Newbie questions about drawer construction

[Hot Rod Grampa]

Your journey is just beginning young grasshopper. Enjoy it as it will last a lifetime of learning new skills and refining existing. Good luck. As to your drawer pulls, my Florida garage has some repurposed kitchen cabinets and space is at a premium, especially when the cars are inside. My simple fix was to use cheap yellow poly rope and made loops. The knots are inside the drawer. I used a heat gun to seal the knots so they didn’t unravel easily. The cabinet doors I used the same rope but left a piece of rope outside with a knot. I can walk past the cabinets and never catch my clothes on the handles. Cheap and effective.

 

[6sally6]

How bout this........Use a sheet of 1/2" plywood.
Cut a strip 4" long (height of drawer)
Using a home made straight edge to guide your Skil saw....saw a groove the length of 4"strip about 1/2" from the edge. Saw another groove beside that one to make a 1/2" wide (and deep) groove.
Cut your drawer sides 18" long and the front and back 12". (drawer deminsions 18 X 12)
Glue up THREE sides
Cut out the bottom for the drawer and slide into the 1/2" grooves you made.
Ya gotta drawer!
6sally6

 

[eljay]

ELJAY

Please post a picture of your work, I feel we all have something invested in those drawers.

Ha! I agree and I certainly will very soon.

Your journey is just beginning young grasshopper. Enjoy it as it will last a lifetime of learning new skills and refining existing. Good luck. As to your drawer pulls, my Florida garage has some repurposed kitchen cabinets and space is at a premium, especially when the cars are inside. My simple fix was to use cheap yellow poly rope and made loops. The knots are inside the drawer. I used a heat gun to seal the knots so they didn’t unravel easily. The cabinet doors I used the same rope but left a piece of rope outside with a knot. I can walk past the cabinets and never catch my clothes on the handles. Cheap and effective.

Well, I guess I am relatively young(er) and most certainly a grasshopper.
Ropes are very smart!
I am now between using these cheap pulls or go fancy and cut up this 1" aluminum U-channel and install it with screws and nuts horizontally in the middle or 2/3 up the drawer fronts.

How bout this........Use a sheet of 1/2" plywood.
Cut a strip 4" long (height of drawer)
Using a home made straight edge to guide your Skil saw....saw a groove the length of 4"strip about 1/2" from the edge. Saw another groove beside that one to make a 1/2" wide (and deep) groove.
Cut your drawer sides 18" long and the front and back 12". (drawer deminsions 18 X 12)
Glue up THREE sides
Cut out the bottom for the drawer and slide into the 1/2" grooves you made.
Ya gotta drawer!
6sally6

Thanks! I already constructed mine pretty much that way except I used pocket holes! I'll post details.

 

[eljay]

Well, here we go......

Design changes: 3
Materials wasted: $75 (because I first planned to used metal flat bars to attach the drawer slides to the workbench legs and bought them and drilled them and abandoned that option)
Trips to stores: 8+
New tools acquired: 2 (Kreg Rip-Cut, Kreg 320 Pocket Hole Jig)
Experience gained: priceless (sort of, because it did cost me two weeks - not daily - and ~$250)

The details:
1/2" soft plywood for sides, front, back and bottoms
3/4" hard plywood for drawer support (affixed to the workbench legs) and drawer fronts
1" aluminum U-channel for drawer pulls/handles
20" ball-bearing slides

And the process pictures:
Feeling groovy...

Getting more messy, but we have grooves and pocket holes ready!

Test fit

They are in!

And the fronts to hide the crooked boxes... haha

Now the handles/pulls

And the final reveal!
Wait.... first the BEFORE picture

And my masterpiece:

This is not the last word in precision engineering, but since I am not NASA sending a mission to Mars, it turned out quite well for a couple of sawhorses and a circular saw. The main thing is that the drawers open/close smoothly.

Besides woodworking, some other things I've learned:
- You can fit four 2x8' sheets of 1/2" plywood into Audi Allroad and easily close the hatch and drive home!

- it's hard to calibrate drawers being level when these items are all over the place: garage floor, workbench top, workbench bottom brace.
- now, this one maybe inflamatory around here, but imperial system vs metric... wow, don't get me started!

Alright. Let me know what you think guys! And THANK YOU for the pointers and patience with dumb questions.

P.S. Originally, I was planning to paint the drawer front grey, but now I like how the plywood matches the top. So, I think I should just put a coat of clear sealer on it to keep the dirt off. Thoughts?

 

[strutaeng]

For future projects, you may want to look into "Baltic Birch" plywood. It has many more layer laminations and has few to no voids. It does come into rather odd sizes of 5'x5' (it's European!) Rockler, woodcraft, etc. have smaller sizes for...Baltic birch plywood drawers are nice even if it just simple lock-rabbet drawer detail.

As far as finishing the drawers, just use any waterborne clear.

Do not use oil-polyurethane because they are supposed to smell rancid? I did this once for a set that I built that my brother has. Don't remember if that is actually a problem or not? But that's what they say in the literature.

 

[manwithtools]

For future projects, you may want to look into "Baltic Birch" plywood. It has many more layer laminations and has few to no voids. It does come into rather odd sizes of 5'x5' (it's European!) Rockler, woodcraft, etc. have smaller sizes for...Baltic birch plywood drawers are nice even if it just simple lock-rabbet drawer detail.

As far as finishing the drawers, just use any waterborne clear.

Do not use oil-polyurethane because they are supposed to smell rancid? I did this once for a set that I built that my brother has. Don't remember if that is actually a problem or not? But that's what they say in the literature.

Baltic Birch is also available in 4 x 8 and 4 x 10 sheets as well. You can get it prefinished and can even buy premade drawer side stock, grove for the bottom and a rounded top edge. Go to a dedicated plywood distributor or high end lumberyard for the variety I describe.

 

[eljay]

For future projects, you may want to look into "Baltic Birch" plywood. It has many more layer laminations and has few to no voids. It does come into rather odd sizes of 5'x5' (it's European!) Rockler, woodcraft, etc. have smaller sizes for...Baltic birch plywood drawers are nice even if it just simple lock-rabbet drawer detail.

As far as finishing the drawers, just use any waterborne clear.

Do not use oil-polyurethane because they are supposed to smell rancid? I did this once for a set that I built that my brother has. Don't remember if that is actually a problem or not? But that's what they say in the literature.

Thanks.
Yes, I wasn't thinking about plywood type when I bought the 1/2" for the drawers. I wish I did. But for this purpose, it should suffice and, hopefully, they will last a bit.
This is the 3/4" I used: https://kent.ca/34-x-4-x-8-shopgrade-birch-plywood1016131

For finish, I was going with this: https://www.homedepot.ca/product/va...r-based-in-semi-gloss-clear-236-ml/1000111887
Not sure how much I'll need for the just the fronts.

 

[eljay]

Baltic Birch is also available in 4 x 8 and 4 x 10 sheets as well. You can get it prefinished and can even buy premade drawer side stock, grove for the bottom and a rounded top edge. Go to a dedicated plywood distributor or high end lumberyard for the variety I describe.

I did see some nice wood in my store travels, but wanted to keep this a low cost as much as possible. Otherwise this was climbing to the point where I would have just bought a metal tool chest of suitable size and put it under the workbench. The other reason is that I didn't want to get fancy materials for my first try.

 

[strutaeng]

Thanks.
Yes, I wasn't thinking about plywood type when I bought the 1/2" for the drawers. I wish I did. But for this purpose, it should suffice and, hopefully, they will last a bit.
This is the 3/4" I used: https://kent.ca/34-x-4-x-8-shopgrade-birch-plywood1016131

For finish, I was going with this: https://www.homedepot.ca/product/va...r-based-in-semi-gloss-clear-236-ml/1000111887
Not sure how much I'll need for the just the fronts.

Shop Grade Birch is fine.

So is the Varathane. It's likely an acrylic, which is good. Give it a coat and let dry and then do a light sanding with 150-180 grit. Waterbornes "raise the grain" and the sanding knocks it down. Only happens on the first coat. Add another coat or two and it will be really smooth. A very light sanding between coats knocks down any imperfection and ensures good adhesion. Waterbornes also dry really fast, so you can do all coats in a day.

I've had good luck with a regular paintbrush like Wooster or Purdy for these types of finishes. Just work quickly and use light coats.