Finishing Drawers - Inside and Out

[George Bokros]

I will be finishing these drawers with tinted shellac inside and out. The drawer sides have rounded top edges. If the top edges were not rounded I would mask at the corners of the edge and the side and finish prior to assembly. With the rounded top edges I do not have a definitive corner to mask along. With tinted shellac the color gets deeper with each coat so overlap of finish would produce unmatched colors. I do not have a place to spray.

I believe that the only alternative I have is to finish inside and outside at the same time, your thoughts?

[Jamie Buxton]

Applying finish to drawer boxes is a lot easier if you build them the old-fashioned way: the bottom slides in from the back. You can build them this way with modern materials like plywood if you want. But the key thing is that you finish the bottom separately from the rest of the box. This means you can more easily apply finish to the parts without fighting to work the finish into corners. And if you sand between coats, you can more easily sand without fighting to get into the corners.

[Frederick Skelly]

Hi George,
I did a set of drawers just the other day. I assembled the drawer, masked the bottom where it meets the side (because I didnt want the bottom finished for this project) and put the shellac on both the inside and outside. Doing both the inside and outside at the same time worked very well for me. But again, my drawer was fully assembled - I don't know if you want to go that route.

Fred