From the advice given above it should be fairly apparent that here is certainly one place where you need to be extra careful. If, by now, you aren't in the least discouraged, let's have a try at making a drawer. And if you can make one drawer, you can see the possibility of making several drawers, though the amateur can't be guaranteed that any one of them may not go bad. Something of a challenge, building even one drawer that will work.

There's the main catch, the catch that haunts the whole adventure of making a drawer. Nobody wants a drawer that won't work. And a drawer either works or it doesn't-no half-way stuff here.

Two things, certainly, are of the essence. "Without them you can lay yourself odds that the drawer you build will be a dismal disappointment, and not fun by any estimate you can think of. What are these two things?

One is the necessity of absolutely true marking and cutting throughout; the other is the accuracy of judgment you use in allowing the "play" necessary for the drawer to operate.

On the first count, it would avail you little to make a true drawer and a pocket for it that wasn't true. Equally, vice versa. Both the drawer and the place it is supposed to fit into must be true and must synchronize. Then, in the matter of "play," you might measure, cut and mark truly, yet come out with a drawer that either rattled around loosely with too much play, or that wouldn't budge because of too little, or no allowance for "play."

Generally speaking, and allowing for human frailty in matters of exactitude, it's safer to make the drawer first and fit the place it's to go into.

So we'll begin with the drawer. If, to study drawer construction, you pull one out of your desk, bureau or what have you, you won't get much consolation. You'll find the sides either dovetailed into the front, or nailed into a trick cut, the like of which you have no tools or machinery to make. The back will be (usually) driven into the grooves in the sides, as likewise the bottom, and you haven't got what it takes to make these grooves. What then?

Be of good cheer, but realize, philosophically, that you must be contented to make a more primitive, but none the less practical and workable drawer. Nor is there any reason why your handiwork shouldn't look like a drawer, and, better still, open and close like a drawer-in fact, be a drawer.

Sketches showing bow to make a drawer. Both flush and overlapping front types are shown.

But let's get to work. Having decided on the size of the drawer, we very carefully make a simple box, just that size, omitting for a moment, the front. Poplar is generally regarded as the best wood for making drawers, as it does not easily split or warp. The pieces, as you can imagine, need to be cut more truly and accurately than you ever cut anything in your life, and each piece sandpapered smooth.

You will have allowed a full 1/16" for "play," or will allow this when you set the space in which the drawer is to slide. The front is faced with a piece cut to overhang the total face dimension of the drawer, and may be beveled with the plane, or not, according to your fancy.

If the job is stained, and is of cypress, for instance, this facing piece, or drawer front would need to be of the same wood. The back and front of the drawer may be a little thicker than the sides.

In order to avoid any signs of construction on the drawer front, screws short enough not to come through are driven in from inside the drawer. It was suggested that the front of the drawer-box be left open, as this uniting of the structural front and the exposed, or face-front is much more easily done separately, then nailed in from the sides, as shown. These side-nails, needless to say, are countersunk.

If a screwed-in knob (whether of wood or metal) is used for the drawer pull, it will make an additional aid in uniting the double front. Many furniture knobs, which may be got in great variety in hardware stores, have a nut which tightens up from the inside of the drawer, or are made so that they screw through into the knob from the inside of the drawer.

So far so good. Let us suppose that we have made a perfectly true and sound drawer. Its freedom of action, by the way, is aided by making the sides and back from 1/16" to 1/8" lower than the front, according to the size of the drawer, and rounding the edges of the sides with sandpaper. The overhang of the front facing piece would range from 1/8" for a small drawer to 1/4" for a large drawer.

Keeping in mind the 1/16" "play," the sides of the pocket in which the drawer operates must be marked and constructed absolutely parallel, and absolutely at right angles with the face of the piece of furniture. Any slip-up on this will simply mean that the drawer won't fit, won't work at all, or will rattle around loosely.

Now that you have the general idea of how a drawer can be made, you will understand all too clearly how much more careful you have to be if you aim to make a flush-front drawer. Here, without the overhanging front to cover up any possible discrepancies, the front board must exactly fit the opening, with a minimum allowance for "play."