Drawer bottoms

[promhandicam]

I have to make up 9 large drawers for a bedroom suite that I'm about to start. The drawer boxes will have machine cut dovetailed oak sides. They will also have concealed runners which fit flush to the bottom of the drawer. This means that I can't use drawer slips and I can only really route a 6mm groove in the drawer sides otherwise the groove goes through a tail -damhikt The drawers will be approx 750mm x 550mm. Would 6mm ply be the best option or are there other suggestions? I did wonder about rebating a thicker base to fit into the 6mm groove but wonder if this would be overkill. The drawers will be for clothes so won't have a huge loading.

Thanks in advance.

Steve

 

[Chems]

Stopped dados to avoid tails, thats what I do with my dovetails drawers.

You can use 6mm stuff and if you think its not strong enough use a dovetailed mutin.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I'd be inclined to fit a central rail - people always stuff more junk in drawers than they say they will (at least the women in my house do 8-[ ).

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[BradNaylor]

Has the client specified dovetailed drawers? Personally I prefer to Domino them with grooves in the sides and with the front and back raised to allow the base to slide in underneath and then be secured with screws from below.

A 6mm base would be fine with this construction - the runners are supporting most of he weight

 

[jasonB]

On large ones I usually fit a rail front to back that is the same depth as the runner recess to stop the back bowing out and help support the bottom

Can't you space your dovetails to hide a wider groove?

 

[promhandicam]

Thanks for all the replies - I think I will go with a mid rail as has been suggested.

Can't you space your dovetails to hide a wider groove?

Sadly I don't have a leigh jig - I use the trend one - so I'm not able to change the spacing.

Steve

 

[Steve Maskery]

Steve, I can't see why you can't use trad slips. If you are using concealed runners, they are underneath, are they not? So the drawer slips are just on top of them. OK you'll lose another 6mm or so of depth, and given that you are already losing 25mm or so, it might be that every little helps, but other than that, I don't see the problem. Am I missing something?

S

 

[promhandicam]

I could use slips but the only justification would be to then use a thicker base - 12mm perhaps plus the thickness of the slip would make the actual depth of the drawer 12 - 14 mm shallower. Plus it is extra work. I think I'll go with 6mm ply and a central rail.

Cheers,

Steve

 

[scholar]

I have just made a bunch of drawers very similar to what you describe.

In my case, front and back joints were through dovetailed on the Woodrat with the spacing set out to put the rebate through a tail (this leaves a visible end of the rebate at the front, but in this case I am adding a painted drawer front so it is hidden. Otherwise the rebate could be stopped, but would be extra work.

The drawer back has no rebate and the drawer bottom is screwed to the underside of the drawer back - I felt this would add some rigidity to the 6mm plywood bottom, although it would have been less work to rebate the back.

The 6mm plywood bottom is ok for my drawers which are somewhat smaller than yours (about 660mm x 460mm from memory), but I am not 100% happy (accepting a usual tendency to over-engineer); the plywood has a tendency to warp slightly and just seems a mite flimsy. Next time I will use 9mm plywood I think.

Hope that helps

 

[jasonB]

If you are using something like Blum Tandem runners all the weight in the draw goes straight through the base ond onto the runners so the side grooves are not taking the weight.

Cut the back & Front short and screw the base into them from below, also has the advantage of not having to notch out front & back for the runners.

Jason

 

[scholar]

Cut the back & Front short and screw the base into them from below

Jason

That probably would have been a better idea for my drawers, where I only did this on the back. Thank you for that.

I will try uploading a picture as an experiment (please bear with me if it fails)

(Yes there is a rogue 6mm hole where I drilled the rear retaining hole on the wrong side! It will be hidden by the painted drawer front)

 

[scholar]

Nope, that was the wrong picture

Hopefully this is the correct one - sorry for my inexperience

 

[woodbloke]

Metal drawer runners ...worry not, it's only me, I hate them :evil: - Rob

 

[scholar]

Metal drawer runners ...worry not, it's only me, I hate them :evil: - Rob

Once they are set up here they work a dream; however, I have to agree that they were a real faff to fit and adjust properly. These are Blum runners and my first experience of fitting them.

I thought they would have much better adjustability than they do. In particular, there is no front to back adjustment (presumably they are principally designed for lay-on drawer fronts), so I designed a natty adjustable captive bolt fixed to the back panel, which now acts as an adjustable stop, but it meant I needed to modify the spacings specified in the instructions.

cheers