Bedroom Dresser Part 4

The reason this episode of the dresser build is dropping so quickly after part three is that most of the work in this post was done at the same time as I was building the frame. This time I'm focusing on the last remaining major part of the build: false fronts for the drawers. The starting point for each "front" is a piece of 3/4" maple veneered plywood and a selection of 3/4" wide by 1/8" thick maple veneer:

The fronts are all the same overall size (20-7/8" x 5-15/16") but have two different styles. The four lower drawers are the simple ones: A plywood panel which measures around 1/4" less in each direction than the final size is wrapped with 1/8" maple veneer....and that's it for embellishments.

After glue-up and basic sanding the false fronts were trimmed again to eliminate any variations in the thickness of the veneer:

The repeated application of maple wood filler and sanding to 220 grit was followed by staining with the same 1:1 mixture of English chestnut and gunstock used on the cabinet. Looking pretty good, right?

While the fronts were great, the edges were a different story because marks from the circular saw blade were evident throughout:

To deal with this unexpected issue the edges were sanded to 80 grit to get to the bottom of the indentations and then to 220....

....and the stain was reapplied. I did this for all four edges of each drawer front, and then they were finally ready for installation.

The eight upper drawer fronts are more complicated. The embossed style dictates that the starting material needs to be 1/8" thinner than the lower fronts. Running the plywood panels through the planer is the simple solution to this issue, but the drawback is that the veneer is lost from one side of the plywood:

As previously mentioned, I wanted the plywood to be undetectable, and I came up with a labor intensive but unusual way of doing that. I actually trimmed the plywood down to 1/2" thick, so 1/4" or 2x pieces of 1/8" thick veneer away from what I actually want. The perimeter of each panel was then wrapped in maple veneer as above 

I'm making up 1/8" of the thickness with strips of maple veneer installed at the perimeter of the rear-facing side of the drawer fronts - the veneered edge is the only portion which will be visible when the drawers are assembled, so the central area of each panel was padded out with bits of scrap material of the same thickness:

The front face is treated with the same maple veneer as above except the corners have been mitered. These pieces of veneer were stained ahead of the install and any tooth marked sections were either turned over, sanded or discarded. 

I used wood filler made from fine maple sawdust and wood glue, followed by sanding, to eliminate any gaps in the veneer....

....and applied wood stain:

There were no unexpected teeth marks this time around, but the stain did highlight some stray blobs of wood glue, which were removed by light sanding and the areas re-stained.

Staining the drawer boxes was a two-step process which began with applying stain to the veneer at the top edge.

Any imperfections that came to light in step one were dealt with and then the inside of the drawer and the two outer side panels were stained. I didn't bother staining the front, since it will be covered, or the back or underside, since these areas will not be visible.

At this point I have twelve drawer boxes in two sizes and twelve drawer fronts in two styles. I also have the cabinet and the frame which I made earlier. Stay tuned for the final assembly!