Dealing with a bowed drawer side

Re: Dealing with a bowed drawer side

Charlie

End-to-end bow has always been a real bugbear for me. I can get it planed out (shims underneath) but it comes back a very large % of the time. Seems to be a stress a board really wants to hold onto.

Re: Dealing with a bowed drawer side

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Bill, is the bow so large that if you were to plane it off the drawer side would look off? no and no. I

If it's not glued up yet, why not discard it and make a new one? Because it has dovetails cut in it, this in turn marked pins for front and back and there is no need to.

Would you consider making a new drawer? Never I have never made a drawer so out of wack it could not be easily fixed to be a perfect fit.

how many seasons?

David Weaver

The only way I can think of to eliminate this is to create yourself - literally - an annual run of drawer stock to be cut into sides.

This is what is done with guitar necks (no matter how good your wood selection, some will still twist). We hang guitar necks after they're initially sized and observe them through a couple of seasonal changes. The ones that are dry and don't move during seasonal change never will. It takes at least a few months to see this and some weather shift.

The rest of the pile is separated, and if there's a little extra stock, work the movement out of the stock (necks are oversized to account for this), check back after the next significant weather change (a few weeks after) and the ones that don't move, generally are done moving. You have a small subset left of wood that can be watched further, like once a year or whatever. It won't be a large amount.

I would be surprised if the very best of makers several hundred years ago didn't do this with thin bits of wood for their highest paying customers. That would ensure that someone didn't get a 5,000 man hour piece with a couple of drawers that used to be snug and now are too snug.

reality meets theory

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Several years ago I blocked out 24" billets of poplar and dried them. Every year I resaw a bunch of drawer sides from them and bake them in the attic to be used as needed. It is a rare piece of case furniture that is more than 20" deep........except this desk. After end trimming these billets make dandy drawer parts, < 22" long, too short for this desk.

For no other reason than I like doing this kind of thing I had saved the temporary steps from building the house 25 years ago- 7/4 poplar, rough, #2 common, 12" wide. Many of the treads were cut from the center of the tree, hence quartered on the edges. Resawed these became many of the drawer parts.

Re: Dealing with a bowed drawer side

Wiley Horne

Rafael,

The drawer is whole. Side bowed after some time in use. Bill has pulled the bottom out, and ‘sleeved’ the drawer over support.

Wiley