Drawers in less than perfect openings

[Dave Rosner]

Hi all - I'm making a workshop cabinet and work table based on the new yankee workshop "workshop hutch" plans. The carcass is all plywood with 2x4s for the base for the top. It's about 8 feet long, 34" high, and 31" deep. I've got 2 "bays" I created that are about 30" wide each that will get 2 large drawers and 1 short one. The plan is to make a box for the drawer and then put a front on that.

I'm not much of a cabinet maker and this is the first time I've attempted drawers. I did my best to keep everything square but I'm off up to 1/8" in some places. Also, the plywood isn't perfectly flat so that contributes to variance in the width of the opening from top to bottom. Again it's about 1:8" at its worse and maybe slightly more.

Question: do the drawer slides have some sort of adjustment to account for my issues? Or do I have to shim it somehow to get the drawers to slide properly?

Any other tips for a drawer builder newbie welcome...

[Jerry Miner]

What drawer slides are you using?

[Dave Rosner]

Haven't bought them yet thinking that may be part of my solution.

Was going to get 100lb full extension slides. Lee valley has some that lol reasonably priced- $15 a pair I think.

[Jamie Buxton]

Drawer slides have some allowance for non-perfect cabinet walls, but I don't know of any that can handle 1/8" out.

What I do in your situation is to make walls inside the cabinet which are at right angles to the front of the cabinet. Then you can mount slides to the cabinet, and build drawer boxes to fit. (Okay, you do have to build drawer boxes with parallel sides...)

I have a T-square, but you can cobble one up pretty easily. A T-square has an arm (the top of the T) which spans the cabinet opening left-right, and an arm (the stem of the T) which goes back into the cabinet opening. The stem of the T is at right angles to the top of the T. This square lets you assess the walls of your cabinet. You want walls that are at right angles to the front of the cabinet. Add shims to the walls to get walls that are right. Pieces of solid (not corrugated) cardboard and a stapler are an easy way to add the shims. Look at your slides, and put the shims where the screws are going to go through the slide into the cabinet. That way, the slide screws hold the shims in place.

You don't have to get all the drawer openings the same size. It doesn't matter if the drawer boxes are a little different. You just want them to slide smoothly. Your applied drawer front will cover the fact that the drawer boxes aren't identical.

[Brian Henderson]

Not sure if this helps, but I saw it a couple of weeks ago and this question reminded me of it. He fits his drawers to the spaces, and it works even if the spaces aren't square.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBVeJPuT3Q

[Dave Rosner]

Thanks all - very helpful. Seems like I'm going to need to shim but building the box to the opening will help too...

[Paul Girouard]

Thanks all - very helpful. Seems like I'm going to need to shim but building the box to the opening will help too...

Not with drawer slides it won't , the drawer needs to be close to square, and IF you couldn't build the cabinet square , how do you think you'll do building multiple drawers out of square to a precise fit?

With the slides you're using just pad out the back to the slide where it attaches to the cabinet , plastic laminate scrape makes great shims , rip them 1 1/4" wide and stack them beside the attachment screw, use multiple pieces to move the slides , and by connection the drawer to the desired location.

[Jim Andrew]

I have used some small washers to put behind drawer guides, when the drawer was 1/16" small.

[John TenEyck]

Yes, build the drawers to fit the smallest opening width and shim behind the slides where needed. The drawers need to be square, or at least have parallel sides, for the slides to work smoothly.

John