Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
The route to smooth traditional drawers
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
My drawers work more smoothly that those employing ball bearing Accuride hardware. The route to a smooth drawer is a good fit, planed maple runners and wax. The drawer sides and bottom, and the case runners and sides are waxed with Carnuba wax, rubbed on with steel wool. The steel wool polishes the surfaces. When the wax hardens the result is a near frictionless operation.
I prepare the Carnuba wax by dissolving it in warm Xylene.
Re: The route to smooth traditional drawers
Bruce McCrory
Likewise, I can't see the appeal of manufactured metal guide rails. Cost, space waste and early failure are some of the liabilities.
From my own experience with furniture exceeding 100 years, and more intimately, constant use, durability aligns with:
Wood and engineering that corresponds to the intended purpose. Hard (Rock) Maple in a commercial engineering environment will outlive metal. Bulky, lighter clothing in pine drawers is fine. The material of drawer sides should match the rails; matched species, same board especially. Mismatches attract goring. Secondary wood is fine if it meets the above conditions. Finally, why cut off finish at the drawer face? It looks cheap. It is a cheap excuse.
Common material at friction points. Even sloppy--and, economically fabricated--kit-made pine clothing cases have drawer sides and rails with no wear after nearly forty years. Everything was stained that 'black' spanish walnut (remember?) and then surfaced in Deft lacquer. Phew! Just snort your wife's nail polish for a flash-back. It's depressing, but a dark finish obscures surface dents in a bedroom.
Heavy and hard woods grinding over each other is no cure. I don't see one construction method in rails and drawer sides being better than another.
I debated adding wax and paraffin to the durable list. However, those materials are temporary and of limited use without the other requirements being met. Wax and blobs of paraffin do make a good marketing gimmick.
most disagree
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
The material of drawer sides should match the rails; matched species, same board especially.
A worn drawer side is trivial to fix. A worn runner is not, especially if the wear also involved the drawer bade/divider. Poplar or yellow pine drawer sides and maple runner.
Re: And, here we go.....
Bruce McCrory
... Then fix the reason it wore out in the first place. Which is the point of my comments. Note, cheap pine works great on drawers I open every day, and have for forty years. The same stuff does not work on a Kitchen Queen.
Also, tradition (ref. "most") is a good way to blindly run off a cliff. Observe and use your powers of deduction to seek solutions. This isn't a 'cut corners and make it cheap" forum.
I'm with the Unicorn guy right now.
Re: The route to smooth traditional drawers
TomD
Weight seems to have a lot to do with it. PSI will get through anything in short order. Silver drawers seem to blow out pretty soon.
Most first class makers are building for the long haul, which takes a lot of optimism these days. Hard to know what works beyond a lifetime of use, and that is a pretty short period to derive any rules from. I would guess that you do not need much difference in species hardness to determine if one piece is sacrificial or not. Pine, particularly the new stuff, is a huge step away from maple.
On plane soles, a finish of tung oil, or Watco, with a blush of bees wax, and that is all it takes for the plane to last decades. Might work on drawers, though I do not remember seeing anything like that.