BB drawer boxes with Poplar front

[Michael Wise]

I'm new to the forum and need a little advice. I'm building roughly 20 drawers for my kitchen cabinets, will be painted. The drawers will vary between 16 to 18 inches wide and 9 to 10 inches high and 20 to 22 in. deep. I would like to use 1/2" BB with box joints for the box and glued up poplar for the fronts. Does this sound reasonable? I'm not sure about the drawer bottom thickness or if 1/2" BB drawer sides will be strong enough for heavy pots and pans. Should I go with thicker sides and 1/2" ply bottom? Mike

[George Bokros]

1/2" should be plenty strong for the sides. You could probably get away with 1/4" for the bottoms, or try 3/8" for the bottoms.

George

[Art Mann]

I have lots of shop cabinet drawers that were built using 1/2" Birch (not BB) plywood with 1/4" plywood or Masonite bottoms and MDF fronts. I did use 3/8" bottoms in a few places with wide spans where I knew I would be storing heavy objects like routers. They take much more abuse than your kitchen cabinets are ever likely to see. They have been in place now for 11 years and I have seen no hint of structural failure. I did use 100 lb full extension drawer slides. In my opinion, cheap drawer slides are your most likely source of failure.

[Bob Lang]

1/2" sides and 1/4" bottoms are pretty much standard, as is poplar for the painted fronts. There are screws made with an integral washer specifically for this purpose. Make the holes larger than the shank of the screw and you will be able to adjust the gaps around the front and won't have to worry about seasonal movement with the fronts.

Bob Lang

[glenn bradley]

1/2" BB ply with drawer-lock joints and 1/4" bottom doing duty for pots and pans in my kitchen. No problems at all. Here's the screws Bob refers to (I use these as well).

[Michael Wise]

Thanks for the great info, I guess birch ply would be cheaper than BB, I'm just set on doing box joints and i think the BB edges look nicer. Also i plan to use good quality under mount slides which should provide better support for the heavy stuff.

[Art Mann]

You won't have to deal with ugly internal voids if you use Baltic Birch. It could be worth it for that reason even though you don't need the additional strength. I wasn't all that concerned about the appearance of my shop cabinets.