Drawer Base Clonstruction Question

[Brody Goodwine]

(Sorry about the title spelling, I can't edit that.)

Well, I'm rebuilding the drawers in my kitchen to accept Blum Tandem gliders. I have 2 questions.

1) Before I cut the drawers to accept the 1/4" baltic birch ply I'll be using, I wanted to know if the plywood drawer baseshould be glued in, left free floating, or glued on one side?

2) The blum hardware forces use of 1/4" thick ply bases, which isn't ideal (though it'll be fine for these 14" wide drawers). Can I put a 1/2" beam under the ply to stiffen the base, or would this interfere with #1 above? I'd assume not since I could fasten the bean to the drawer structure and just lay the ply on it.

Thanks in advance!

[Steve Jenkins]

Not sure why you say the hardware forces the use of 1/4" ply for the bottom. All that really matters is the 1/2" space from the bottom of the bottom to the bottom of the sides and the overall width of the drawers is critical. The size depends on the thickness of the drawer sides. Gluing in the bottoms may help in stiffening them up but otherwise it doesn't really matter.

[Brody Goodwine]

Steve, I looked at the adjustment hole in the rear which was 7/16" from the base of the ply to it's center and thought that limited you to 1/4", but I guess the adjustment tab doesn't pass through the frame fully.

What about the two questions. Is it best to glue in the base?

[Steve Jenkins]

I mentioned that it doesn't make much difference if the bottom is glued in or not but I guess that really depends on the box construction. I knew one commercial shop that the owner said his biggest problem was keeping the drawers from falling apart until they were installed. They were just butt jointed and stapled. In that case gluing in the bottoms might have been a big benefit.

[jay st clair]

Hi Brody, We dado the front and sides of our boxes and staple to the back end of the box 1/4" ply is fine since the bottom is supported by the guides you could glue a stiffener to the center of bottom with no problem. This hardware will work with any thickness bottom your only constraint is the thickness of the front of the box we use 3/4 fronts rabbited to 5/8 " under the dado. The blum tandems we use are designed for 5/8" fronts. Hope this helps Jay