Opinions and Comments for drawers in Harvey Ellis dresser

[Jim Volk]

Fellow Creekers,
I'm looking for comments and opinions here. I'm getting ready to start a No. 913 Harvey Ellis dresser. A fellow Creeker posted a fine example of this a few years ago and I fell in love with it. Funiture has not been something that I have made much of. Certainly not something like this. My question is how / or what should one do for the way the drawers slide in and out. I've noticed that sometimes Stickley would use side hung drawers and then sometimes not. With their pieces today, they use all wood, side hung / center guided drawers. Would this be appropriate to do? If so, are these hard to build, what types of materials would one use, and what makes them work well. My piece will be built out of Qtr sawn white oak but I would not be using that for the drawer sides. As I see it, the other options would be no guides at all simply using the drawer sides for the runner, and I suppose using some undermount drawer slides that are made today.

[Frank Drew]

Jim,

I'm not familiar with that design, and have never made side hung all wood drawers, but quartered oak is actually a very good drawer side material since it's so stable across it's width. Of course, if the drawer fronts are oak then a contrasting wood for the sides might be more interesting looking and in that case I'd consider quartered (or at least very straight-grained) mahogany, which is in itself every bit as good looking as quarter-sawn white oak.

[Thomas Pender]

I used QSWO that I resawed to around .7 and then planed down to 1/2 (.5 - takes out any incidental warping) and then made half blind dovetail joints on most Ellis stuff I copy. (I use a thumbnail router bit along the top and use the brownest QSWO I could find - it looks great - no stain, none.) I also used 1/2" QSWO and created sliding dovetails as per a design I saw in a magazine (just as hard as the half blinds).

I note that QSWO was the drawer side material of choice and that many U.S. Govt old style desks built by the prison industries use QSWO drawers.

I mounted the drawers by using a 2 3/8' pieces of white oak under the drawer with another in the center of the web frame of the dresser (it gets screwed in the thcikness of the drawer front plus a bit from the front) and it can be adjusted from the back so the reveals on the sides of the drawer get to 1/16"). (Sand these sticks very smooth and wax them good - I put super high density (one side sticky) plastic underneath the sides on the webframe I bought from Lee or Rockler). I just glue the two pieces to the bottom of the drawer and put a few heavy bricks on them and they stick fine. I also brace the drawer bottom allong the sides (with 1.5" quartered wedges glued in place) and of course the back from the two sticks is open so the drawer will mount. The fitting can be a tad fussy, but it is worth it.


My 15 year-old son has a dresser I made for him where I modified the Ellis design and instead of four or even six small drawers on the top I just built two and made larger drawers for sweaters and jeans on the bottom. It is holding together fine and he has had it for several years. It also saved me on hardware.

[Conrad Fiore]

Jim,
Her is a link for a blog that shows construction of the dresser.
http://treefrogfurniture.blogspot.co...1_archive.html
He mentioned that the plans called for center guides but his fit was so good, they weren't needed.