Generic drawers

PerranOak · 2 Sep 2009

I think it's time that I moved from making things the size of the wood that I have or can get from the scraps bin.

I am actually going to buy some ... properly!

Now the first thing is drawers for my shop cupboard affair. One will be WxDxH of 400mm x 300mm x 125mm and three others like in an Apothecary cabinet about 125mm cubes. I know, mental sizes but there it is!

My clever (American) book tells me to use straight grained wood. It doesn't say which though! It also talks (a lot) about Baltic birch plywood.

Anyway, I'm guessing I need about 3/4"for the fronts and 3/8" for the sides. The bottom would be ply of 6mm?

So, could anyone recommend which wood I should order, whether Baltic birch ply exists and comment on my sizing please.

Even though these are for the shop, I want to use them as practice pieces and so use good quality materials.

Thank you very much.

9fingers · 2 Sep 2009

Birch ply is certainly available. it is the pale ply with lots of thin layers a bit over 1mm thick.
6mm will be fine for the bases.
If you are dovetailing your drawers and routing them, then there will be tear-out from ply. Possibly best to sandwich between scrap pieces to stop this.
Hand cut DTs should be fine.

I have used beech for drawer sides routing successfully but some Iroko was less satisfactory.

As for dimensions - obviously to suit what you are going to put in them. I found very shallow drawers like these, very useful to layout tools and see what I have.

I think these drawers are about 45mm high fronts with about 30-35mm depth inside.

HTH

Bob

wizer · 2 Sep 2009

Let's back track a little bit here. What on earth are you going to store in a 125mm cube? Have you planned what you're actually going to use this for or are you just following a plan in a book?

PerranOak · 4 Sep 2009

Cheers 9fingers. What a lot of drawers! I was only going to use ply for the bases.

wizer, I never plan! I just do! That's why my efforts are a bit spazzy! Still, SWMBO wants an Apothecary cupboard (one day!) so these will be good practice. Anyway, I've already made-up the cabinet with inserts so I'm left with holes of that size!

stuartpaul · 4 Sep 2009

I've started to use poplar quite sucessfully. Nice, easy to machine timber and takes dovetail well.

Generally buy a large slab from Yandles and then machine to suit whatever I'm making.