Adapting a 36" wide plan to 30" wide?

[dennis thompson]

The April issue of Popular woodworking has a cabinet I would like to make. The cabinet in the plan is 36" length (across the front) & I'd like to make mine 30" long. Is the best way to adapt the plan simply to take 30/36 of each dimension across the front?
Thanks
Dennis

[Bob Lang]

Hi Dennis,

I would simply take 3" out of each of the door panels and 6" out of the drawer front, reducing the other horizontal parts accordingly. I would leave the width of the door and face frame stile alone unless that made the door panels look too skinny. The idea you propose would work, but that's too much math for me.

By the way, I did the illustrations for that article. If you e-mail me at the office Monday:

robert.lang@fwpubs.com

I can dig up the drawing and shrink it for you.

Bob Lang

[Randal Stevenson]

If your happy with the height, then just take out from the width, and you may have to adjust the width of the rails and stiles, based on preference and the plan.

If your trying to shrink it all around, 36 to 30, is a 5/6 or multiply the sizes on the plan by .83 .