Design advice for ox bow drawer?

[Terry D May]

I've decided to build a slant top desk with ox bow front (or reversed serpentine drawers). Right now I'm just in the design phase. I've seen different techniques for making serpentine drawers, so I feel OK with tackling those, but the challenge on this project is the top drawer. Because this piece will have a fold down slant top lid, the top drawer will be curved on the bottom, but must be straight on the top. This is how many early American pieces of this style were designed. The top drawer transitions from a serpentine profile on the bottom to a straight edge on the top.

There's a picture of one of these pieces here: http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/13868#

Does anyone have any advice on how to achieve this technique, or know of some resources I should check out. Several web searches haven't turned up any details.

Thanks,
Terry

[Mel Fulks]

What an ambitious and beautiful project! First off while the graduation of the drawers is purely mathmathtical the top drawer transition probably varies a little among the early makers. I would try to find a museum or private owner of such a piece willing to allow you to examine theirs.If that fails Iwould use clay in a smaller scale to work out your own approach. As you probably already know,the other drawers are usually "bricks" of white pine under veneer.Never thought about before ,but that top drawer might have to be carved from a solid piece.In this case ,I doubt the goal exceeds your grasp. Please keep us posted.

[Terry D May]

Yeah, carving the drawer was my first thought. But I'm hoping I can find some helpful hints about how to approach it to get consistent results (rather than just eyeballing it). I do a bit of carving (mostly foliage) but have never shaped a large area like this. Another concern is getting matching color and grain patterns when mixing drawers with veneer and one of solid wood. I agree that viewing some pieces first hand would be a good place to start.

[Brett Robson]

If I was to do it, I'd first shape the drawer front like all the other ones. Next I'd stick it in the case and using the top divider above it, mark a line where the high points have to be cut back. Then I'd clamp a piece of scrap across the drawer front to use as a fence for your rabbet plane. Using the fence and the line you drew as a guide, I'd plane the high points down to the line. Lastly, I'd use the rabbet plane again to rough shape the rabbet you made into the "eyebrow" contour. From there, use some bench chisels to contour the edges and scrape/sand until smooth.

You'd just have to make sue not to shape the dished out area in the center of the drawer until after you've done the above step. It you look above the keyhole, you can see where the concave shape rises to meet the flat across the top. Once the top is shaped, it'd be pretty simple to draw the radius on the drawer front and trace the shape of the divider below to define the concave area, then use some carving gouges to remove the wood between the marks.