What's this all about

Re: What's this all about

Martin S.

"The inside of the tree, is the outside of the box."

I am pretty sure Frank Klausz said that, more than once.

It applies to drawer boxes as well.

You probably already knew that, but others might not.

I enjoy your posts.

Piston fitting trick

Brian Holcombe

Make the back of the cabinet 1/32” wider than the front. The drawers can then be fitted precisely to the front opening without binding. Doing this always a neat and precise feeling to the drawer and greatly reduces the work involved.

I always secretly hope that the drawer sides are slightly bowed, allowing me to put the bowed side inward when I build them. It’s unfortunate if they’re perfectly straight, then you never know how they will behave.

Re: Looks like a back door job to me.

Re: Piston fitting trick

Howard Pollack

Thanks for this. Now that you've articulated it, it seems obvious but it never occurred to me. -Howard

Oppposite of Krenov recommendation?

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I am not going to wade through 4 books of Krenov philosophy to confirm this pearl of engineering, but I think Krenov tightened the back of his cases. I believe I recall correctly that he had a tactile description of the effect of closing the drawer as it tightened near closure. He made it sound desirable. That said, he built tiny drawers for tiny cases. The larger the case the more likely these high accuracy approaches fail in practice.

Personally, I have built enough large drawer holding cases to know that I have no confidence that I can predict how the interior openings will come out to 1/32" accuracy. I care about two things- a pleasing clearance around the drawer front and a drawer that slides effortlessly closed. I get there by building a drawer slightly too big and plane to fit the vagaries of the openings. It doesn't take long to plane to fit and success is assured.

Re: Oppposite of Krenov recommendation?

Brian Holcombe

I don't know what Krenov recommends. This is something that I 'discovered' on my own and then found other people were actually also doing. The result is a piston fit that is truly reliable.

You could go more, like 1/16", but I would not taper them the other way.

The trouble with making them smaller at the back is that you have to make the back of the drawer smaller as well and so as the drawer pulls out it gets very loose. A drawer with 1/16" clearance + normal clearance is not really a piston fit by the time the back of the drawer is nearing the front opening. Also, they tend to stick with greater consistency when the back is tapered in.

When you do the opposite and the back is wider, then the drawer can remain a consistent size as it need only pass through the opening at that fine clearance. The sides end up directing the drawer as it passes through the opening and the operation is very smooth.

I've yet to have a sticky drawer since doing this. When I did it the other way I had to clearance them extremely carefully and hawk over them as the seasons change. I won't say it's impossible, but it seems considerably less finicky.

My drawer fitting rarely involves much planing, usually the drawers are assembled at size and left that way with a slight touch up at the joinery to remove glue.

I did this with the sashimono box as well, worked beautifully even on small scale items.

There is a box maker local to me that confirmed his approach is identical to mine, he's about 50 years experience and many of that doing extremely fine work. He's doing some of the most careful work that I have seen.

The problem with fame......

Mark Hennebury

It has far more to do with perception than value.

I tried a bunch of stuff from many of the famous people of the time, learned lots from all of them, and moved on.

A Krenov copy that i did ( a long time ago) with interesting runners.

A customer ordered it from me because he didn't want to pay Krenov price.

Sorry about the picture quality.

Correction: I got it backwards

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Maybe it was somewhere else I got the information from.

Krenov: "just a fraction of a fraction wider at the back". There is a vague reference to achieving this taper by planing the case pieces before assembly. One has to keep in mind that Krenov built tiny objects so his "fraction of a fraction" might become Brian's 1/32 recommendation in a larger case. I have no confidence that the sized cases I deal with can be predicted to achieve fraction of a fraction accuracy after assembly.

To keep a drawer from racking and hence binding when it begins to close from its open position, the fit must be tight when the drawer is in this starting position. Hence, the drawer sides must not taper narrower to the back from a good fit in the front. A trifling of case widening toward the back would not significantly increase racking at the start of a drawer closing, if this widening can be predictably achieved.

On the chest of drawers nearing completion one vertical frame member of the frame and panel side twisted a tiny bit. The twist closed the opening a "fraction of a fraction" at the case back. This defect did not show up until a nicely fit drawer was 3" from its closed position and it rubbed on the frame. It has been a miserable experience to plane away this twist on the assembled case, amongst the drawer dividers.

Re: The problem with fame......

Brian Holcombe

Beautifully done, Mark! I like the battens, especially, they're neatly detailed.

I admire the contributions of the famous woodworkers, but mainly for aesthetic value. I see a lot of furniture from famous makers near me and while I admire it, I've also seen what it looks like before restoration and that often leads one to seek a different approach for joinery and other details.

Often enough I actually admire production furniture from good sources, they have to work out so many more details and do so on a volume basis. The results need to survive import then a warranty period so they're usually built very well. They also provide many insights into how well certain features will last because they will done at volume. So when I see work of manufacturers like Rud Rasmussen floating around I tend to look very closely at how they've done things.

Re: Correction: I got it backwards

Barry Irby

Just wondering. For those of you with more experience, Would it work to leave one of the dovetails proud of the side surface of the drawer on both sides? Just a 1/32" or whatever. I'm thinking the bottom pin would rub against the side rail and provide minimal friction.

Re: Correction: I got it backwards *LINK*

Hank Knight

I took a workshop at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine several years ago called "The Art of Drawer Construction." It was taught by Craig Vandal Stevens, a long time student and follower of James Krenov. He taught us to build the case a hair (technical term there) wider at the back than the front and build the drawer to fit the opening, I.E., hair wider at the back. According to Krenov, this gave an aesthetically pleasing, piston fit that tightens up as the drawer is drawn and releases with an "aah" given a gentle tug at the end. I agree with Bill, I don't think that's practical with anything larger than one of Krenov's jewel-like cabinets with tiny drawers. I've tried it with larger drawers. They worked O.K. initially, but always became stuck with the slightest increase in humidity. I gave it up and now shoot for a parallel fit, or a fit where the drawer is a hair narrower at the back. Seems to work better that way for me.


Craig Vandall Stevens

Re: The problem with fame......

Mark Hennebury

Thanks Brian,

Where i lived on an island of the east coast of Canada, it was somewhat isolated and there were no furnituremakers around to learn from, so i learned from making stuff that was shown in fine woodworking magazine.

Often customers would bring a photo or book or magazine and ask me to make something, usually for a lot less than they could order it for.

Some stuff i just made out of interest, to see how it was made and to understand what the original makers were thinking. Its a good way to learn, you are always curious and trying to understand the reasoning.

You gather up insight into the minds, personalities and values of the makers and find things that you like and things that you don't in the design and construction.

It is all steps on the way to your own path.

As far as the famous part goes, it is mostly just hype.

If you had thousands of pieces of fine furniture from furniture makers from all over the world displayed at an exhibition, all anonymously, before any were famous, I wonder if the work done by the likes of James Krenov, Sam Maloof and George Nakashima etc.. would even be noticed.

Kool-aid works wonders.

Re: Correction: I got it backwards

Jesse Cloud

I always get tickled with subjective measurements such as a "fraction of a fraction" or a "hair". My favorite is from the culinary world - a "suspicion" of nutmeg.

Re: miserable experience

William Duffield

Don't you have a rabbet block plane or, better yet, a carriage maker's rabbet plane (Stanley #10 or equivalent)

http://supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan2.htm#num10

that would make that situation at least tolerable?

Re: Correction: I got it backwards

Brian Holcombe

If you do it like that, the drawer self-stops but I can't imagine it to be reliable on a large drawer.

My approach is to do the front and back of the drawer sized to the front opening (less a minor clearance). Yet the back of the cabinet is wider than the front by .030". This allows for the nice feeling of a piston fit drawer without the sides sticking.

Re: Correction: I got it backwards

Brian Holcombe

It's easy, I just make the top of the case out of square by making a trapezoid. Make the bottom to match and the sides mate to that.

It's pretty easy to make something out of square.

Re: The problem with fame......

Brian Holcombe

I think that is a good way to do it. I've done similar in that I've made some joints shown in books and so forth. I think it really helped my understanding to simply make things and see what I like and dislike about it both in process and result.

I've had the experience of working in a furniture shop (in sales) and that helped show me the broader range of what's out there. When I was bored I would dig through the manufacturer books and find all sort of gems that weren't things we were showing.

The Danish makers, especially at the top of the heap, turn out impressive woodwork. It really has spurred on my thinking of how the complicated parts were made, inexpensively.

Clients do drive a lot of the learning though, certainly, my clients will commonly ask me to build something I have little experience in. I love doing so, even though those projects usually take longer than expected.

Re: miserable experience

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

"that would make that situation at least tolerable?"

depends on one's tolerance for bashing knuckles into the sharp edges of the adjacent drawer dividers . Step 1 should have been to soften divider edges.

Re: Correction: I got it backwards

Hank Knight

"It's pretty easy to make something out of square. "

Man! Ain't that the truth!