Farrington Cabinet Works Blog
9/8/08
I now have a full sized rendering of the chest of drawers. Though it’s not perfect, the finished product will look very similar. Usually I don’t do full sized drawings when building a piece of furniture. Typically, I just draw out a sketch and start cutting. Using this method I make more mistakes but I get working sooner. With this project I really wanted to try and iron out all of the details upfront. Since I also make my living building cabinets and furniture I figure this will be good practice, and will hopefully help me make more money in the future.
After drawing out a detail on the leg joinery I realized that I will have to make some changes. I will have to recesses the top and side panels an extra ½” to accommodate the curve I am going to cut into the legs. Good thing I made the drawing. Here are a couple of pictures of the rendering. Over all I am very happy with the design, the proportions are close to the golden mean. I’m sure things will change as we go along, but this is a good start.
To create this drawing I used some very basic drafting techniques. One item of note: I came up with a trick to draw curves. First mark out the two ends of the curve, then mark the high point (or center). Next rip out some strips of MDF about ½ wide. Then I take my 23 gauge pin-nailer and nail the MDF strip down at the center first then the two ends. The result is a very nice curve. Because the MDF is a consistent homogonous material is bends very consistently. This is a trick I use very often with making drawings, templates, or jigs. The only real trick is to choose the right length nail, just long enough to go through your MDF strip, and still easy to remove. Have a look at the pictures.
It’s a little hard to see but hopefully you get the idea.
Here is a side view.
A shot of the MDF strip after it has been removed, you can see I use a very small nail to hold it in place
This is a shot of the mdf strip in action. The curve being drawn here is 1/2"