I have a project that has been awhile in the making. I am building a bench with drawers for friends of mine. It measures about 60 inches long by 20 inches tall and 15 inches deep. I made the main cabinet from maple plywood and trimmed it with walnut. This creates a nice color contrast. I assembled the main cabinet using biscuit and pocket hole joinery. Using both methods together makes assembly both accurate and fast.
Next came the drawers. They are made from 1/2 inch maple plywood for the sides and 1/4 inch plywood for the bottoms. The sides are joined using rabbets (a groove along the edge), glue and brad nails. The bottom fits into a groove near the bottom of the drawer pieces. I am not sure why it is, but I really like building drawers. I think that is my favourite part of any project like this. The finishing is definitely my least favourite.
After the drawers have been assembled the next step is to install them. I like to use full extension drawer slides. It is so much nicer to be able to open the drawer to its full depth and they are also a heavy duty slide, so you can really load them up if you need to. I installed all of the slides using only a couple of screws so that if they need to be adjusted afterward they can be.
They next step is the trickiest one and I was a bit apprehensive about it. I am making the drawer fronts from solid walnut with maple plywood centers. After all of the walnut has been machined to 
size, I then have rout the edges. I have what is called a shaker cabinet stile and rail set. It is used for shaping the inside edges of cabinet doors. There are three main parts of a cabinet door; the stiles are the vertical members, the rails are the horizontal members and the panel fits in between. It is a two-bit set and one bit cuts the edges of both the stiles and rails. The other bit cuts the edges of the mating pieces. That is the most difficult part there, shaping the edges. When shaping the edges you first need a perfectly square edge because it must fit snugly to the next piece. If it is out of square at all, there will be gaps between. Secondly the edges have a tendency to tear out so care must be taken to prevent this. Once all of the stiles and rails have been cut I 
can now cut the panels to fit inside.
When all of the panels are done, the drawer fronts can now be glued together. I just glue and clamp them together while the glue sets. When they are done they have to be cleaned up before final fitting. That is as far as I have made it. All I have left to do is attach the drawer fronts, then apply the finish to the everything. That’s my least favourite part because it involves a light sanding in between coats and probably is the most time consuming part of the whole project. A poor finishing job will make all of my efforts seem wasted, so I guess it is worth the extra time it takes.
