Penn Chippendale Slant Front Desk Making the Drawers Step 9

I made the drawer fronts some time ago, now I need to make the drawers themselves.

I am using pine as a secondary wood.  The sides are 7/16 and the backs are 1/2 inch.

I have completed one to show the dovetail pattern.

The pattern that I selected is functional in that it has 4 tails to hold things together. The pins are only an 1/8 inch apart at the top which make them a little decorative. There is 1/2 on the bottom tail so that it will hide the groove for the drawer bottom and leave 1/4 inch under it.
 

I am not going to vary the number of dovetails for each drawer but enlarge the tails for each drawer as the drawers get larger.
I make the tails first and then transfer the pattern to the drawer fronts and back.

Cutting out the pins now, I make sure that the saw kerf is on the waste side of the line.  The line is actually part of the pin.

The saw kerf is well past the mark on the inside. This is common to see on 18th century furniture.

Chopping out the pins.

Once the pins are chopped out, I fit the sides to the front and back. This drawer was a little tight when I fit it to the opening.  I am planing of a little to make it fit.

Now it fits pretty good, I will do final fitting after they are glued up.

I use a slot cutter in the router to cut slots in the front and sides for the drawer bottom. The slot is 1/4 inch from the bottom and 1/4 inch wide.  The back of the drawer is cut off so the bottom can be slipped in after gluing.

Time to glue up the drawer. I use Old Brown Glue for almost all of my furniture. Animal glue has a long open time.

I am using birch plywood for bottoms. I slide it in from the back while I was gluing up the drawer.  It is not necessary to put the bottoms in at this time but I did it because I had the bottoms ready.

I clamp up the sides with parallel clamps and check for square. I put a couple of nails in the back to hold in the bottom when the glue is dry.

That is all there is to it.  Repeat the process four times.   I did use a hand plane to adjust the fit on a couple of the drawers.

The next step will be to begin work on the gallery.

Here is today's video: