Choose your wood. Usually ¾” thick pine from local home improvement store. Regular white pine is perfect, and unusable imperfections can be eliminated during cutting. Also, consider recycling unwanted lumber, such as this old redwood from 2x6 redwood decking that was being discarded. Inside that ugly exterior is some beautiful, usable wood. 

Once sawed and planed to size, the interior of the wood is exposed as gorgeous heartwood. 

A word about SAFETY! Fingers and eyes are potential victims of table saws and other power tools. Always wear at least safety glasses when cutting wood with power tools.

Even more protection is offered by a full face shield that could protect your nose or teeth from a flying piece of wood. 

You want to keep your fingers as far away from the blade as possible, and this kind of homemade “hold down” tool is perfect as the wood is pushed across the blade. It also holds the wood perfectly flat on the table of the saw, increasing accuracy of the cuts. 

This kind of inexpensive “push pad” is perfect for holding down smaller pieces of wood as they are moved across the blades. When we make the final cut separating the lid and bottom of the drawer it also holds the pieces in place until they are well past the blades, eliminating a slip that could cut off wood unnecessarily. 

Begin by cutting the wood to a width of 2 7/8 inches on a table saw. Just under 3 inches wide is perfect, as later cutting and sanding will bring it down to the desired finished height of the drawer. 

Just under 3 inches wide – the perfect width to begin the process.

With a power planer bring the wood down to a thickness of exactly 5/8 inch. Be sure to use sharp blades on your planer, as this will leave the surface of the wood perfectly smooth and eliminate the need for a lot of future sanding. When I use old 2x6 redwood I use my table saw to cut the wood from the 1.5 inch thickness down to about ¾ inch before planing, to reduce the number of passes need through the planer. It is also wise to cut off any large knotholes before planing, as these over-work the blades of the planer. 

Perfect! Just a tiny bit over the finished thickness of 5/8 inch, as future sanding will eliminate a bit more of the wood. 

Now is the time to cut all the wood to the proper lengths of the front, back and sides of the drawer. For the California Academy style drawers this is exactly 19” for fronts and backs and exactly 17” for the sides. A template set next to the miter-box saw ensures consistent lengths for each cut.  

Before you make the miter cuts at the ends you need to decide which side of the wood will be on the inside of the drawer. The thing to consider here is imperfections at the edges of the wood that could be either cut off later (when making the groove for the bottom of the drawer) or simply hidden at the bottom/inside of the drawer once it is assembled. This minor imperfection will easily be removed later. 

Another unwanted imperfection that will be removed later and which poses no issues for the looks or the integrity of the drawer. No sense in wasting any more wood than necessary!

standard corners are “mitered”, or cut at a 45 degree angle. I use a power saw for this for accuracy and speed when making many drawers at one time. CAUTION!! – always know where your FINGERS ARE! Many people have lost tips of fingers with these kinds of saws. .

Perfect! The ends of all pieces now are cut at the 45 degree angle.

As you are making your cuts to length be sure you cut equal numbers of “short” and “long” pieces to account for equal numbers of side pieces and front/back pieces. Sides exactly 17” long and front/back pieces exactly 19” long. 

You will always have some pieces left over that are too short to use for the drawers. SAVE some of these (maybe a dozen) as they are needed as “practice” pieces when making adjustments to saw and dado blade settings in the near future. Better to make the adjustments on these sacrificial pieces than on the actual sides and fronts or backs. 

Now we will make our first cuts on the wood, but we need right now to decide what will be the top and the bottom of the pieces of the wood. The top of this piece of wood is going to be the lid of the drawer, so you want to keep the top with the straightest and closest grain. This minimizes the possibility of warping when the top piece is separated from the bottom. 

I personally love the look of small, tight knotholes in wood, and leave them in when possible. But, keep them at the bottom of the drawer when choosing top and bottom, as you don’t want them as part of the narrower lid. 

Another blemish that easily can remain at the bottom of the drawer, with the straight grain of the wood at the top for the drawer lid. 

Another knot that can be left in place. Note the straight grain above it that is sufficiently wide to account for the lid of the drawer. This should (and did not) present any issue with warping when the dado cut separating top from bottom is done. 

Another curve in the grain that should be kept at the bottom of the drawer, minimizing the chance of warping when making the lid/bottom separation. 

A nice stack of short and long pieces all set for the first pass through the saw to cut the groove that will hold the glass top. 

Showing the groove cut lengthwise in one piece to allow for the inserting of the glass top. Leave about ¼” of wood above the glass. Too little might risk weakness above the glass and too much could waste space below. Use a saw blade that is thick enough to allow the glass easily to slip into the groove but thin enough to prevent “wiggle” room by the glass within the groove. Here, note the knothole at the bottom that will be an attractive feature on the finished drawer, but which would be a problem if it were part of the lid. 

Adjust the height of the table saw blade so that it allows your sheet of glass to be inserted to the proper depth. Too deep a cut might allow the glass to shift in place and too shallow a cut might keep the wood sides from closing sufficiently during assembly. When I order glass I order “single strength” cut exactly to 16” by 18”. This image shows the wood with the first dado cut already made, which we actually have not gotten to yet. 

A second view showing the setting of the table saw blade to allow for the proper depth of the cut for the glass. 

I STRONGLY encourage “dry” fitting the glass at this point to ensure the grooves are at the proper depth in the wood. Cut the glass grooves in 2 side pieces and 2 long pieces before doing your whole batch of wood, and then assemble the drawer so that it can be disassembled and any minor adjustments to the cuts made. Note here how the corners come together properly. 

At this point I then use a router with a ¼” “round-over” bit to make a slight removal of wood along the inside edge of the tops, which will be above the glass. This eliminates one sharp edge and greatly improves the finished appearance of the drawer. After all, we are looking for PERFECTION rather than “just okay”.  This also eliminates possible slivers and is easier on the fingers when handling the drawer in the future. 

Note how much nicer the piece on the right looks with the rounded-over edge. 

Now we will switch the table saw over to dado blades to make the next 3 cuts /passes for every piece of wood. I use “stackable” dado blades and use 3 of them side by side to make a width of exactly 3/8”. This will be the width of the 2 grooves that will allow for the separation of top and bottom, as well as for the narrower groove for the drawer bottom to set into. 

First is the groove for the drawer bottom, cut slightly deeper into the wood than the actual thickness of the bottom material. This can be 3/16” plywood or 3/16” manufactured hardboard, both in a 4’ by 8’ sheet from a local supplier. NOTE that this cut is on the inside of the piece below the cut for the glass. 

A big HINT here – for the dimensions of these drawers it is desirable to have the edges of the bottom panel sitting on about a ¼” ledge. However, for most efficient use of a 4x8 sheet of plywood a narrower ledge is necessary along the pieces that will be the fronts and backs. Thus, I cut only a 3/16” groove on the longer pieces, but with wood glue and carefully placed nails this holds the bottom in place just fine. By doing this I am able to cut 15 bottom sheets from a 4x8 foot panel with almost no waste, rather than only 10 sheets with a lot of wasted material. We will discuss cutting of the bottoms later. 

Now we will adjust the dado blades in our table saw so we can cut the first of 2 wide grooves in the drawer pieces. Set your table saw fence so that the top of the groove is 5/8” from the top of the wood and the cut is made on the INSIDE below the glass groove. This makes the bottom of the dado groove 1” below the top of the piece of wood, and that will be the width of the lid of this drawer – 1 inch. 

This cut should be set to go as close as possible to halfway through the wood – about 5/16” deep. This is not critical, as the next cut on the OUTSIDE of the wood will be adjusted to exactly meet the inside groove as we separate top from bottom. 

When making this inside dado groove do it as well on several (10 or 12) of the small, leftover pieces you saved earlier. These will be the pieces you use when making the tiny adjustments needed for the perfect separation of lid from bottom. 

Now we pass every short and long piece through the dado blades to make this inside groove. It is the perfect time to use that safety tool shown, holding the wood down perfectly flat on the table and ALWAYS against the table saw fence. This results in a groove of consistent depth in the wood and straight from end to end. 

Showing the 3/8” wide groove cut by our dado blades on the inside face of the pieces. (The groove for the glass would already be cut in these pieces). Note the groove goes exactly halfway through. 

Preparing to pass the pieces over the dado blades to make the cuts on the inside faces of our sides, fronts and backs. 

Our next (and FINAL) cuts will be on the OUTSIDE face of each piece, and this will separate the drawer lid from its bottom. We place the piece over the dado blades and then move the fence to the right to place the blades such that this next cut will be just to the left of the inside groove, and the blade height exactly meeting the bottom of the inside groove. HINT – this is where you use those “practice” pieces you have saved from earlier. 

The pieces are passed over the dado blades to separate lid from bottom. 

At this point the use of the pad to hold the wood down is crucial. It not only keeps your fingers away from the sharp blades, but also holds the pieces in place as they separate, avoiding unwanted removal of wood caused when the bottom piece slides toward the lid piece at the moment of separation. Be sure to slide it all the way past the blades before removing the wood. 

This is how it should look following that final dado pass on the outside. The lid section is then easily separated from the bottom section and the fit can be checked for accuracy. It may take a few minor adjustments of the dado blade height or distance from the fence to be perfect, but in the long run IT IS WORTH IT!

A perfect separation of lid and bottom. The slight leftover ridge within the dado cut can be removed with a putty knife to bring the parts even closer together. 

The perfect dado cuts make for a perfect fit, with virtually no overlap to sand down later. Also at this point be absolutely certain that you keep the tops and bottoms together so the fit will remain good and the grain of the wood runs together as one single piece. 

Now I select which of the long pieces will be fronts and which the backs. Typically front pieces should be those with the best fit of top and bottom and those with the most attractive look, such as color or the grain of the wood. The fronts will be seen most. Then, you need to put the identifying numbers matching top to bottom on the pieces of the back. This way drawer tops and bottoms will not get mixed up with later use. 

The stack of pieces that will soon become 52 new drawers in which to store the Bohart Museum insect collection. 

One last cut is needed prior to assembling the drawers, as I use the “corner clamps” in each corner to attach the sides together. This cut is made vertically at each end of the pieces of wood. 

A flared clamp nail. One supplier of these is Estad Stamping in Illinois. You will need 8 clamps per drawer. 

I find that using a band saw works perfectly for this cut, and a jig is very useful for ensuring every cut is exactly in the same place and at the same depth. 

The cut is made perpendicular to the mitered end of each piece, with the depth into the wood half the width of the corner clamp. 

Making the cuts. Note the wood “stop” to keep the depth of each cut accurate. 

How the cuts will look once the corners are put together during assembly. When setting up your jig for the cut, be sure the cut will be close enough to the ends of the wood that it is not within the glass groove. Otherwise, when you drive in the corner clamp it could shatter the glass at that point. 

A corner clamp. Note the arrows on the sides of the clamp. For these the arrows should point UP when driven into the wood, as this draws the corners of the wood together even tighter. If the glass is ever broken these clamps can be “tapped” back out to allow for a new sheet of glass to be placed into the grooves. 

a VERY LIGHT line of contact glue, placed within a short section of the glass groove, helps keep the glass from moving around after assembly. Do not use very much, as this squeezes out and needs to be removed later with a razor blade. 

Wood glue on the mitered ends also ensures the drawer will stay together after assembly, and helps seal off possible entry points for dermestid beetles that could damage the collection. 

I assemble the drawers upside down first, inserting the glass in the grooves and placing all 4 sides around it. As before, THIS is where your accurate cuts earlier make life so much easier. 

Now I use a “strap” clamp around the drawer to hold all the sides tightly together. 

The strap clamp should come with 4 plastic corners that keep the corners at perfect 90 degree angles. Once the strap clamp is secured use a hammer to tap the wood as needed to line up the cuts in the ends of the wood. 

Now the corner clamp is placed in the grooves with the proper end at the top, and it is driven into the groove with a hammer. Then “set” it a bit deeper so that putty can be used to cover the resulting hole and greatly improve the appearance of the finished drawer. 

Once the drawer is held together with corner clamps on the lid and up into the bottom we can install the sheet of bottom paneling. Again, accurate cutting should make this a perfect fit. The long direction will be about 18 1/8” long, but the sides will be slightly under 16” in order to make the most efficient use of a 4x8 sheet of material (48” by 96”, and due to the width of the saw blade the cutting of 48” into 3 equal parts makes each piece slightly less than 16 inches. 

From front to back just under 16 inches.

From side to side just over 18 inches. 

Use a thin but unbroken bead of wood glue around the entire “shelf” on which the bottom will sit. 

Place the bottom into place and use nails around the edges to secure it to the sides and front/back pieces. Once the wood glue dries this will be a very durable fit. 

Now, since we want the finished drawer to be PERFECT, we use a wood putty to fill in all the gaps and holes.

For the redwood I use a water-based walnut colored putty, available in the paint section of home improvement stores. 

For pine I use a water-based neutral colored putty. Both kinds of putty dry quickly, do not shrink, and can be sanded easily. If you use a stain the putty also stains well. 

Use a putty knife to apply the putty, forcing it into the holes and gaps to fill them in. 

The putty knife and the dried putty on a corner. 

Now we get to sand everything, a step that makes it all come together nicely. A belt sander with a fine-grit belt will help on the outside faces to remove excess putty and flatten any overlap of top and bottom. 

A random orbital sander can then be used on the outside faces to create a very smooth surface, and also be used on the top of the lid to remove dried putty and other blemishes. CAUTION!! When sanding next to the glass be absolutely certain the sanding paper does not touch the glass. If it does it will cause noticeable scratches that cannot be removed from the glass. 

One side showing an attractive knothole that now is perfectly smooth and poses no problems for the drawer. 

Another knothole left in a place where it did not cause problems, but where it can be appreciated for the character it provides. 

When using recycled lumber I like to leave some of the blemishes, such as old nail or screw holes or even beetle damage. These are filled with putty to smooth the surface and offer interesting character to the finished product. 

Now we are closing in on the end, and applying finish to the outside makes all the difference in the final appearance. I prefer a “brushing lacquer” as it dries VERY quickly and can be worked with the next step within a few hours. 

A semi-gloss brushing lacquer, and good results come from 2 coats with a very light sanding afterward. Remember that lacquer must be washed off brushes with “lacquer thinner” rather than paint thinner. These materials have a very strong odor, so use them in a well-ventilated area. 

The “almost” completed drawer. Just a couple more steps. 

Using a new razor blade (best within a holder) clean all the edges of the glass where lacquer may have gotten on or contact cement may have oozed out of the glass groove during assembly. 

Now we use a glass cleaner on both top and bottom (inside) of the glass to remove all dust, smudges, fingerprints, etc. The finished result is a reflection of our talent. 

Final step!! Install your choice of handle or pull tab. Museums use these brass pull tabs / card holders that allow for the use of a card in the pull tab, identifying the contents of that drawer. This kind of pull tab is available online or from entomological equipment suppliers. 

The L3402 brass cardholder by Craft-Inc is one option.

WE ARE DONE!! Drawers complete and ready for use.