into the ends of the boards. 2 Handforged nails through the cleats. Often the edges of the cleats became worn between these nails in a series of scallops. 3. Top ends tongued into grooves in the cleats and pinned (less common). 4 Tenons in the top ends held in mortises in the cleats with wooden pins (rare, except in Pennsylvania). Dilapidated tavern tables will be found with tops, drawers, and feet missing. Frequently some or all of the stretchers will have been sawed out, instead of being repaired. Symmetry. In common with all welldesigned furniture, tavern tables exhibit a fundamental consistency of form. Almost invariably it will be found that when the leg of one of these tables is turned above the stretcher, it will be turned below, and frequently the turnings above are identical with those below. Another common practice was to locate the stretcher midway between the shoulders of the turnings, аз in the detail of Figure 7.8. A further consistency that should be noted when replacing missing stretchers is that their outer faces should be set flush with the outer faces of the legs when the aprons or upper members of the frame are also set flush. Drawers. Like other parts of early furniture, drawers progressed through various cycles of design and refinement., Fronts. Very early examples were constructed so that the fronts were flush with the drawer rails and bases. Later the lipped type was adopted, followed again by flush fronts. The flush type naturally stood up to prolonged use better than the lipped fronts. When the lips of the latter broke off, they frequently carried away sections of the front surface. To repair such a break, narrow strips can be mortised into place, rabbeted, then planed and sanded flush with the front. Sides. The very earliest drawer sides were rabbeted and nailed, or were assembled with very broad dovetailing, also nailed. As is true of modern drawers, various combinations were popular, such as the sides rabbeted and nailed to the front and #only nailed to the back; or broad dovetailing nailed to the front, and rabbeted and nailed to the back. Dovetailing grew progressively finer and narrower until by about 1800 the sides of most drawers were assembled by means of small dovetailing, at all four corners. Bottoms. The earliest drawers had bottoms nailed to the sides. Later examples show the sides and back nailed, with the front edge tapered into a tenon fitting into a groove in the drawer front. Still later, in Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and Empire'mahogany furniture, the back edge only was nailed, the other three edges being slid into grooves. Slides. Very old rare pieces have side runs that slide in grooves cut into the drawer sides. Another unusual arrangement was a wide slat in the center. The 390 FURNITURE MAKING AND CABINET WORK majority of drawers, however, operated on bottom runs or slides that were fastened to the frame at each end. Chairs. Subjected as they are to a maximum variety and degree of strain, chairs of any age will inevitably become damaged.