Dressers & Nightstands

Made two dressers and matching nightstands for our bedroom. Wooden slides with Teflon tape allows smooth drawer movement. Floating tenons are used for the leg assemblies. Simple locking rabbets/groves were used for the drawer boxes for speed. Arched brackets, cove molded and bull-nose molding used as well. Special bead molding wrapped around each door and drawer makes for a nice shadow line to hide any minor gaps.

The top of one of them warped. I cut it down and glued it back up but still had significant warping. I placed a wet rag on the concave side until it equalized and finished it and screwed it down using the figure 8 brackets. After several months it seems to have retained the flat shape. I used a water based die on the parts. The down side of die is two-fold. First, it raises the grain of the wood regardless of how finely it was sanded. The other problem is if a water based finish is then applied, it can cause the die to run. To combat these problems, I wet the surfaces after 320 sanding and then sanded again after drying. This prevents 90% of grain roughening after the die. Also, a little steel wool will also ease any residual grain after applying the die. For the finish, I apply a couple of coats of shellac with a sprayer or brush to seal the die from any further finish. Then, the final coats are applied using water based lacquer from the sprayer

-- DJB