The next step in cabinet making

[Jim Hill 2]

For the most part all the cabinets I have been making have had shelves in them, so now I'm ready to move to the next step - making drawers. I am building the Little shop Mark II from Popular Woodworking's book 25 Essential Shop projects. I guess it would be fair to say I started with the idea and made it my own. I built a middle cabinet to hold my Table Saw and would like to put a face frame on it and then add the drawers. The problem I don't know how to attach rails to support the drawer. I would like to build them myself. Currently I only have a plywood box made out of 3/4" Oak plywood and have not made the face frame or the drawers yet. I have several ideas about building a support bracket that could be screwed into the back of the cabinet but should a mortise be used on the face frame? Should I reconsider and buy drawer guides? Money is not really the issue, just trying to stretch myself. Thanks for the help.

[Lee Schierer]

I make a frame out of 1 X 3 material that fits in horizontally below the drawer. I then place a block made up of 1 X3 material on each side of where the drawer is to go. The thickness of this piece depends on the width of the face frame on the inside of the cabinet. I use metal drawer slides, which I would think you would want to use for a shop cabinet as the weight of the contents will be pretty good if its like my shop.

I attach these blocks to the support frame with screws and glue. I attache the drawer slides to the sides of the drawers and the blocks. If the block are set exactly perpendicular to the face frame, the drawer will work well and fit properly to the cabinet. Since the metal slides require 1/2" of space, I make the drawers 1" smaller than the width of the opening in the face frame.

[Carl Eyman]

My favorite quick and dirty drawer system involves a groove in the side of the drawer and a spline glued into a groove in a board that runs front to back in the case - one on each side of the drawer, of course. That board can be attached to the face frame with glue blocks and to the back of the cabinet also with glue blocks. This is essentially the same construction you need if you were to use metal slides.

[Bart Leetch]

I am not sure how your doing it but I just finished making my Table-saw cabinet I fastened the face frame on & then made 1 1/2" wide boards to run front to back from just behind the face frame to the back of the case & thick enough to make a surface flush with the inside edge of the face frame & glued & nailed them inside the case & fastened my glides to them. For the glides I used I had to allow a 1' to 1 1/16" wider opening than the drawer box.

[Jim Hill 2]

Thanks for the help guys! I will give it a try as soon as I can get back out to my shop. I'll also post a picture of the little shop progress. Thanks again for sharing.

Jim