Being a woodworker is 50% knowing what to do, 40% knowing how to look up what you should do, and 10% knowing how to fix what you did wrong. However, sometimes you just come across an issue you didn’t anticipate. While building some furniture recently we realized that the drawers we built and stained were about 1/32″ too wide. Whether this happened from material expansion or just us measuring wrong, the end result was we had finished drawers that we didn’t want to rebuild.

What to do, what to do.

After some mild internal deliberation, we called one of our woodworking friends. They are a local cabinet maker who does massive kitchen builds. Their advice was simplicity itself and worked out brilliantly.

First, we measured the overall height of the drawer slides on either side of the drawer. Then, using the Grizzly table saw and a Freud glue line rip blade, we took 1/64″ off of BOTH sides of the drawer. This took more than a little motivation as I had never put a finished drawer through the saw before. Once the cut was made on both sides did another test fit and it was perfect. A little stain and the cut all but disappears. Once the drawers were installed you can’t see it at all thanks to the drawer sliders. A simple solution that worked well and saved me from having to rebuild two drawers. Sometimes being a woodworker just means knowing who to ask.