Hidden Key Dressers

Dressers-American Walnut and Maple
Hand rubbed oil finish

These dressers were designed by myself and close friend Seth Babb for Wishbone Woodworking. They were built for a very talented artist named Myles Karr. You can check out some of his work here.


A subtle concave in the face of the walnut adds dimension to each face. This small detail was very challenging and took quite a bit of time. Totally worth it in the end.

I've collected keys for as long as I can remember, and finally I have found a use for some of them. As doing inlay work becomes more common, it's fun finding small flat things to put into furniture projects. Hidden within a few of the drawers are these little gems from the 1930's.


The bow tie joints are made of a wood called cocobolo. A real treat to work with, but so expensive that it may have to be for just small things at this point.


This is what the dressers started as...


All of the pieces were ran through the table saw perpendicular to the blade to start to get the concave. Each drawer face was passed through the saw 25 times to get the concave close enough to start to work it it by hand...That's 250 passes through the saw to get a 3/8" concave!


Then it each face was hand planed to smooth out the surface.

Next was using the scraper across the grain to further smooth it out before being able to get into using sand paper.


This is what they looked like before putting the straight maple piece along the sides and sanding.