Wood Selection for Mission Style Dovetailed Drawers?

[Loren DeShon]

My next project will likely be a mission-style entertainment center done in quartersawn white oak that will be something like these:

http://www.weaverfurnituresales.com/Plasma-TV-Stands.aspx

It's not designed yet and I'm just fleshing out some general ideas. I'm planning on doing dovetailed drawers, which I've never done before, and I'm not sure what wood to use for them.

What woods work well for drawer construction? For dovetails? For mission style?

Thanks.

[phil harold]

since the rest is oak, stick with oak

[Jim Foster]

I just worked with some poplar for the first time and it was a dream to plane, chop and cut. I think it would make a great secondary material for a cabinet like yours. Stickley also has a number of consoles, if you have a showroom nearby, you may be able to get some additional design ideas when looking at their consoles.

http://www.stickley.com/OurProducts_Results.cfm?Collection=Mission&cat1=88&view=all

[Pat Barry]

You should consider something like baltic birch plywood for the actual drawer boxes and use oak as the applied face front material. My reasoning for this is that the baltic birch is very stable. If you are going to use a router method for the dovetails then the baltic birch will work OK and give a nice contrast to theoak. If on the other hand, you are planning to do hand cut dovetails using the poplar described above would be a good choice for the drawer boxes.

[Rod Sheridan]

I make the drawer fronts about 20mm thick, with 10mm thick maple sides for small drawers, 12mm thick for larger drawers.

If you want to make the drawers entierly out of QSWO that works as well, and is easier to finish...........Rod.

P.S. Drawer bottoms I make out of 8mm solid wood set in grooves, with one or three screws to hold the bottom to the underside of the drawer back.

[Jamie Buxton]

Another drawer issue is what to do about slides. Do you want to build the cabinet the way it was originally built - that is, without slides? Or do you want to use modern metal slides?

If the answer is metal slides, I like Blum Tandem slides. They wrap underneath the drawer so that you don't see any metal when the drawer is open. For inset drawers (the style shown in your link), buy the retaining clips intended for inset construction. They make it easy to adjust the drawer to be exactly flush with the face of the cabinet. I also like to make the drawer with an applied front, so it is easy to adjust the gaps around the front so they're all equal. (Applied drawer front... There's a complete drawer box -- front, back, and sides -- and the actual show front is fastened to the box with screws from inside.)

[scott vroom]

A good article on drawer construction: http://www.finewoodworking.com/pdf/drawerbuildingbasics.pdf

Virtually all of the drawers I've made were from maple...1/2" to 5/8" sides, maple plywood bottoms, prime wood fronts. I tend to avoid plywood drawers, in my opinion they cheapen down the project.

[Dave Richards]

If I were building a cabinet like that, I would use traditionally styled drawers in which the drawer front is the front of the drawer box and the bottom slides in from the back. Half blind dovetails at the front. I'd use yellow poplar for the sides and back. It is stable and works very well. I certainly wouldn't ruin the piece by using plywood for the drawer boxes.