate drips.  It's way easier to avoid drips when every part is flat on a table.

Dye + Oil + Shellac on the left.  The addition of gel stain on the right.  

All gelled up.

9) Apply 1 decent coat of Polyurethane with the grain.  I'm using General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Satin.  I take a clean cotton rag and fold it in thirds in multiple directions and then roll it up into a tight... umm... roll.  Then I pinch it with a binder clip.  This keeps the cloth in tension, giving you a nice flat, firm applicator.  The binder clip handles make it easy to keep your fingers out of the finish too.   Let this dry 24 hours.

10) Sand very lightly with 300 grit with the grain.

11) Apply 1 light coat of Polyurethane with the grain.   Your goal here to not have any streaks whatsoever.  The lighter the better as it will prevent drips and runs.  Let this dry for 24 hours.

Polyurethane adds the amber glow we've been waiting for.  Phew!

12) Use a gray or white fibratex pad and lightly scuff the surface going with the grain.  The goal here is to bring the surface to an even sheen.  Don't worry if it looks dull.  Just don't rub so hard that you cut into the finish and reveal bare wood again.

13) Rub on some paste wax, let it haze over and then buff to an even sheen.  Mmmm...  all done.  :)

It's a lot of steps, takes about 4 days or so if you're efficient with your time and is a lot fussier than just throwing on some Minwax pigment stain, but I don't care anymore.  I'm in love with this finishing process.  I have super consistent results on every board every single time I do this.  The end result just feels so nice to the touch, the sheen is perfect, and the figured grain isn't obscured by pigment particles.  It glows so warmly in the sunlight.  I can't wait to take the final photos.

First Drawer Is In!

I didn't document the rest of the dovetails, sorry.  I had to concentrate.  But I'm happy to say that everything went smoothly, no cracks and very few errors.  The first drawer is glued up, has slips attached, and has been tuned to fit its drawer bay.  It's not quite piston-fit, but it's as close as I've ever come.  Check it out:

The other 8 drawers are glued up and I'll wait a day before attaching the slips.  I'll tune them this week.  My goal is to have the drawer bottoms and knobs in place by Sunday so I can then begin finishing the drawer fronts.

Half a week of finishing will be followed by lining some of the drawers with black velveteen and then I just need to make the divided trays so she can compartmentalize her jewels.   Home stretch!

Marking the Pins

Place the pin board (in this case, the back of the drawer) in the leg vise, inside surface toward the bench, and make it flush with the height of your jack plane (or some object).

Push the jack plane back a ways.

Place your tail board on the jack plane and slide it toward your pin board.  The little rabbet we cut earlier bumps into the inside surface of the pin board.  Make sure the bottom edges are flush to one another and make sure you're using the correct end of the correct drawer side! :)

This tiny rabbet helps tremendously by allowing you to quickly ensure that the boards are square to one another before you trace the tails.

Using your non-dominant hand, press straight down onto the suspended section of the tail board and hold it firmly in place.  With your other hand, very lightly, very carefully, reach in with your marking knife and trace the outlines of those tails onto the end grain of the pin board.  Don't slip, don't shake, don't screw this part up!

When you're done, take a .3mm mechanical pencil and darken the lines, and shade the correct areas so you know which side to cut on.

Cut the pins (sorry for the lack of photos), clean 'em up, and test the fit.  This one ended up a bit loose, but is still perfectly functional.

Rinse and repeat until the entire drawer is done.  I didn't take any photos of sawing and cleaning up the half-blinds.  I should have.  I'll try to snap a few on the next drawer.

Notice that I removed the bottom half inch of the drawer back.  This is so that drawer slips and drawer bottom can slide in after the drawer is assembled.  8 drawers to go!