By “tearouts” do you mean that area that looks like a hole and the broken one next to it? That’s not what mine look like at all, but are yours wood? There’s a texture on yours that looks like a composite. It might be more common with a composite because that material breaks easier.

Yes the hole is what I’m referring to. The drawers are wood. The texture is some roughness (I don’t think they sanded it enough). I can’t tell because it is painted but maybe they used plywood.

Your cabinetmaker is correct. Wood grows on trees and tears out when machined occasionally. Color matched fill and move on, please.

Thanks Joseph. It’s hard to know what to expect. Nearly every drawer has at least one or two of these. I may have went a different direction had I known more before the purchase but that’s why hindsight is 20/20 lol.

Joseph, really?? Yes, tear outs happen, and can happen a lot if you don't set your cuts up with appropriate backer boards and such, but you don't leave them in the final product for gosh sakes. Especially for a poorly fitted and trimmed machine cut joint like this just make a new part. It's not as though the maker has any significant amount of time and effort into it. You don't even lose the material since it can probably be cut off and used for a shorter drawer (or perhaps practice with the jig to learn how to use it so that this isn't a regular occurrence). These are not RTA cabinets from far off lands, but rather custom cabinets with someone's name on them.

Rwiegand if this were you would you be asking for new drawers?

Mine don't look like that at all. (My cabinetmaker actually has drawer boxes made by another company for some reason, but they have sleek and smooth joints with no holes.)

I meant to comment on this earlier but forgot. This is why you don't paint drawer boxes... the tearout will not affect the strength of the joint so long as there is glue in there. It is neither a particularly good dovetail nor a particularly good paint job.

I personally would never paint a dovetailed drawer box nor do I know anyone who would. However, I am not sure if you can get them fixed or not. The cabinetmaker may tell you to pound sand.

There is a mistake by the cabinetmaker here. He failed to fill the tear-out before the customer saw it.

There is a mistake by the cabinetmaker here. He failed to fill the tear-out before the customer saw it.

This joint was always going to look like utter crap. It is not simply a problem with tear-out it is a problem of inept businessman trying to pawn off garbage as premium. Google "painted dovetail drawer box," select images and then start scrolling down until you actually find a cabinetmaker stupid enough to paint the tails white.

It is a crappy finishing job on the end grain, it doesn't even look like they sanded it before painting it and they certainly didn't sand it to twice the level of face grain as you should. It doesn't even appear that they sealed it. It was always going to look bad.

Painted drawers are an oddball. They don’t wear as well, which is why it isn’t done. I only hope they used an actual durable cabinet coating and not latex paint. Custom doesn’t mean quality, even though some people think it does. Plenty of the RTA sellers are hiring their stuff sprayed and calling it custom.

Most drawers are clear coated. Clear coated, you would never notice that. It has zero bearing on structural integrity, and is not an exposed spot on the exterior. It’s not an actionable item, unless this was supposed to be the 100K level custom cabinet type. If it were, I’d want those in walnut. Not paint.