If you go to www.finewoodworking.com , you can search a 600 article database
for "Chest of Drawers", and there is an excellent article on "Building a
Chest of Drawers, Joinery and Design Considerations", by Christian
Beksvoort. It is an excellent article that can be purchased for a few
dollars. Also, in issue 163, June 2003, there is a good article on
"Engineering a Chest of Drawers". This will answer a lot of your questions.

I also have an excellent book, "Illustrated Cabinetmaking, How to Design and
Construct Furniture that Works", by Bill Hylton. It gives exploded views on
traditional construction of many types of furniture, including the joinery.
When I want to see how a piece of furniture (from highboys to roll-top
desks) should be constructed, I go to this book. It doesn't give explicit
details or dimensions, but there is enough information to design and
construct your own piece. There are also sections on joinery and
subassemblies such as door and drawer construction, casework and post and
rail construction.

Essentially, you have a chest of drawers with one door. The above should
give you plenty of ideas. There are so many ways to put together such a
piece, it would be hard to give you specific advice. For myself, I would
probably dovetail the sides of the carcase to the top and bottom and apply
some sort of bracket feet. I would use sliding dovetails for the drawer
dividers and dados for the dust panels. For the drawers, I would do
half-blind dovetails in the front and through dovetails in the back of the
drawer.

Good Luck,

Preston
"Kent P. Iler" wrote in message
news:sHWUa.142123$GL4.35974@rwcrnsc53...
Hi,

I purchased a set of plans for a piece that my wife liked the looks of.
We're expecting in mid-October, and I would like to get this done by then.
When I got the plans, I was shocked to see that they don't have any joints
for the dresser. They just plan on nailing and gluing most ends together,
including the drawers! There is a rabbet on the back of board A to fit
the
back of the dresser, but that is it.

For those of you that would just like to look at the plans and make
recommendations without reading further, the plans are he
http://www.iler.com/plans/dresser-armoire.pdf. Thanks in advance for any
help that you can offer.

Here's a little more info if you care to read:

I'd like to get a jig for my router that will do dovetails (and the other
joints), and use that for the drawers. However, I don't know what would
be
best for the rest of the joints. Can someone look at these plans and
recommend proper joints?

Thank you for your time!

-- Kent Iler
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