I forgot the pictures

In the dark and distant past, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth........

.....okay, not that long ago but in the summer last year, I did a blog post on the making of a chest of drawers. Remember?  Probably not.

Well, I forgot to post the pictures of the completed piece. So here they are.

Notice how the drawer fronts curve alternate left and right.

The drawers are made from maple, and use dovetails in
their construction.

The drawer fronts have fumed oak on their edges - it helps to
show the curve on the drawer fronts and adds a visual detail
to the finished piece.

Next time I promise I will post the pictures sooner.




To see more of my furniture, have a look at my website and the pictures in the gallery section.

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The final stages

"Previously on Jonathan Pearce Fine Furniture....

.....I had glued the drawer frames to the carcass sides. Stay tuned for this weeks episode."

Once the sides had been glued together, it only seems logical that the top and bottom are attached. Yep, that is what happened. Here you can see the completed carcass, minus the back panel and foot assembly.

Carcass all glued up

The carcass is standing on a white platform the is square, flat and level. If it was standing on something that was out of true, then the carcass could also be pushed out of true. Something you don't want when fitting drawers. You see this out of true effect on flat packed furniture. When it is screwed together and doors fitted, often it is impossible to get good alignment. This is often because the floor is not level and is influencing the carcass.


Once the carcass is complete, the next stage is making the drawer boxes. It is a long process with many individual steps, most of which go unnoticed. But the thing that people do notice is the dovetails.

Each drawer has twenty dovetail joints, and with five drawers gives a total of one hundred dovetails!

I do my joints by cutting the tails first, and then marking up and cutting the pins. Some people do the reverse process. Neither is incorrect, just personal preference.

Marking up the 'pins' from the dovetails.

Finished - one hundred dovetail joints!

These drawers will have 'slips' and two central runners. A drawer slip is a small piece of wood that is glued to the inside bottom edges of the drawer sides. It gives the drawer more wood to run on, and also has a groove cut into it for the drawer bottom.

Drawer runners have three grooves - two for the drawer bottoms and one for a piece of wood that exactly fits into the runners (used to guide the drawer in and out of the carcass).

Drawer slips (on the left) and runners (on the right).

In this picture I am fitting the drawer fronts to the drawer boxes. Using yellow shims and masking tape to hold the drawer fronts, I can ensure that the gaps between the fronts are even.

Almost finished....just a need to fix the drawer fronts with screws, a final sanding and a final oiling.


To see more of my furniture, have a look at my website and the pictures in the gallery section.

Follow me on Facebook or read my tweets on Twitter.

For the Gold Cup?

Mid summer has gone....the nights are now drawing in (of sorts, I am sure for a time the sun sets later than it did on the solstice)...soon be Xmas! 

But before then, there are a couple of shows I will be attending, so that means I am making a couple of new items.

One thing I am making is a chest of drawers. I know this as I have started it. If there is time, I may also make a coffee table. We shall see.

Five drawers in this one. Made of oak. Curved drawers fronts.  Fumed oak detail on the drawer fronts. Got the idea?  No?? Here are a couple of simple SketchUp images.

Made from oak. Curved drawer fronts, that curve alternate right-left.

A close-up showing how the curving drawer fronts will look.

So these images give an idea what I am making. Wanna see some 'work in progress' pictures? If you do, then scroll down. If you don't, then you are done for now.

A big pile of wood, rough cut to size, ready to machine.
I have another two piles as well. Takes a fair bit of timber
to make a chest of drawers.

The drawer boxes are made from smaller pieces of wood that have been
glue together. It makes the construction of the drawers more stable, which
is very important to stop them sticking and binding in the carcass.
The gadget being used is a special clamping system that helps keep the
pieces of wood flat while the glue dries.

Here I am doing a test fit of the components that make up the carcass - two sides,
a top, a bottom and five drawer frames. The test fit ensure all the joinery is correct.

Here is the final phase of carcass to drawer frame glue-up. It is a multi phase
process. First of all the frames are individually glued to one carcass side. Once this
is done, and in one big hit, the frames are then glues to the other side.

That is it for now.....check back later to see how I am getting on.

To see more of my furniture, have a look at my website and the pictures in the gallery section.

Follow me on Facebook or read my tweets on Twitter.

A good place to arrange your collection

Remember a post a few weeks ago where I was talking about the jewellery cabinet I was making.  Good news, it is all finished and actually delivered to the clients.


Normally I take photographs of pieces in the workshop, but as you can imagine it is a bit of a kerfuffle.  The floors are dusty, the walls dusty, everything is dusty. So sweep up, let the dust settle, sweep up again and then unroll a white photographic backdrop. Umm. Dust on that now. And don't even talk about light set-up! So that is why for this piece I had a change of tactic. I had pictures taken for me by a photographer.

I really like the pictures and I think the show the piece off really well. So a thank-you to Peter Hughes for taking them.


At the moment I haven't added this piece to the gallery on my website, as the whole site is going through a bit of a rethink.  But once it is done, I am sure I will post an update on this blog!