Phase I - Design, Templates and Part Identification

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Like the bed and night stands, the design moved from the initial sketches in my notebook to full-scale design drawings on cardboard to allow the joinery to be fully assessed and for templates to be made.



The templates were made from ¼” Baltic Birch plywood using the same profiles used for the bed and night-stands where possible. The top row of drawers in both the dresser and chest are shaped to match the cloud lifts and angles of the corresponding top rail so additional templates were made so that the tops of the drawers would fit with an equal clearance gap all along the profile.
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Next, it was time to select and mark which pieces of rough stock would best suit all the parts required. Mahogany is reasonably stable when dried; however, it was clear that some of my rough stock would have to be cut very close to final length so that I could plane out the twists that had developed to make useable parts of sufficient thickness. I also had to carefully select the pieces that would make the drawer fronts and to ensure that the grain pattern was continuous across the front of each row of drawers in the dresser.