3/4" ply bottoms for 24" wide drawers? Opinions?

[Stuart Welsh]

The lower cabinets in the kitchen island I am building will be 24" wide I.D. Rather than fixed shelves I plan on building pull out shelves for easier access to the items stored down there. Using the Blum slides I prefer will involve incorporating a recessed bottom so essentially I will be building drawers with low sides. For most drawers I prefer to use 1/2" ply rather than 1/4" for the bottoms. I like how solid they feel. In this case these "drawers" will be over 23" wide and hold heavy items such as small appliances, cast iron cookware and nested ceramic bowls. Since I have it in the shop I'm considering 3/4 for the bottoms. Opinions?

[Adam Herman]

My cabinet builder used 1/4 for our slide outs and i agree, its not great and is bowing down a bit. 1/2 should be plenty though. I think our baking shelf has 20 or 30 lbs of large, full mason jars and the 1/4 is bowing maybe 1/4 in the center of a 27 wide and 24 deep pull out with 4 in tall sides.

[Scott Brader]

The slide outs I built for our kitchen are also very short drawers with 1/2" sides and bottoms. My wife has packed plenty of weight on them and there has been zero flex with the 1/2" plywood. They are 22" deep by 23" wide.

Scott

[glenn bradley]

25" x 25" drawers. 1/4" BB ply in a groove 5/16" up from the bottom. Loaded heavy since 2013, no problems.

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[Stuart Welsh]

Sounds to me like I should save my 3/4" for future cabinet carcass construction, 1/2" it is! Thanks all.

[Sam Murdoch]

Never had an issue with that size drawer heavily loaded on 1/2" bottoms. I use 5/8" thick sides that might be a factor in build a solid drawer.
Yeah - 3/4" is cabinet box stuff.