Belt sander accident

 Drawer repair

I met a young couple in a village close to the workshop and was presented with two small drawers. One had a raised central panel, the face of the other was roughly sanded flat.

 I asked how the drawer front had been flattened and what they would like me to do with it. Apparently the intention was to perform some sort of cleaning/restoration on the cabinet drawers, but someone had been a bit enthusiastic with a belt sander, not difficult when working with fairly soft pine and could I repair the damage?

The first stage was to dismantle the damaged drawer. A few gentle taps with a mallet and it was down to its component parts. I then began the lengthy process of marking out the new drawer front. The front face needed a raised central panel and the back face involved multiple dovetails at either end and a rebate for the bottom panel.

 Fortunately I had router cutters of the correct size. I did some test dovetails to check for fit then machined the back face of the drawer.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assembly

I routered a 2mm rebate around the front face and then proceeded to sand the chamfer detail to produce the raised central panel.

Reassembly did not take long. The sides pushed in to the new dovetails and were glued and pinned, the base was fitted and the back was attached again with glue and pins. A final sand through a range of grits and a coat of oil to finish.

Who would have thought a few minutes with a belt sander would have resulted in a half day repair job. Bottom drawer has new front, Top drawer is original. The lighter colouration where the chamfer has been formed will fade with time to match the rest of the piece.