And things were going so well . . .
The half blind dovetailed through drawer carcasses fit so nicely. Pride comes before the fall.
I took each drawer apart to route the grooves for the drawer bottoms. This part was a no brainer - WRONG. Got into production mode on the router and didn't even check to see what the results were. That was a mistake. On most of the drawers the groove came out in the sockets of the pins where the tails would cover them.
BUT ...
The drawers came out pretty good.
Next, shape the ends of the drawer guides / pulls. Eight Drawers x 2 guides per drawer x 2 ends to shape per guide comes to 64 ends to shape. This was done with an oscillating spindle sander though it could have been done using a dowel with sand paper wrapped around it. After shaping, each was hand sanded with 120, 150, 180, 220 and 320 grits. Blew off the fine sawdust and dipped the ends into a solution of 50% paint thinner and 50 % Woodcraft Tung Oil. Let the mix soak in for 15-20 minutes and wiped off the excess with paper towels.
These drawer guides / pulls will be screwed to the sides of the drawers in order to make future replacement easy.
These things took A LOT OF TIME and probably won't be noticed much in the finished bench. But I'll know they're there. BTW - the pulls feel really good.