Drawers, finish before or after assembly?

[Travis Fatzinger]

Sorry for the newbie questions but I am a newbie.

I built dovetail drawers for my kitchen project. I am spraying enduro-var on the sides but I am using prefinished plywood for the bottom. I was planning to glue them together and then spray but I realized that would mess up the plywood unless I masked it all off.

Then I was going to spray them all disassembled and glue them together but then I realized the finish might mess up the holding power of the glue. Should I mask off the inside of the joints before spraying? Am I just over thinking this?

Thanks

[Jeff Monson]

I'd leave just cut the dado off of the back of the drawer, that way you can glue up and finish the drawer, slide in the pre-finished bottom and hold it in place with a nail or screw.

[Jamie Buxton]

Everybody's got their own favorite method, but here's mine... I make the drawers like they did in the 18th century: the bottom slides in from the back, and nails or screws go through it into the bottom edge of the back. I dovetail the four corners. I glue up the sides, front, and back. I mask the dado in the front that receives the bottom, then I spray that assembly, inside and out. After that dries, I slide in the bottom, with glue in the front dado. I do mine this way because my HVLP puts out so much air that it blows the finish back in my face if I try to spray inside a complete drawer box.

[johnny means]

I also spray the bottomless drawer box. Generally, dovetails need to be sanded after assembly, so pre-fin is not an option. I also use wipe on poly sometimes when I want a totally captured drawer bottom with out the hassle of spraying a closed box.

[Jim Neeley]

+1 on partial assembly, then finish, then complete assembly. It'll reduce the overspray, especially that landing back on you! :-)

[Jeff Duncan]

Another guy who slides the bottoms in afterwards. I spray the boxes after they're glued up as it's the only way your going to get a nice sanded flat surface.

good luck,
JeffD

[Sam Murdoch]

I think we have a consensus here :D.

[Erik Christensen]

I am too lazy for all that - would just spray the competed drawer, bottom included, plus this way the finish sheen will match. Finish is cheap compared to my time plus I like a drawer bottom with dado & glue on all 4 sides. I make drawers with 1/2" BB ply bottoms so I have yet to have one fail so a design where the bottom is replaceable is not significant to me.

[Travis Fatzinger]

I don't know why I didn't think of that as I am using blum undermounts and would have had to cut some of the back out anyway. Well I'm glad I asked the question, thanks for the help.

[Sam Murdoch]

I don't know why I didn't think of that as I am using blum undermounts and would have had to cut some of the back out anyway. Well I'm glad I asked the question, thanks for the help.

With the slide in after the fact bottom you don't need to notch for the Blum undermounts - just make certain you properly calculate the bottom to side relationship for the Blums to work correctly.