Writing desk for a school kid

In today's post I'd like to show how I made the drawers. 

I started with drawer slides. They are simply screwed to the sides through elongated holes. But I think I'll use dadoes next time for easier alignment.

Drawer fronts are made of oak as the rest of the desk. I trimmed them so they fit into the openning with a uniform gap all around.

Drawers sides and back are made of poplar. I chose this wood because it is light and also because its colour. It will make nice contrast with the oak. The parts of all drawers are joined with half blind dovetails. 

I prepared 6mm thick piece of wood to help me maintain uniform depth of dovetails. Then set the marking gauge to that thickness and mark the baseline on drawer fronts.

Then set the marking gauge to the with of remaining part of the board and mark the sides.

Mark the location of  the tails and using wooden guide do a cuts. Then cut the waste out using coping saw and clean everything with chisels.

Drawer front is held in my Moxxon vise and side is placed and aligned. Then the position of each tail is marked with a knife.

Last step in marking the dovetails is to scribe a baseline, just a little bit shorter of  the side board thickness. That way the sides will sit a little bit proud and I can plane them flush. 

I'm starting cutting half blind dovetails by cutting along the line, at an angle with saw, from line to line. Then I'm using a trick I've seen on Youtube. I simply slide a card scraper into the slot and tap it with a metal hammer.

Then I drill a row of holes along the baseline to help remove the waste. Dovetail are finished with chisels a that 6mm board I made at the beginning, comes really handy to keep it nice and straight.