Curved Dresser – Part 1
Painted and Glazed Curved Dresser with a Stained Alder Top
We have been commissioned, by the same people we built the large office unit for, to build a dresser matching the picture above.
There are several reasons the client decided to go custom with the dresser:
1. They wanted the finish on the dresser to match the finish on the office unit, which also happens to be in their master bedroom.
2. They needed to change just about every dimension of the stock dresser. We lowered the height by 4″ to prevent the dresser from interfering with a light switch, narrowed the length by 12″, and made the depth shallower by 3″.
3. They wanted more shallow drawers, rather than fewer deep drawers. Also, since the drawers are almost 36″ wide, we divided them in half width wise to make organizing clothes in the drawers even easier.
We began the dresser construction by cutting the sides, back, and side face frames. Once the sides were connected to the back, and the face frames to the carcass, it was time to turn our attention to the framework for the curved sides.
Before we could begin adding a curved side, we first had to add a framework for that side to sit upon. First we had to decide on the final look of the curve, which, according to the picture above, dives in towards the inner side of the dresser and then curves back out to connect to the front edge.
Once we finalized the bend of the curve, we created a template, cut out 12 frame blanks from 3/4″ MDF, and, using the band saw and the router table with a flush cutting bit, made 12 identically curved and notched side pieces and screwed and glued them into place.
We planned on creating the curved sides using a 1/8″ thick Italian bending plywood, which is a three ply thick, incredibly bendable substrate.
We attached the first layer of bending ply to the framework using plenty of polyurethane glue and the curved cut-off pieces from the frame blanks as culls. Once the first layer had a chance to dry overnight, we cut the second layer of bending ply and repeated the process all over again. The resulting side is incredible strong, secure, and stiff.