drawer faces w 1/4ply and trim router yes or no

[tom coleman]

I would like to improve the appearance of my garage shop by giving an oak look to about 25 drawers. Most of these drawers are on metal slides and 8 of them have wooden slides......sides of drawer dadoed.. All of these drawers are fairly small

I thought I should be able to attach 1/4 oak ply faces to all of the drawers with contact cement and then clean them up with a Porter Cable 7310 trim router and an appropriate bit. Looks like the metal slides and dados will make this difficult.

Which way to flop? I could buy a sheet of 1/2 inch oak for $65 and make false fronts which I screw on. Or would 3/4 inch be better?

Can I avoid buying the 1/2" or 3/4" oak ply for false fronts and use the numerous 1/4 inch oak ply cutofs in my shop. Perhaps cut the 1/4 ply to exact drawer width and the attempt to butt the drawer facing to the drawer sides at cement application stage. Later trim top and bottom
of drawer front using PC 7310 and trim bit

This 2x4 wood butcher will appreciate suggestions.

[glenn bradley]

There's a lot of possibilities in there so let me say this; I recently made a keyboard shelf for LOML's office. I had a scrap of maple ply left over from something but her rather large unit is that typical California Golden Oak color. I used yellow glue to laminate an oversized piece of 1/8" red oak veneer to the maple. I flush trimmed the 1/8" material to the maple ply with a Bosch Colt, trimmed the ply edges in solid red oak and stained to match..

What I am trying to say I guess is that if you are going to size the material to the existing fronts, I would go thin and save some dough while not altering your dimensions much. If your drawers have spacing issues that have haunted you (I know mine do me until I fix them) then I would go with a thicker false front.

False fronts cure a great many ills in drawer fitting. If you want to use ply you will have a lot of trim to add so factor that effort in versus using solid stock. Solid stock false fronts could be 1/2" from resawn 5/4 material. False fronts do not need to be glued on; I have too many to count out there that are held with two screws and the knob bolt.

A method taught by the late great Danny Proulx (and I hope I don't mess up the explanation) was to drill a slightly oversized knob bolt hole. You then slipped the false front over the bolt and used the knob (tightening down like a clamp) to hold the false front still in various adjusted positions till you were happy and then clamp and drive two washerhead screws in from the back.