# Poplar drawers unattractive



## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

I'm building some kitchen cabinets. Per multiple recommendations I've seen across the web, I decided to use poplar for the drawer sides, but I'm not really happy with how they look. Wondering if there's anything else anyone recommends.

It's also worth noting that I'd like to finish the drawers in some way. I'd like to protect the wood, have a nice smooth surface, and make the drawers look high end. Per many people's recommendation, I tried using shellac. Shellac takes to the birch plywood bottom really, really well. But it turns the poplar orange (even with clear shellac) and makes the green parts of the poplar really, really obvious.

Before the shellac, the poplar looks decent. The green can be made less obvious through good sanding, but it's still not the most attractive. It's hard to find poplar that isn't green; even harder to find enough for a large kitchen drawer.

Perhaps a polyurethane would work better? Or should I try bleaching the wood? Or should I just try another wood instead? (I definitely don't want to use oak)

Thanks for any pointers or ideas you can offer.


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## woodbutcherbynight (Oct 21, 2011)

If you want the high end look try mahogany. Easy to work with, the grain looks okay even if you darken it with stain. It takes well to poly, oil or water based, shellac, or lacquer.

OR, you can use 1/2 plywood and edge band it. You can stain it all, or use some darker wood and show off the edge banding.

I am sure others with more experience can offer better aids for working with popular. Myself I have only ever used it on projects that got painted or small picture frames with a dark stain and some poly.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

For kitchen cabinet I prefer 1/2 Baltic birch or soft maple or even hard maple. I also prefer to spray on a water based clear coat. At least 2 coats and no more than 3. I'm also kind of a start over guy when difficulty occurs. Why? Well trying to fix something that I don't like or just looks bad usually is more work/time than its worth and many times it still doesn't turn out to be what I want. I said usually. If I was working with some 25 .00 a board foot lumber I many put some effort in to it.

Beyond that it have make any recommendations because I don't know if your are dealing 2 drawers or 200 hundred , how many you have built, how many have you put a finish on, how many have cut or not cut from you stock pile of popular.


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

I'm just working on one cabinet right now to see if I can do it up to a high enough quality to make it worth it. Eventually, I'd have to make 6 lowers with 5 small drawers and 4 large ones.

Right now, I just made the one drawer and I really dont like the look of it. I dont think Ill be using it.

I did some additional experimenting today with a scrap peice of 1/2 inch birch ply. The results were pretty good, but I can't do a box joint with it like I could with the poplar.

I found some lumber yards in the area that open Monday. I'll see how much maple is and do some experimenting with it. I'd rather use solid wood if I can, but the birch plywood is definitely serviceable.


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## pintodeluxe (Sep 12, 2010)

I made a few drawers with poplar, and like you wasn't impressed with the look or the softness of the wood. I switched to maple and never looked back. A coat or two of clear shellac and they look beautiful.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

How you doing your box joints? I made this simple jig for my table saw and it does good box joints on Baltic Birch Plywood.








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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

I often use a locking rabbet on kitchen drawers with BB plywood. BTW oil base finishes with leave you drawers smelling like oil of a long long long time. Not to mention the long drawn out finishing times and all the dust and nubs you get with it's long drying times.

I'll post a picture shortly of a what I'm calling a locking rabbet joint.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

The drawer sides get the dado/grove and the front and back get the tongue. I use some brad nail along with glue.








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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

Using a router jig (very similar to yours). I imagine that the table saw would do a better job, but I dont have a dado stack and Ive yet to find a simplenbox joint jig for a table saw that didnt require a dado stack.

The dado/rabbet joint is what I used for the birch plywood. As I said, its serviceable. I just like the look of the box joint better. Even if noone ever notices. I know.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> Using a router jig (very similar to yours). I imagine that the table saw would do a better job, but I dont have a dado stack and Ive yet to find a simplenbox joint jig for a table saw that didnt require a dado stack.
> 
> The dado/rabbet joint is what I used for the birch plywood. As I said, its serviceable. I just like the look of the box joint better. Even if noone ever notices. I know.
> 
> - jaminv


Maybe it's time you invest in a good stacked dado blade. Yeah a good dado blade can hard o the budget but it will last you a life time.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> Using a router jig (very similar to yours). I imagine that the table saw would do a better job, but I dont have a dado stack and Ive yet to find a simplenbox joint jig for a table saw that didnt require a dado stack.
> 
> The dado/rabbet joint is what I used for the birch plywood. As I said, its serviceable. I just like the look of the box joint better. Even if noone ever notices. I know.
> 
> - jaminv


This is one reason we build out own "stuff". We can have it our way. Even if no one ever seen it.


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## CaptainKlutz (Apr 23, 2014)

For heavy duty drawers in Kitchen, I like 1/2 BB plywood. 
For smaller drawers inside furniture, lower cost woods like Popular and Alder are too soft for my liking, so I typically use Maple (when I do not use plywood)
My difficultly is that maple is fairly expensive in Arizona, and finding 5/4 that can be resawn for 1/2 drawer sides is difficult. Other thicknesses result in excess waste and milling. So unless I stumble across some cheap hardwood, usually 1/2 inch BB plywood ends up as choice for all drawers.

Furniture designs always suggest using a secondary (cheaper) wood for internal parts like drawers. IMHO - secondary wood choice depends on what is less expensive in your area. Ash often shows up cheaper than Maple here, and have used it for drawers on a project. So check with your lumber dealers to see what options they might have?



> Using a router jig (very similar to yours). I imagine that the table saw would do a better job, but I dont have a dado stack and Ive yet to find a simplenbox joint jig for a table saw that didnt require a dado stack.
> 
> - jaminv


Nothing wrong with using a box joint jig on router table. It is cheapest tooling for box joints, especially if you do not make box joints on consistent basis.

FWIW - If you can not justify cost of full dado set, several mfg produce a box joint blade set designed for 1/4 and 3/8 inch joints. Cost is about 1/2 of full dado set. Can also buy a single 1/4 inch kerf box joint blade for about same cost of high end router bit.
I have used both router and saw methods: Biggest difference is that saw blades will handle higher feed rate and work gets done faster. Both tools need regular cleaning during heavy use when using plywood, and router bits need edges de-gummed more often than saw blade to get consistent clean cuts. When I switched to a table saw box jig that uses both miter slots, it was more stable than my router table jig, and helped cutting tall box sides.

As far as finishing drawers: Used to exclusively use shellac on drawers for fast finishing time. Recently started spraying general finishes GF WB Endro-var on drawers. It dries quick and holds up as well as shellac. Enduro-var seems to be more water resistant than High Performance WB clear, provided some amber color is acceptable. It might improve look of popular if you want to keep using it.

Best Luck.


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## Bill_Steele (Aug 29, 2013)

I used a lock miter joint on a recent project with birch plywood. I like the look and I think the joint is strong.


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## Redoak49 (Dec 15, 2012)

I use Ash for my drawer boxes in furniture. It is relatively cheap and strong. I use dovetails for the joint and 1/4" BB for the bottoms. I finish it with shellac and poly. I finish the sides before dovetails. The BB I finish before assembly.


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## bondogaposis (Dec 18, 2011)

The green can be made less obvious through good sanding, but it's still not the most attractive. It's hard to find poplar that isn't green; even harder to find enough for a large kitchen drawer.

Over time, about a year, the green will turn brown.


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## Woodmaster1 (Apr 26, 2011)

I buy 5/8" rounded edged with groove soft maple drawer stock from my local lumber dealer. It saves me time and cost no more than buying rough lumber.


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## rwe2156 (May 7, 2014)

Poplar is find is you use unpigmented wood. Yes, that can be a challenge, but this just depends on the supplier and what they have in stock. Sometimes its full of the purple and green stuff, other times lots of nice #1.

You'll be happy with maple. If you have capability, you can resaw 8/4 into 3 sides.


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## DBDesigns (May 29, 2018)

I suggest you use wax instead of a brush on finish for the drawer sides. It protects the wood, is inexpensive, and depending on the slide design it can lubricate the movement of the drawers.

Also, I prefer dovetails to box joints for drawers. Half blind works well for the fronts. The joint offers better mechanical strength and I find it more attractive.
Best of luck with your project.


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

I lack the tools to make a good dovetail. My chisels aren't very sharp and I don't have a good hand saw. Most importantly, though, I don't want to get stuck making dovetails on all my drawers. It's a lot of work, and most laypeople can't even tell the difference. I've heard many say that box joints are as strong if not stronger than dovetails. Even if that's not entirely the case, the box joint has far more mechanical strength than is required; a thicker drawer bottom will have far more impact on long-term stability than will varying degrees of really strong joinery. The box joint also looks really good, and its easy to cut. It's all upside from my perspective.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

For what it's worth. As far as strength goes. I have drawers in my bathroom that get use everyday I built 30 years ago. They are 1/2 inch AB plywood butt jointed, glue and hand nailed. I just went and looked at them. Not one of them show any signs of failure. Use any joint that appeals to your personal preference.


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

Well, this joint failed in our current cabinet drawers:










The cabinets are 16 years old, but all 4 joints failed on this drawer. The drawer is cheap laminated MDF or something similar, but it was the glue that actually failed. Based on the fact that only this one drawer failed, I have to assume that the previous owners put a LOT of weight in this drawer. Nevertheless, I'd rather avoid this by at least using a decently strong joint.

I ended up fixing the drawer with some dowels:


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

*Like I said, the great thing about building our own is we can do it like we want. *

I spent 18 years working for the local School District in the carpenter shop. Part of my job was fix cabinet and furniture. We had 100 schools and support building. Probably had drawer numbering in the 100's of thousands. We had ever type of drawers joints, materials and age range you can image. All in all drawer failures were low and the ones that failed the most were the melamine euro style and the old dovetail drawers. The problem with the dovetail drawer was usually do to glue failure (Due to age). The failed DT drawers with the hardest/most time consuming to fix. At least for me.

A butt joint, glue and nail can last a surprisingly long time in many instances. I'm not saying butt joints are heirloom
quality. Kitchen and bath cabinets tend not to be heirloom products. I'm on my third kitchen in my house. 
My drawers aren't even dadoed they are true butt joints.

Just because yours failed doens't mean they will all fail. (disclaimer most things will fail eventually)


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

Fair point, fair point.

The true reason I'm doing a box joint is because my wife saw them on some demo cabinets and fell in love with the look. Happy wife, happy life.

It turns out I really enjoy making them, too.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

If you or your wife want box joints go for it. These days Box joints are my favorite looking joint. They are more that adequate for drawers. I went through the dovetail phase some time ago.

Dovetails vs. Box Joints. In many parts of the woodworking community, it is almost sacrilegious to promote finger joints/box joints in lieu of dovetail joints. ... With box joints, you can easily get greater surface area for gluing and the joint will have much greater racking strength than a dovetail joint.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/shopping/TechInfo.aspx?type=a&p=43984


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## rwe2156 (May 7, 2014)

> If you or your wife want box joints go for it. These days Box joints are my favorite looking joint. They are more that adequate for drawers. I went through the dovetail phase some time ago.
> - AlaskaGuy


Me too . I only do DT's on furniture now.

Speaking of sacrilege? How about rabbets + staples + filler + paint? Yup - I just did a bathroom vanity this way and it looks great.

Reality is the vast majority of people don't know a box joint or DT joint from a juke joint. They will be sold on nice looking drawer fronts and doors and interior features that make a kitchen work better.

I still prefer the look of wood drawer sides in kitchens.

Now where is that darn box joint jig…...but first, where's that torch so I can burn the cobwebs off?

Thanks for bringing this up AKG.


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## Underdog (Oct 29, 2012)

If you make dovetail joints be sure you have the joint going the right way. It's not very impressive when the box front and drawer front come off in your hand once the glue joint fails.

If you are stuck with the poplar, then paint it white. I'm no fan of natural poplar either. Maybe if it's scorched and textured, or hot brand textured it'd be ok. Hmmm… Maybe that's what I oughta use for my next sculpture…

As for drawers, both cabinet shops I've worked have used plywood with a very slight rabbet joint, glue, and nails. One uses prefinished birch w edge band, and the other uses baltic birch with edge band. Both shops claim to almost NEVER have any trouble with them in the 30+ years they've been in business.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

If you make dovetail joints be sure you have the joint going the right way. It s not very impressive when the box front and drawer front come off in your hand once the glue joint fails.

If you are stuck with the poplar, then paint it white. I m no fan of natural poplar either. Maybe if it s scorched and textured, or hot brand textured it d be ok. Hmmm… Maybe that s what I oughta use for my next sculpture…

As for drawers, both cabinet shops I ve worked have used plywood with a very slight rabbet joint, glue, and nails. One uses prefinished birch w edge band, and the other uses baltic birch with edge band. Both shops claim to almost NEVER have any trouble with them in the 30+ years they ve been in business.

- Underdog

[/QUOTE]
My guess is the slight rabbet is just for indexing purposes. When they say they have little trouble I believe that 100 percent.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> If you make dovetail joints be sure you have the joint going the right way. It s not very impressive when the box front and drawer front come off in your hand once the glue joint fails.
> 
> - Underdog


Lol, making dovetails the wrong way. Been there done that.


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## OSU55 (Dec 14, 2012)

I prefer wb finishes for drawers - almost no smell that goes away in a few weeks


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## Mr_Pink (May 20, 2017)

The color change in poplar that was mentioned above will happen more quickly if you put it in the sun. The white will darken slightly and the green will turn brown.

The green can also be neutralized with a little red dye in the shellac, but then you'll have reddish brown drawer sides.


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

Finished the drawer with maple sides and birch plywood bottom. It looks amazing, if I do say so myself. It was worth a few extra bucks for the maple over poplar.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> Finished the drawer with maple sides and birch plywood bottom. It looks amazing, if I do say so myself. It was worth a few extra bucks for the maple over poplar.
> 
> - jaminv


It look really good. Great job. Now you need to tell us how you did it. What jigs, router table or table saw etc. Picture too if you can. What finish did you use.


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

I would be happy to.

The drawer is part of a "proof of concept" cabinet. I want to see if I can make a cabinet that looks good. If I succeed, I make the remaining cabinets and we save thousands of dollars. If I fail, I lose about $100 in materials and learn some lessons in the process. So far so good.

I got Maple from the lumber yard. It was a 1×4 (0.75" x 3.5" actual size). They milled it down to 1/2" for me. They actually milled it a little heavy so that I could sand it down to 1/2". I'm glad they did. It came in at a near-perfect half inch and the sides feel stout without feeling over-sized.

So I cut the sides about 1/16th of an longer than the plan. I used a crosscut sled with a stop block; this is real important because I wanted the parallel sides to be exactly the same size. The (external) dimensions for my drawer were 14" wide x 22" long.

I used a cross cut sled that I built for my router. It's comprised of two parts, the sled:










and the base:










The sled is principally just two pieces of 1/2" plywood in an L-shape. There are then two side supports that keep it at a true 90 degree angle, and then a piece of scrap 3/4" plywood glued to the bottom to protect my hand from the router bit. I used dowels to hold everything together because I don't like using metal on jigs that push up against a blade.

Then, I routed a 3/8" groove out of the bottom and cut a piece of hardwood just over 3/8" and sanded it down to tight fit. This 3/8" hardwood slides on a similar groove on the base. Then I drilled a 1/2" hole centered 1/2" away from the groove (so that the edge was 1/4" from the groove), and made it a little bit larger with a router bit (I don't own forstner bits). The base is larger than the sled by about an inch on each side, so that I can clamp it to my table.










I set the router bit depth by placing two pieces of the wood I'll be using on the jig right next to the bit. I raise the blade until the top block just barely scrapes against the bit when I run over the bit. Then I raise it just a hair more. I want the bit to cut grooves about 1/32" taller than the wood depth, so that the box joints sit proud when assembled. That's why I cut the boards 1/16" over.

I always use a test block first, and use my calipers to measure the width of the wood left behind after the cut. I aim for the wood to be 0.006" smaller than the gap. My 3/8" router bit cuts about 0.386", so I aim for 0.380". That's the sweet spot, I've found, where the joint is tight enough that there are no gaps, and loose enough that it fits together easily. If it's off, I use a filler gauge and a stop block to move the jig tiny amounts at a time. I think it's worth being that precise, and I can usually get there with a single test block.

I've seen people just hold down the wood when running it through the router, but I haven't had any luck with that. I have a powerful router and it grabs the wood and the cuts end up inaccurate. So I clamp it, especially for the first cuts.

I always mark the top and the outside, and then which sides are going to mate with each other. I cut the front and back pieces first, so that the end grain of these pieces is on the top and bottom of the sides (the only part of the drawer outside anyone will actually see). I find this looks best.

I won't go into all the details of how to use a box joint jig. That's been covered many times before (I started here: https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/aw-extra-92012-router-table-box-joints). What I will say is that here are the things I will change: I designed mine to be pushed away from me (like the Rockler jig), but my table is a little high and I can't see if I do that. I much prefer the right to left design like is described in the linked article. I also wish I had used some other sort of runners (like the Rockler jig uses), and kept the square dowel entirely on sled. That way, I could potentially swap it out for other sizes and it would be more universal.

3/8" doesn't evenly divide into 3 1/2". It leaves 1/8" at the bottom. I cut this off because the drawer looks much better without it. So I used my table saw and set the fence so that it wouldn't cut the full 1/8" off, then I sneak up on the cut until it cuts it all off perfectly. I then use that fence setup to cut the other 3 sides. I want them all to be exactly the same height.

When I do this in the future, I'll probably try to get a 1×8 and cut it into two pieces that are slightly larger than 3.5" wide. When the last box joint is only 1/8" wide, it's real easy to get tear-out both when cutting the joint and when ripping it to final width. Even though it's not much, that extra wood might make a difference. Or I might need to just get 1×10s and waste a bit. Open to thoughts here.

Then I need to cut the 1/4" groove for the bottom. There are ways to avoid cutting this all the way through, but I'm a bit lazy about this. I just use one of the front or back pieces to align my router table fence so that the 1/4" bit goes just above the first joint. It's better to be over than under. If the router bit cuts into that tooth, it will show. So I cut a groove about 3/8" from the bottom of the drawer, about 1/4" deep. It's better to be over than under on the depth as well. In fact, I intentionally cut 0.30" deep to give the bottom a little play. I used a test block before cutting to into anything meaningful, and my calipers to measure my cuts (they are very handy).

I used 1/2" birch plywood for the bottom. Largely because I already have a half sheet. Even though it's a bit more expensive than 1/4" maple, I can cut a lot of drawer bottoms from a half sheet, so it saves me money in the long run. The birch I have also has some cool looking patterns, and I wanted to use that somewhere visible (versus a cabinet back). 1/2" plywood is also a lot less likely to bend than 1/4", but I doubt that's really much of an issue.

Because I was using 1/2" plywood in a 1/4" groove, I needed to cut a rabbet all the way around. Because the plywood may not actually be 1/2" thick, I measured my cut so that it left 1/4" remaining instead of cutting 1/4" deep. I wanted this to be as close as possible, because even a fairly small gap would show. I'm also cutting 1/4" into the wood. It's ok to cut this one a little over. I'm going to face the rabbet down. It's more structurally stable to face it up, but I'm already using 1/2" plywood and that would remove another 1/4" depth from the drawer. Also, I've learned from experience that its almost impossible to cut this in a way that it doesn't show. The plywood has and A and B side, so I cut the rabbet into the B side. As always, test block and calipers before cutting into anything I'm going to use.

Dry fit, and everything looks great.










I've learned that it saves a lot of time and effort to sand the inside before gluing. It's a waste of time to sand the outside at this point, but this is the last chance to get at the inside with an orbital sander. Everything after this point has to be done by hand. So I got the inside nice and smooth with my orbital sander.

Glued it all up. I didn't glue the bottom in. That's why I cut a little give into the grooves for the bottom, i case the hardwood sides expand/contract over time. I have a cheap little $1 paintbrush I use to spread glue into the joint. I made sure to clean up any squeeze out on the inside of the box. Squeeze out on the outside is unimportant.

Normally, the nature of a box joint kind of just squares itself, but I have these little plastic squares that are designed for clamping. It doesn't hurt to clamp it square as well.










Normally, I just clamp 3 corners because if you have 3×90 degree angles then you automatically have 4. One of the corners was being a little pesky, though, and was a couple degrees off. So I clamped off the 4th corner as well, and everything trued up perfectly.

I let the glue dry overnight.

Next day, I pulled all the clamps off and ran over with my orbital sander on 100 grit (I should probably get something coarser for dealing with box joints and glue). I'm looking to make sure my top edge is even, that the box joints are inline with the sides, and that all glue and pencil marks are removed.

I then used my router with a 1/8" round-over bit to give the top edge a nice soft edge. Someone in another forum recommended this, and it's one of those details-I feel-that took it from good looking to great looking. So I rounded over the inside and outside edges of the assembled box. The router will not get into the inside corners, so I needed to sand those out by hand. I softened the outside corners by hand as well. I then ran over the whole thing with 220 grit. I used the orbital sander for the outside, and touched up the inside by hand.

Another nice thing is that there was a small amount of chip-out on one of the top edges, and that round-over allowed me to go right over it and it's gone now. Not only does it look really good, it allowed me to cover up on of the most common damage points I've run into.

I used shellac for the finish, with a foam brush. I started with the bottom, then flipped it over onto painter's tripods to get the top. I'm real careful near the edges to make sure that it doesn't drip over them. I apply a thin coat. It says it dries in an hour, but had a time when sanding through shellac between coats and it waste dry. It gummed up and turned brown and I had to sand that whole part off and re-do it. I think it's better to give it a few hours. I sand real light with 220 grit between coats, and reapply.

I ended up applying 3 coats. Shellac is funny. After the first couple coats, I could still feel the wood grain and I was a little worried about it being uneven, then I went out to check on the 3rd coat, and I'm instantly like, "this is done." It had a nice glossy, even coat. I didn't want to over-do it, so I just stopped right there.

The finished product:










The drawer width, a critical dimension, ended up a perfect 14". This is important because soft-close drawer slides don't leave much room for play. I tried putting a soft-close slide on our of our current drawers, and I couldn't for the life of me get it to shut fully. Turns out the drawer was 1/16". I was diligent about checking this dimension at every step of the process, but it's still reassuring to see it come out so perfect in the end.










The drawer depth is far less critical, but also ended up at a perfect 22in:


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

My table saw is this Skil 3410-02. It's a decent budget option. I don't like that it has non-conventional miter slides and that the top isn't solid so you can't really clamp anything to it. I do like that it has a 24.25" rip capacity, and it was pretty inexpensive. It's a decent saw for the price, but I immediately replace the blade with a Freud 50-tooth combination blade.










I built my cross-cut sled. I can't overstate the value of this video: 



. The sled is a little chewed up because I tried to cut a T track into it (unsuccessfully), but it works great regardless. Because they go right up to the kerf, I trust the measurements from that stick-on tape far more than the ones on my saw's rip fence.










I also built the router table myself, based on this video: 



. I need to make the drawers for it for the wrenches, collet, etc.










My router is the Bosch 1617EVS. I spent a little bit extra to get a good router. I had some extra credit card points from all the other tools I bought . It has a $50 base for under the router table, but I just unscrewed the handles. It takes longer to put it back together to use it as a hand router, but I use it on the table most of the time anyways. I'll probably just buy a trim router at some point. It kind of has too much power for hand use, anyways.










I need to build a workbench sometime soon. I have been using my cross-cut sled as a workbench for far too long.


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## woodbutcherbynight (Oct 21, 2011)

> I need to build a workbench sometime soon. I have been using my cross-cut sled as a workbench for far too long.
> 
> - jaminv


A suggestion. Incorporate your current TS into a workbench and get the bonus of having more surface space to work with as well as bench space. And you can use that valuable real estate UNDER the build to store things you commonly use at the workbench.

Here is a version of what I am talking about.


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

If only I had that much space. I'm working with half of a 2 car garage, but eventually I might like to have another car. So I need everything to store away when not in use. That leaves me with a 26"x60" bench up against a wall… so, no out feed.

I could presumably put it on casters so it could be pulled out, but theres a 2" drop-off, and it's probably a bit heavy for that.

I like the idea, though. Table saw and router table built right into it, and maybe even a fold-down out-feed table. I couldeventually make a really nice fence for it. Would be a big space saver. If only I could deal with the drop-off. Maybe a little ramp?


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

I never understood woodworkers who would give up shop space to park a car.


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

I live in Texas. It's already nearly 100 degrees every day. We have a garage for a real good reason. I'm borrowing the space, so a few compromises need to be made.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> I live in Texas. It s already nearly 100 degrees every day. We have a garage for a real good reason. I m borrowing the space, so a few compromises need to be made.
> 
> - jaminv


I guess it is about our priorities. I have lived in Northern California, Texas, Oklahoma all places where it got really hot. I have lived in Alaska where it get to -20 and plenty of snow to brush off car and truck but the shop space take priority for me.








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The shop is 28×48 but it mostly for woodworking.


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## jaminv (Jun 8, 2018)

Yeah, I guess so. I wont be woodworking all the time, though, so it makes sense to build resources that can be moved out of the way. If I'm working on stuff for six months and have to park in the driveway, that's fine. But if I'm not working on stuff for months at time, it'd be nice to be able to use my garage.

It's really just a hobby for me. I dont really want to contract work out, just build stuff for around the house. There will be times when I dont have the time, money, or need to be working on something.


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## AlaskaGuy (Jan 29, 2012)

> Yeah, I guess so. I wont be working with all the time, though, so it makes sense to build resources that can be moved out of the way. If I m working on stuff for six months and have to park in the driveway, that s fine. But if I m not working on stuff for months at time, it d be nice to be able to use my garage.
> 
> It s really just a hobby for me. I don't really want to contract work out, just build stuff for around the house. There will be times when I don't have the time, money, or need to be working on something.
> 
> - jaminv


I'm not saying I don't ever park inside and all my tools are on wheel so I can if I want to. I'll pull in the shop for maintenance, change tires and "stuff". I'm just saying I'm not giving up need space to just to park.

That being said, my priorities are changing somewhat as I get older and I am starting to use the shop less.

Again great job on the drawer.


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