Drawers for Apothecary cabinet

[Jerome Hanby]

I can see a need for hardware storage and organization (nuts, bolts, screws, etc...). I've always like the look of Apothecary cabinets and I've been wanting to try out my Stots dovetail jig, so this seems like a good way to kill two birds with one stone...or router as the case may be. Thinking I'm going to copy a design I've seen with a few larger drawers on the bottom row, more smaller drawers on the second row, then the rest of the rows with the smallest drawers. Something like this one:
apothecart_ca.jpg

It would be handy to be able to pull the drawers out (especially the smaller ones) and take them to the workbench but knowing me, I'll be prone to dumping them accidentally by puling them too far out. is there one way that better than another to give the drawers a positive stop but still make them easy to remove without spilling the contents?

[Greg Hines, MD]

On some of the woodworking shows I have watched, the would put a nub of some kind on the underside of the roof of the drawer space, so you have to angle the drawer in to insert it, and it won't fall out. One of them used metal Figure-8 fasteners on the inside of the face frame, but your design could not accommodate that.

[Jerome Hanby]

I don't really have a design, just put that picture in to show what I was after with different drawer sizes. Now that you mention it, I've seen figure-8 method myself, just can't recall which show. I probably won't build a face frame since cutting a bunch of dadoes looks like the easiest way to put this thing together. Don't think I'm going to do the cute bit about adding one extra drawer each row. Probably one row of big drawers, one row of medium drawers, then 3 or four rows of smaller drawers. I may size the biggest ones to be the size of a file cabinet so they can hold manuals, sandpaper, maybe handheld power tools, then shrink down a good deal on the medium sized and end up with small drawers about 4" tall and wide on the inside.

[Jim Rimmer]

Interesting project. In the photo I see 28 drawers. That's a lot of dovetails .

Looking at the photo you used, if you design is similar to this you could plow a dado in the row divider (bottom of the divider above the drawer you are trying to retain) and stop short of the front edge and your figure 8 could slide in it but would hit the stop to prevent inadvertently pulling the drawer all the way out. It may take some experimenting to find out how close to the edge to stop so you can still get the drawer in and out when you want.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Our 50 year old ranch has onsite built cabinets. The back of the drawers are 3/4" taller than the sides and the top of the back is mitered at a 45º angling up towards the rear of the back. Thus the drawer has to be tilted up in the front to insert into the cabinet and yet it prevents the drawer from being accidentally pulled out too far.

[Jerome Hanby]

Our 50 year old ranch has onsite built cabinets. The back of the drawers are 3/4" taller than the sides and the top of the back is mitered at a 45º angling up towards the rear of the back. Thus the drawer has to be tilted up in the front to insert into the cabinet and yet it prevents the drawer from being accidentally pulled out too far.

That sounds like a great idea! Also easy to cobble together a test drawer. Thanks!

[Todd Burch]

That sounds like a great idea! Also easy to cobble together a test drawer. Thanks!

The sad news about that is, left as is, it will probably throw the registration out of whack for your dovetail jig. But, the good news is, you can make a spacer, equal to the height of the back of the drawer lip, to compensate.

[Bruce Page]

I think a lock-miter joint would be just as good and it would allow you to run all of the drawers using the same setup.
Unless you just want to play with your DT jig & router.

[Jerome Hanby]

I think a lock-miter joint would be just as good and it would allow you to run all of the drawers using the same setup.
Unless you just want to play with your DT jig & router.

You nailed it, I just want to play with the jig <g>. Plus I nearly drove myself insane trying to use my Woodcraft brand lock miter bit. By the time I bought a Freud to replace it, I just gave up and made box joints...