While we are waiting..

[Chris Knight]

I am not sure if we are all waiting for the Main forum to reappear or whether this support area does not seem the right one but in any case I thought I would try to post a couple of pictures of a recent project so Keith does not feel we are ignoring him.

This is a side table I made in oak. It was mainly brown oak for the show wood and white oak elsewhere. In the end we wanted it to look somewhat darker so I ended up fuming it - kind of a waste of the nice brown oak colour but c'est la vie.

Because the table is narrow, I wanted full extension drawers but for a piece like this metal slides were out of the question. I ended up making full extension dovetail slides of the sort Jim Tolpin mentions in his Toolbox book. These were quite tricky to get working smoothly and I wouldn't rush to use them again. However, they do work well and are much more in keeping with the piece than metal sides would have been.

Thanks for looking.

[Tim]

Hi Chris,

Beautiful piece! I love that rich tone. Can you give a little more detail on how those drawers are mounted? I'm a newbie and it's not completely obvious to me from the pics.

By the way, I don't think we're getting a "main forum" back. I think Keith removed it per requests that it diluted the content in the Power Tool and Neander forums (a la The Pond). I encourage you to post your great work in the tool forum of your choice (or both)!

[Keith Outten]

I have done some sliding docetails in the past and I know how tough it can be to get the fit just right. In Virginia we have very high humidity almost year round so a certain amount of clearance is required to keep drawers sliding freely. On my first try I had to do several tests to get the fit right.

Beautiful piece!

[Ted Shrader]

Chris -

Very well done! That is a beauitful piece.

How did you post multiple pics?

Ted
ps Got your response to my water stained walnut question the other day before the board crashed. Thanks. LTS

[Chris Knight]

Guys, thanks for the compliments.

Tim,

The sides of the drawer have a "female dovetail" cut in them and then there are intermediate pieces with both a male and a female dovetail that engage in the female drawer sides and male dovetails on the sides of the drawer recess.

When opening the drawer, it stays roughly halfway in intermediate piece which also engages for about 50% with the dovetail in the drawer recess. There are slots cut in the intermediate pieces that slide over brass pins fixed in the drawer sides and in the drawer openings that limit travel of both drawer and intermediate pieces - when the pin hits the end of the slot.

It sounds more complicated than it really is.

Ted, glad you got my thoughts on your stains before the forum went down - hope they helped.

Chris

[Chris Knight]

Ted,
Re the multiple picture - I made a collage in photoshop - only one file.

Chris