Mahogany Dresser

[Denis Kenzior]

Thought I'd share some pics of the mahogany dresser I have recently completed.
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Materials are Sipo mahogany for the primary wood, with Sapele and African Mahogany veneers. Wenge was used for inlays. Hard Maple for drawer sides and backs. The legs and side rails were made from a single 12/4 board to help with grain / color matching.

Since the 12/4 board was not rift sawn, I bandsawed off 3/16" thick slices off the leg faces (with ribbon grain) and glued them onto the flat-sawn sides. Then dimensioned the legs to be 2" square. To hide the seams the legs received a 1/8" x 1/8" Wenge inlay.
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The top and sides are made from a large piece of Sapele Pomelle veneer pressed onto 3/4" baltic birch substrate. Backer veneer was Sapele or African mahogany. 3/16" Wenge inlays were also made for the top. Finally, narrow sipo boards were glued and mitered to make up the 'frame' of the topand profiled using a 15 degree chamfer.
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Overall there are 6 drawers. They are 9", 8", 8", 7.5", 7.5" and 5". The boards I used for the drawer fronts were very straight, so I left them over the target thickness of 3/4. Felt it would be just a shame to plane them down more. They ended up about 7/8". Simple rubbed bronze 1 1/4" knobs were used.
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Drawers run on Blum soft-close undermount drawer slides.
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Grain was filled, sealed with EM1000 and topcoated with EM6000 gloss lacquer, rubbed out to a high satin / semi-gloss.
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[Michelle Rich]

truly a work of art. I like the leg work..hiding the seam with wenge looks fabulous

[Conrad Fiore]

Beautiful work.

[George Bokros]

That piece is stunning. The grain pops!

[Al Launier]

Gorgeous wood & absolutely fine workmanship. You should really be proud of your work!
Curious: how are the drawer face, sides & bottoms joined?

[Scott DelPorte]

what a beauty!

[Yonak Hawkins]

It's a beautiful chest, Denis. The work and time you spent on the finish really shows.

[Denis Kenzior]

Al,

The sides and back are joined using sliding dovetails. A dovetail slot is cut in each of the sides, then the back is machined to fit. The fronts have a stopped dovetail slot cut. Then the sides are machined to fit. All of it required way too much precision, and sliding dovetails are a pain to glue up. I probably wouldn't do it the same way next time, but it was a fun challenge.

If you're interested, the plan is from Popular Mechanics, 100th anniversary dresser. Should be easy to find online.

[Prashun Patel]

That's as close to a perfect finish as I've seen. I'd like to know your procedure a little more...

[Denis Kenzior]

Prashun,

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm pretty happy with how the finish turned out, but there's still quite a bit of room for improvement.

The procedure I used is as follows:
1. Sand to 180 grit
2. Apply 1 coat of Waterlox to pop grain. Let dry overnight.
3. Apply 2 coats of EM1000
4. Apply AquaCoat grain filler. It takes about 3-4 applications to fill the grain properly due to shrinkage. But it only takes about 30-45 minutes for the filler to dry between applications. Wenge is much more porous than Mahogany, so I had to hit the inlay areas a few more times.
5. Sand down the filler until its in the pores and not on the surface. This part is tricky as it is hard to know how much to sand and not break into the waterlox layer. The filler sands okay when using a ROS + vacuum, but clogs paper rather quick when sanding by hand. I also tried putting on the filler first on bare wood, and then went to step 1 above. This worked just as well, but AquaCoat recommends staining / sealing first.
6. Apply another coat of em1000
7. Apply lots of EM6000 coats. I think I went to 8 or so, leveling with 400 grit as needed.

Rubout is after 5-7 days of curing. Sand with 600 grit, 800 grit. Then apply Menzerna 2L intermediate paste. I just used my 3" and 6" CEROS for this with surbuf or foam pads, whatever is on hand. If the result is too glossy, I cutout a disk from a white 3M abrasive pad, stick it to my sander and run it over the surface. Lubricate with water. Remove all residue with a clean cloth. Hardest part of the process is blending in the areas you can't reach with the buffer. You have to do these by hand. a 3" or smaller sander helps here.

In the end you can tell the result was abraded under certain lighting conditions / angles. I haven't found a way around that yet. But you really have to look pretty closely to see it.

[Jim Becker]

Really beautiful piece!

[Jim Tobias]

Beautiful!! I really like the woods/veneer you used. Nice combination. Craftsmenship is also outstanding!

Jim

[Robby Tacheny]

Denis this looks great and wood on the side is exceptional! Do you have a picture showing the joints on the drawers? I would guess they are only visible from the bottom or top of drawer?

I actually built the same dresser years ago and posted finished pictures on here too. It was one of my first big projects and I learned a lot making it. I don't know about you, but I found the dresser to be VERY heavy. There is a deceptive amount of wood that goes into that many wide drawers. It has been six years and my wife is still using it.

I don't want to take away from your thread, but if you'd like to see my attempt, it is here. It includes the original image from Popular Woodworking for comparison, but your version looks so much better than either one!

Congrats on a beautiful piece of furniture.

Robby

[Denis Kenzior]

Robby,

Not at all. I fell in love with the design when I came across it about 10-15 years ago. I always wanted to build it, but the complexity of the piece scared me. Nor was I really equipped for something like that. I came across several versions of this dresser made by various people over the years. Its just such a nice design, and anyone who actually completes it deserves respect. It is a pretty complex project to pull off.

You are very correct that the dresser is extremely heavy. I have to remove all the drawers in order to even budge it. Each drawer is probably 15-20 pounds. I guesstimate the full assembly weighs 350-400 pounds! I used a scissor lift table to move it out of the shop.

I actually modified the design a bit to accommodate 21" Blum slides that I had on hand. The plan originally calls for 18". The pieces of Sapele Pomelle veneer were also a bit longer than needed, and I didn't want to simply trim them. So the dresser was stretched 4" in width and 3" in depth.

Here are some shots of the drawer joinery:
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Here's how the back is connected to the sides:
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The bottoms are pre-finished birch ply. Bottoms are inserted after assembly and just screwed into the back.

[John TenEyck]

Stunning, Dennis. The wood, the workmanship, the finish, all at the highest level. Wow.

John