Building Drawers

This is part 3 in the shop build series. In this video I make a set of small drawers, most of which are built out of scrap and leftover materials I already had in the shop.

The drawer bottoms slide in dados that are cut in the cabinets, thus eliminating the need for drawer slides. The bottom and sides are made from ½ inch birch plywood, all of which was leftover from a faux ceiling beam build that I made for a custom library. This video will be forthcoming after the shop build series.

Each drawer takes about 10 minutes to assemble from start to finish, not including the sanding and water-based finish that I applied. I cover the exposed edges of the plywood by cutting ½ x ½ inch finishing strips out of Ipe, which I glue and pin. When a top coat is applied, it gives the drawer a nice look and you quickly forget that this was assembled out of plywood.

It takes longer to sand than to build the drawers. One of the challenges of using plywood as both bottom and drawer slide is that the friction between the wood of the bottom sliding in and out of the dado can make opening and closing labored. However, I sand the bottom of the drawer and then coat the edges about four coats of water-based finish and plenty of paste wax. I also remove any sharp edges that might get hung up as it slides. I also coat the inside of the dados with shellac. The reason for this is that it doesn’t raise the grain and I don’t have to sand inside the dado. It seems to work well.

If you’ve watched other videos on my channel, you’ll notice that almost everything in the shop is made out of Ipe. The reason for this is that a friend gave me a truckload of Ipe offcuts, which should last another year at least. Ipe is very difficult to work with because of the density of the wood. When you plane Ipe it throws this mysterious yellow dust everywhere. Some people have very strong allergic reactions to Ipe – it sometimes causes hives or respiratory difficulties. However, the finishing product is well worth the effort. There are few woods as naturally beautiful as IPe.

Finishing Ipe is also a bit of a challenge. Oil and oil-based finishes take days to dry its tough to build layers. I can simulate an oil-based look by adding wood conditioner to the process and then finishing it with oil-modified water based poly. Water-based finishes dry very quick and you can quickly build a nice finish. Finishing with paste wax gives you a very nice and durable finish.

Its taken me a while to figure out the best way to attach drawer fronts. I used to clamp them in place and hope it came out ok. Now, I just screw them to the drawer and the tight drawer pull serves to hold it to the drawer while the glue dries. It also gives you some time to adjust the drawer perfectly.