Drawer side and DT question(s)

Re: Drawer side and DT question(s)

Warren in Lancaster, PA


>For a flatsawn board, the bark side tends to become concave as the board dries. When the board is well seasoned there is still some movement in response to humidity changes. The bark side could become slightly convex in periods of high humidity (summer) and go the opposit way in the winter. These changes are small. With a drawer front you usually have the most finish on the outside, which is handy because the outside is also subjected to more extremes in humidity. I don't think the grain orientation is worth worrying about.

It is somewhat easier to plane an excess off the side board, but 1/32" would be a lot of planing for my taste. If you could plan a miniscule amount that would be alright, but I think better to aim for flush joint.

Frid said, "IDIOT!"

slashdev


>No, not me.... Inside of Drawer Is Outside of Tree. :)

Re: Drawer side and DT question(s)

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod


>Joe -

Inside of tree on outside of drawer. Make the front and back of the drawer to be a press fit in the opening, side to side. Set DT depth so drawer sides are slightly ( < 1/64", 1/32" is way too much) proud of front and back. After assembly, remove the excess side thickness and you will be within a few shavings of a perfect fit.

Ed

Re: Drawer side and DT question(s)

Adam Cherubini


>Hi Joe,

Good 18th c furniture typically has qs drawer sides. I think this is a good idea. I buy heartsawn pine 1x12's from Home Depot and rip out the heart (sounds gory) and am left with nice qs stuff. The idea is that a drawer that is tight top to bottom will wear less, qs being stable in that direction, rift sawn stock not stable.

We've discussed the "piston" fit drawers here before. You may be able to find these discussions with a search. My opinion is that this is meaningless hubris on the part of the maker. There's really no functional advantage to such a drawer and it may even cause more sticking. You need the tightness top to bottom. I typically leave at least an 1/8" gap (total) side to side. This means I can make the drawer and basically never touch the sides.

I'd be remiss if I didn't menation that I feel 18th c drawers may have been used more like storage boxes i.e. completely removed for access. Modern folks seem to be more accustomed to drawers that function like kitchen drawers on ball bearing slides. There are some here who can make solid wood drawers that feel this way - I do not.

Good luck with the drawers,

Adam

Eighteenth Century

Warren in Lancaster, PA


>I just looked at an eighteenth century walnut drawer front in my shop. It was probably made in Chester County around 1750. It still looks pretty handsome. Apparently the maker had not yet read any twentieth century literature, though, because he put the outside of the tree on the outside of the drawer. I also dug up an early nineteenth century mahogany front with the same result. This is just a small sample of two, but absent any strong rationale, I think the outside inside orientation is not something to get excited about.

Do you know my wife?

Joe in a Cleveland suburb


>I hear Idiot! alot.

Just kidding and thanks. That's an easy way to remember it.

Joe

Re: Eighteenth Century

thomd


>I once asked Living Treasure Michael Fortune whether he used the alternating glue up, or the all in one direction glue-up for table tops. One keeps the average defection low, and the other deflects more but in a shallow curve, easier to hold down. He answered that he didn't pay any attention to it and just matched up for best colour. Goes to show how the rules are made to be broken.

One thing about drawers is that if the piece is designed for a space with seasonal variations in humidity, you want to look at where the fit is most likely to jam in the opening and orient the tangential pane away from that. So quartered sides would be a good bet in narrow vertical openings, but if it's hanging on wooden cleats the cleat interface on the horizontal plane might be most important.

As far as drawer fit is concerned, it's usually easier to get a really clean look with through dovetails if there is a fraction of extra material protruding, not even 1/32" which is actually quite a bit. The "box" I would still fit for zero, and then get it into position with some planing. In certain application that is very tight. I have a writing table where the drawer was made from a piece cut out of an apron so the cut had to be calculated carefully. It was 1/16" all around and does not look loose, surprisingly (it's floating centered, if it was fit into an opening there would be a ghastly 1/8" gap on top). any time there is that much material to remove you are going to noticeably reduce the dimension of the piece,and have to plan materials carefully. But for tighter work I just fit for zero, joint overhang is a different business.

On half blinds, I don't plan any joint overhand I would just scribe the sides in with a gage set to their width, but not to any degree thicker, so the sides never get set in even a fraction.

I does depend on your local conditions though.

Re: Drawer side and DT question(s) *LINK*

Andrew F in Australia


>Hi Joe,

The link that Chris Scholz gives below has the answer to your question and the reasoning.

I'm with Adam. Where possible, use quarter sawn as drawer sides moving in an opening cause binding.

Cheers,

Andrew


Chris Scholz's link, badly translated into English

Re: Drawer side and DT question(s)

Warren in Lancaster, PA


>The diagrams in this piece show only one type of moisture change: the warping that occurs when the wood becomes dryer. The board will warp the opposite direction if the moisture is increased (as when a board is prepared in the winter and absorbs moisture in the summer). The diagrams make sense only if we are working with unseasoned wood that will inevitably become dryer. We do not generally make drawers of unseasoned wood.

Seasoning of stock

Andrew F in Australia


>Hi Warren,

Here, wood is supplied kiln dried to about 2-4% above equilibrium content, with the assumption that it will shrink slightly on sale.

As well, when you put a piece into an airconditioned house, it shrinks some more as the air conditioner/heater dries it out.

In practice, here at least, you don't get wood rehumidifying following initial manufacture. THis must have been Tage Frid's assumption also as this is his (and traditional trade) practise, to leave the heartwood on the outside so that the corners cup in. This is because commercial kilns supply at slightly above equilibrium moisture levels.

I agree you'll get the summer and winter swings in humidity and timber cupping. But the initial swing is a biggie in the first place and a far greater magnitude than the following ones.

If you're building timber with an actual level of 12% say and your final moisture content (equilibrium) is closer to 16%, then I'd be looking at initial design but also drying/seasoning practice, as it's a waste of time and money to overdry the timber.

Trust that this makes sense,

Cheers,

Andrew

Thanks for all the Great Info!

Joe in a Cleveland suburb

Re: Seasoning of stock

Warren in Lancaster, PA


>In our area lumber is kiln dried to 6-8% moisture and equilibrium is considerably higher, perhaps 10%. I think there is a reason Frid used a mnemonic device to try and remember his rule.

just the opposite here

bill tindall


>Much like Orion (constellation) looked upside down when I was in NZ, lumber practices must be upside down between us too. KD lumber will be a maximum of 6% MC when it comes out of a commercial kiln here. It may well be dried to something under that and then conditioned back up to this level. Everything is geared to lumber gaining moisture after drying ,( unless its destination is the desert). I consider it alarming if lumber is over 10%MC.

Re: Seasoning of stock

thomd


>I'm not expecting to find it at 6% unless I own the kiln myself. I'm not going to start the drawers unless I the stock normalized to my working conditions. Not just because that's my practice but also because I have a lot of wood on hand and some of it may have been here for decades. I don't have an industrial quantity, but I probably have 1000 bft of hardwood. More useful stuff cycles through quickly.

Re: just the opposite here

Sgian Dubh


>Bill, It seems US practise is unusual regarding kiln drying timber. It's the only country I can think of where it's common to kiln dry the material to as low as 6%.

Here in the UK (and the rest of Europe as far as I'm aware) most kiln operators air dry to about 18% MC and kiln down to between 10% and 12% MC for furniture grade.

I'm a little surprised you find timber over 10% MC an alarming prospect. I don't find it unusual to see timber furniture ranging between about 7.5% and 13% in service. This applies in the UK (heated but seldom air conditioned) and throughout most of the US where houses are also heated (and often air conditioned too.)

Working with timber at 10% to 12% is pretty near the middle of the range that most timber furniture will experience in a house or office environment. Now when I lived in Houston, TX., I never saw kiln dried timbers like cherry, maple oak or walnut below 10% MC. Usually it was at 9% to 11% and rising when I bought it. True, it may have been kilned to 6% up in PA., or somewhere, but by the time it had had some time in Houston with its (summer) 95�F+ and 75%-- 85% RH numbers wood MC was on the up and up. Slainte.

WWing on the coast

Bob Hackett


>Here on the coast of Maine the timber cycles between 11% during the summer and 4-6% during the winter heating season.

I`ve seen more than one piece of "fine furniture" self destruct during the first year.I`ve also witnessed a gateleg table that was over 100 years old crack across one of it`s leaves after a friend moved from an older farmhouse to a new house with forced air heat/AC.His wife was more than alittle upset to say the least.

Mainely,Bob

Re: WWing on the coast

Sgian Dubh


>Bob, what you say doesn't surprise me at all. The sorts of numbers you mention aren't at all out of order.

Generally I recommend that we build furniture designed for office or residential use to cope with an MC range between about 5% to about 14% or 15%. This should provide plenty of room for the changes in size that might occur.

Some reckon a useful rule of thumb is to say 3% change in wood MC results in a 1% change in wood width across the grain. Others reckon a 4% change in MC results in a 1% change in wood width-- it depends on whose figures you read. Going by the 3%MC change to 1% movement figures, a table top 1000 mm wide at 15%MC would shrink to 970mm wide if it's dried out to 5% MC. (That's roughly 39-3/8" down to 38-3/16" in old money for the metrically challenged.)

The failures you report in your post are quite common. In the first place I'd guess the builders of the new furniture failed to account for potential wood movement properly. In the second case-- the gate-leg table leaf failure, the piece was designed for a different era where houses were draughtier, damper, hotter, etc.. The builders would have had no concept of A/C, better insulation and the like.

As to the original question about which way to orientate crown cut timber for drawer parts, I've found it generally makes little difference. Yes, the technical arguments are out there, but I find for the most part the opposing views are usually of little import when it comes to an actual bit of furniture and the drawers in it. Sure, I can knock out tight fitting drawers any time I feel like, but they'll probably be jammed in six months, so it's generally a fruitless exercise. Make them a bit loose to cope with all seasons seems to be the easy solution. Slainte.

How about Stickley 'Side hung, center guided'

Jerry Huey


>Anyone have any insight on these?