Making a Chest of Drawers Is Worth It with Tom McLaughlin

Alright, welcome back, welcome to the store here in beautiful Canterbury, New Hampshire, it feels like a completely different week because it is, I guess, but last week we were in the middle of a class and I don't know, I'm a little toasted. on Thursday nights when I'm in the middle of class but I'm feeling refreshed and ready for a night of live shopping on Thursday night and I'm glad you're here with me tonight we're going to talk about a dresser and how to make it count Shame, but you know I realized I never talked about Chester

drawers

, so this is an incredible opportunity.

I think it's been over a year and no, yes, we haven't brought one of these babies here. so we wanted to start small, but now we're getting serious, so hang out with me and let's get into this dresser before we do. If you like this content, go ahead and subscribe and comment, like, ring the bell, all that fun. It's all good, let's get into it. I have to tell you that before we started talking about the

drawers

last week when we were in class, I heard one of the students say that I have a personal rule and I think it could have been you, dean, but he said.

I have a personal rule: I never move on to the next project until I finish the one I'm working on, and my ears perked up when I heard that, I thought, wow, that's a great rule. I thought, well, that's the whole rule. I'm quite impressed. I'm impressed I'm very impressed because that's not my role that's not my way that's not my rule I don't do that I have a little problem as some of you may know I don't know it's just um I I guess I'm a dreamer and I get to certain point with projects and in my mind they are finished and I move on and that's not a good thing now I might say but I'm not as bad as that guy because I can think of a guy right now who is really bad and that might comfort me a little bit, but we don't face the truth when we do that, so yeah, I'm hello, my name is Tom, I'm going to move on to the next project. before I finish my project, a holic, ah, I felt good now if you are in that club, don't feel uncomfortable, you are safe here.

I welcome you with open arms, but this is the beginning of us turning a new leaf and getting things done. because what I'm going to do on many of these shopping nights is add things that I want to do as we go. Great projects that have perhaps been in different stages and that are a wonderful learning experience. opportunities, you know some of them are too complicated to bring up the first year, so here we are, we're in our second year and now you're ready for some solid food and so am I. I have to do this now, this

chest

. of drawers is in one of those unfinished categories you could say, but it looks almost finished, you're right, it's almost finished and I even finished it now, some of you in New Hampshire, good carpenters guild, if you're looking now , you may remember this

chest

because this was the chest I made during the period of time when I hosted the beginner and intermediate group here at the store every other month on a Saturday morning.

We met for three hours right here and built this one. comfortable on the man, what was that, I think it took two years, it was from 2011 to 2012. 2012. You're really milking it right here, no, that's when I sprayed, I swear, I'm all for it, I know, I know . you're for it, but it's a problem and I'm actually a little embarrassed, but you know what I know, I'm not alone and you know there's no shame in this and we're going to come together. To start doing things right, you have a lot of good things there now. If you want to admit it and be in the circle, you can simply comment the name of a project you just waved and remember that you have. you know you want to finish it for some reason you haven't finished it just go ahead and comment as we go on I know you might not be able to do it right away but they already stepped in and said they're guilty oh okay okay okay okay anyway I want to get to the project before we go on too long, but this I love this dresser and there was something about it that bothered me when I went to the finishing room. to finish it and that was my excuse for not doing it.

I had planned to surprise the lady with the camera with so many Christmases and I couldn't do it. Yes, I'm surprised, yes, I see it worked. She is surprised. It's okay, I can do it. Back in the finishing room, now put a blanket on it, that's how it went well, so anyway this dresser has a lot of sentimental value to me, because the nut was given to me by none other than Pug. There was one more The day I was in a store was towards the end, like when he was starting to liquidate, get rid of his things.

You know a lot of his stuff wasn't useful unless you had studied with it, like the patterns, there wasn't enough information. on them, so he gave me a lot of them, which I was very grateful for one day, he said, come here for a minute and we went up to the finishing room, where all the bed posts were on the wall outside the door and he said, hey, take that ladder and I realized I'd never seen this trap door up on the ceiling in the hallway and he said, go ahead, up and just push that board up and move it to the side and there's a switch light there and so I did it and I'm looking around.

It was a small space like an A-frame attic. It was hot in there and he used it from time to time to finally season some wood that he logged himself. He could have air dried it and then it would really dry there in the heat, so he said, "Look to your right." Do you see a pile of wood and there was a pile of four walnut boards and they were like this? They were probably 10 feet long. I don't know, 8 or 10 feet long, but they were clear and so beautiful that they had the air-dried color, they were like that purplish thing that walnut has and then when you hit it with the finish, it turns warm and golden. so, I mean, this wood here, this was one of those boards and it had a series where they were sawn into logs, so this right here is actually a book match where two of the boards match, so I usually try. to hide things like that but I didn't mind and you can see how the grain comes out and comes back here but it's just one side of two boards and that's the way I love to do the sides of these traditional chests and then the top looks this, this is the upper material, so I tried to use some of the best materials here, it's the one that reflects or I'll try to understand what that's like, it's good, look, it's also a two plank upper, but it's the same thing. that beautiful mahogany now this is not fully finished I just sprayed it like a thin coat of shellac back then and moved on but it actually has a nice little patina to it.

One of the advantages of procrastinating is that the light hits it and One of the beautiful effects of walnut is that over time it does not darken like other words like cherry and mahogany, it lightens and, but does not fade, it becomes like this , the deep amber and reds appear a little and turn brown. just spectacular, I mean walnut is probably America's exotic hardwood, it's so beautiful it's really I think it's the most beautiful native hardwood and it looks a lot like mahogany, it's a little bit more fibrous than mahogany, but as far as quality, I mean, we were always building things in mahogany or walnut, that was the main thing.

A few things were cherry now and then, a piece of maple, but most antique reproductions of 18th century furniture were walnut or mahogany, with mahogany being even more common. but walnut was also Pug's favorite wood so you can see how I have the wood on the front laid out here and this other side is just as beautiful as the other one and anyway that has that sentimental value and then the top. I don't know if I can, can you get it? Can you see that? So the top is made from southern heart pine or yellowheart, it's more like the heart pine, it has that coloration a little bit different and this came out of a tobacco warehouse up north.

Carolina I rescued some beams, they were tearing one down, so it was the six by six beams and I got there and looked at all the nail holes, but I don't care, it's a three board top. I sawed the beams again and got this beautiful traditional. Uh, hard pine for the secondary wood in this case, but this chest is actually kind of a hybrid, it's a little bit southern or mid-south and northern because when it came time to build the drawers instead of using southern pine I used poplar. which is the most common material to use for secondary wood in the north, so that's what I used there now.

I want to talk a little bit about how this all comes together. I'm not going to go completely into explaining a dresser because we have something in the works, there will probably be a dresser project in the very near future. We have some other projects to do, but I'll give you more information because I know it won't be as good. be almost as elegant as this, but this is a Chippendale style dresser, it has beautiful proportions. Pugmore actually took notes of things that he liked, especially things that he thought, wow, those proportions really feel good about that and he had this little spiral notebook. that he wrote notes and wrote little sketches and those were some of his favorite pieces that would make it into the notebook and this dimension of this chest was one that he said, I've always liked that proportion, it's two over three because that's what they call it.

This is because the two top drawers are divided by a vertical center, so you have two smaller drawers. Now when it's on the floor it's at a really nice height, it's about 40 inches tall and about 40 inches wide. Let me put the duct tape on it. In fact, check it out. 38 is the body, but the top is 40 and the top is 20 20 and a half inches deep, so it has a lot of classic Chippendale details. This og stand with your feet down here, I know you mean, oh wow, how. You built that, no, it's a bit of a strange name, the og is for that syma curve, that reverse curve, it's the og style foot, it's a support foot instead of just being a straight box type stand, it has that curve and then a small bead pad, there is a proud bead around the drawer.

This is all called beading and is applied after the drawer is made, so you are cutting the finished drawer to apply this raised bead around the edge. I love that detail on these. On older chests, instead of just going flush, you add that little bead around it and then this really nice base molding. I love that good friendliness that reminds me of a Newport style hood and then when I put the top on here you can see this is different, I built this a little different a lot of times we would build the hood higher and then we would wrap this cove molding just here, look at that cove over there, we would wrap the chest with that or you can build the chest as a box like this. just that height and then build a frame.

Look, I have a frame for the molding. I'm going to take it out. Look at that other frame at the top. This is a little different style. I like it a little more in some ways because. you don't just nail the cleat into the sides but it takes a little bit longer to do obviously because you get the frame but we have that frame and then this is a classic detailed chippendale border it's like a miniature but there is this small fillet is that little cut on the inside corner. You can see? You have to remove some dust from it.

I love this little one. Is very pretty. You would see many of these chess like pug made in homes. Know? This is the edge that I would see the most and I really like it, so all together you know I'll put it on the ground another time and you can look at it, but and see it at the actual height, but I thought. We would upload it here so you could actually see it. Now I want to talk about the drawers because the drawers are the reason I said I'm not entirely happy with this now when I built this chest it's all in a poplar and it's all solid wood which is one of the best things of traditional chess and when you build a chest of drawers, I mentioned it a lot to you, who have taken courses like this one on side table where we are.

I have a single drawer and a lot of people have taken this course and this was their first experience cutting a dovetail drawer and it can be frustrating because you are getting used to a lot of things but if you go further and do it, practice a little more and then build comfortable. You will have a lot of experience with dovetails. At the end of that dresser, you'll probably be able to ride a bike, so to speak, and you'll be able to revisit the dovetails and not feel like yourself. You're clumsy and you're forgetting what to do, so one of the reasons it's really

worth

building a chest is to develop your skills, especially cutting dovetails, and the other reason is that you can make it sentimental, ie. if you can use a native one. hardwood or something that you really love or something that has a little story like this, I mean, I will never, ever sell this chest, you know, this is too cute, it has this story of uh, that memory for me, so um, this It's a great kind of physical memory, you know, you look at it and not only is it beautiful wood, but I remember it's that moment whenindexed and referenced, of course, this one is centered and then because of the shape of the bail, you never put the post right at the middle height of the drawer if you put the post right there, it looks like it's too low, so when you drill the holes you go up a quarter to sometimes three-eighths of an inch above the center line, but of course they are centered from side to side, but look how. that's a little bit higher than the midpoint, like here's my midpoint, but then when you step back and look at the bullet, you pull, the weight or the mass feels right and the same goes for these, they're all about a quarter of an inch taller. that the center line of the box so they look good, that was a little thing we did at the old Pugmore station.

Are you going to wax the runners? Ken asks yes, the inside will be varnished with two coats, two thin coats of lacquer all over the inside and then it will be lightly sanded and even then it will have the silky smooth feel and then I will put wax on the runners here on the sides and also on the bottom of the drawer on the sides and I tell them it's a beautiful thing, it's fun to work a nice wooden drawer on wood, I can't pull this because I don't have the nut, it's something you would replace, I don't know if you've ever done it , I've never seen you replenish it, but I've never noticed, we've never needed to tell you, we don't really have any big chests, we don't have any chests in the house, right?

I don't even have any chests I've made around the house, but we'll do it. here because we are in group therapy and I am going to lead the discussion, but we are all in this together, no one is above anyone, so, yes, I will try to keep working and getting some of these projects done. You can come and maybe it will be inspiring to finish your pieces too. I would like to know what projects you have ready. Yes, there was a list of those who bravely admitted. Well, your favorite project. Are there eight? years we didn't ask for time no, no, no, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, okay, I have a couple more questions, okay, I think I heard you talk about the finishing process on the interior, what are you going to do?

I'll be doing on the outside pretty much the same thing that Joe is asking Joe uh sorry I can't ask you that uh walnut a lot of the furniture we would use shellac on the outside also a little bit of amber that orange shellac is great, but you I don't want to exaggerate, the amber tint warms the nut. Now walnut you think of is a warm wood, but when air dried it is truly the ultimate beauty of color. You can use it steam dried and you will still get a nice color. It looks like walnut, but something about the sewing process to me darkens it a little and dulls it, but when you have a real rich-colored, air-dried walnut like this chest, all you need is shellac and amber shellac, that Amber is a type of warmth. color and therefore the cool purplish values ​​in the walnut will initially warm and soften, so it is a wonderful treatment for walnut, you don't want to go crazy, just a couple of thin coats, I usually spray it on and I'm spraying a little.

Pound and a half cut initially at least a couple of layers of amber to start. I'll put another one here. This is not complete yet, um, but it has matured and softened, it has the patina here, so anyway, so You can leave it in shellac, build it up and clean it once you get the value of amber that you want and you can clean it and then you rub it all over with steel wool and wax the top, however you want something more durable because you might put glasses of liquid on it and you'll get water rings and shellac doesn't hold up as well, it's a little more durable so that I will always put a top layer on you. you can just spray in the can, you can get some lacquer in the can, have good ventilation, do it outside, we actually spray this finish called Deft, you've probably seen it, it's a brush-on lacquer, but it's also sold in a can, and if you like it, Think with Satin Deft it looks beautiful and you can spray a shellac in a can and we would just apply the top two coats, then you can rub it in and it looks wonderful, but you can also apply the last coat with unwaxed shellac. and you can apply whatever you want, you can apply a varnish that will adhere to the shellac without wax, so you can put tongue oil, whatever you want, something more durable, although that last layer on top, that's right how we would handle it with your milling machine. sink the post, sorry, let me answer this question properly.

Do you prefer to sink nuts inside drawers? Yeah, very good question, yeah, I won't route them, um, Joe. When I drill them, I go, I take a Forstner bit and I hit it with a forstner about an eighth of an inch deep and I'm going to cut these posts, these are brass so they cut easily, but I'm going to put the nut in there, so the I will cut so that everything is flush. There won't be anything sticking out to catch clothes or anything like that because we couldn't let the camera catch something on me. Another thing is interesting to note and now look, I'm going to go into detail when we build our actual chest. a lot of these things, the finish and everything it will cover, so stay tuned.

That's another good reason to subscribe. They will know when it will happen, but these stops are noticeable on the front of a dresser or traditional drawer like this one. the stops, the drawer stops, which index, so the drawer lands on the stop point exactly at the moment the face is flush, so you have that nice proud account around that the stops are in front because the cross grain construction here with the hood sees the sides are long grain here and on the sides of the door and on the side of the hood the grain runs to the other side so this hood contracts and expands seasonally not much, maybe not even an eighth of an inch over that length, but if we did our stops in the back they would fluctuate, regardless of how much it moves seasonally, it would be back and forth, you know, but when you put the stop right in the front there's really no room so you're always referencing and not moving when we built our little shaker side table we didn't have to worry about that because the grain on our sides of our side table is aligned with our side, so there's virtually no movement there, so we were able to put our stops on the back, okay, someone I asked him if he was going to french polish the top, but he said what he was going to do, so no, I'm not going to go so crazy, no, I'm going to put a more durable finish, I mean French polish.

It can be quite durable, but not as durable as even a lacquer aura over a varnish. Dan is asking if you would make plans for this dresser. Yes, Dan, I am planning to make plans for the next 10 years, God willing. I have a lot of plans in my head, but the first plan will be the chest we make in the next video, which won't be a chest with nails and chips, but eventually I'll get to the chippendale and move on. Those lines, Stewart is wondering if we could have the materials list ready before you start the bed project in August, so maybe we want to talk about your plan for the plants, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, that's not difficult, we will get it, we will get it out. um we are, we're actually going to draw that bed next week and push through, so hopefully I don't procrastinate or get distracted and I'll do it right.

We'll have plans ahead for that, I hope. That's not super complex or complicated, but you know, the posts are similar, but it's good, it'll be a good project, not a good honest mortise and tenon with good old fashioned bed bolts connecting them. Florentino asks why that would be why. carpenters in lumber shops are going bankrupt can anyone survive working wood? Oh, I answered a question: what was the name of a Florentine Florentine? That's a great question, boy, it's hard, I know, look, everyone says I wouldn't wish my career on anyone, you know? some people say I really love it, I love what I do, but it's hard, it's not easy to do any kind of art, you know, especially you start

making

unique custom pieces that are your imagination.

Be good at the business side as well and that's probably not what attracted you to that career in the first place so having the skill set is rare for the person to excel in that way and be able to market their furniture and also do well . furniture so I don't know a lot of people end up doing the same thing over and over again and you can do it that way but if you get bored easily like me or I got stuck on the furniture. Masters at being original and trying to do it, you end up

making

more unique pieces and you have to charge a lot more money for them, so you have to find good clients that are willing to do it, so yes, it is a challenge, but if you are starting out , I would advise you to hang out with other people that you respect and see that they are doing well, and learn as much as you can from people who are successful on the many levels that exist to be successful in any business in the world. the art and the business side, but one of the reasons I love to teach, but this is good for me, this is the right time in my life to pass it on, but I also love to do it, so teaching is an add-on feasible to do. custom furniture, there are many ways to do it, probably also because many people can get furniture at quite cheap prices now, yes, if you compare it with imported furniture, if you buy that grade, yes, it is difficult to compete with imported products, so many companies.

Martin is noticing a hole in the middle and says how do you put a nail hole in the middle a nail hole in the middle which I'm not sure he just says it looks like a nail hole in the middle how do you Does the molding fix? the bottom of the top on the side, how do you play the molding on the bottom of the top of the side to make it sound a little more like the John Jacobs song Jingleheimer Schmidt, how do you put the molding on the side bottom of the top on the side? on the bottom, okay, on the bottom of the top on the side, oh, maybe that's okay, wow, that's okay, first I attach the top to the molded edge and let it move back here.

I'm going to put a screw that goes up here so that I'm going to attach it to the front and I'm going to put under the frame a slotted screw so that the top is attached to this base and then this is going to go in and I'm actually going to run screws that are going to be countersunk here. and that will hold the cove molding frame that will hold that in the front, I mean you could glue it in the front and partially on the side and then put a screw in the back as well, which I might end up doing it, but I'm not sure, I think I could, I could just put screws in there, let it stay. interior, are we talking about the interior again, maybe what you had?

Yes, I think we already showed it. Yes this. I make holes for the nut there. You can see it better with that light so the nut goes in and sits on that. a shallow recess is a force and a bit eight inches thick and then the bolt will be cut flush and filed everything will be fine very good martin clarified i think i missed this earlier i was asking how to attach the top that way, he said from the the grain of the molding versus the top is not in the same direction yes, you answered that, okay, yes, putting it on the back and letting it move, okay, let me see more questions, okay, I think we're good, wow, this has been I had fun, I enjoyed researching this and I confessed my addiction to moving on and starting a new path to finish things, and this I will show you when we finish it, I will show you the finished product.

It would be fun to show how it's sprayed, but we'll do that down the road on other things more completely throughout the project, so I'll show you this when we're done. I have the back here and this is fun. We will do this in our other project. This is a pretty nice frame and back panel. I'm already that soft age, in fact, I sprayed some shellac on that and put this on the outside, believe it or not, I put the raised panel on the inside and that's the outside, so it's a nice fixed back, well, wow, that was fun.

This is kind of a preview of the full course we will be doing in the near future on how to build a dresser. It will be a great introduction. We will start our bed class on the 25th and we will be back. the routine of meeting three times a week if you can stand it and I can't wait, I enjoy it more, yes, than just once a week, so thank you very much for joining me here to hang out in the store with the camera and me. I love sharing this my life with you in the creative world of wood and I hope you come back next time here on Thursday night at the live shopping night see you later, good night friends.