Shop Drawers.....what is your favorite method of joinery??

[George Farra]

Hi All,

I am making some shop cabinets for storage and will be fitting drawers into them. I am using prefinished plywood to make the drawers which will ride on full extension slides. Cabinets are 3/4" ply with face frames......pocket screw and glue assembly.

What is your favorite method of milling/joining draws for shop use? I have many of the typical shop tools...TS, RT, handheld router, dovetail jig.

I'm looking for something that doesn't involve tedious setup but will provide a joint that will hold up to life in the workshop. My gut tells me to either buy a draw lock bit for the router or use the TS to create the same type of locking joint.

I'm using 1/2" plywood for the drawers. Thoughts??

TIA

George

[George Farra]

oh, oh, oh........silly question.....I can use pocket screw joinery for the draws, cant I??

George

[Jim Dwight]

I built 13 drawers for a new cabinet in my shop mainly out of 3/4 BCX plywood using pocket screws. It isn't really my favorite but I wanted to get them done quickly and cheaply. I have lots of other drawers I used 1/2 plywood for that are dovetailed front and back. That is probably my favorite way to do it. Doesn't take long once the jig is set up and definitely hold up. I back-cut plywood to minimize splintering.

[Jerry Miner]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of drawer lock bits on plywood drawer boxes---they leave a fragile bit of short grain that splits off easily.

I've built hundreds of drawers with 1/2" ply, butt joints, glue, and 18 ga. pins. No failures yet (30 years and counting. Could still happen, I guess).

Sides run long. Front and back fit in-between. Bottom fits in a groove, stapled to all four sides from underneath.

[George Farra]

Thanks Guys,

I originally thought about butt joints but the plywood is prefinished, so I would need to mill off a smidge from each mating part to make the joint effective. Hence why I hesitated. But as I think of it, I would have this issue with any joint other than something where the parts interlock with each other for a good glue joint

[Jeffrey Martel]

Probably a locking rabbet joint. Easy to set up and you can cut them very fast.

[Jason Beam]

For almost all my shop stuff, i use pocket screws and no glue so i can disassemble everything and reuse the materials easier. My shop evolves too much to make things too permanent. I have 10+ year old drawers with pocket holes doing just fine.

[John M Wilson]

Just got done making some drawers for a shop cabinet -- used a locking rabbet for the fronts (and the bottom of the big drawer) and I was quite surprised at how quickly the setup went & how well the joints fit with very little fiddling. The added glue surface made them very stable & strong.

[John TenEyck]

I would think about milling a small rabbet on the sides where the front and back pieces will fit, to get rid of the finish. That would allow you to use a simple butt joint, which you could glue and brad nail. A step up from brads would be to use dowels, with the holes drilled after the glue has dried, then glue in the dowels and trim flush. Looks very nice, too. Also, I would glue in the bottom.

John

[Randy Red Bemont]

I dovetail all drawers front and back weather for furniture or utility. Once you get the jig set up the dovetails go fairly quick and are strong!!

Red

[Peter Quinn]

Locking rabbit and a couple of brads. Pocket screw drawers seem like a good idea until you go to assembly, and you have no mechanic reference, and a little glue makes everything slide around, and the screws torque things just slightly out of alignment. Locking rabbits are quick and strong, works well in prefinished plywood, I did my kitchen that way!

[mark kosse]

I have shop cabinets my grandfather built in in the 40's.(possibly 30's) Butt joints, finish nails and probably hide glue. Still work perfect. I see no reason to change.

[Jim Dwight]

Pocket screws don't slide if you clamp them before putting the screws in. Locking pliers made for pocket screw joints assembly make clamping quick and easy.

I built a bunch of furniture that we used for literally decades with through screws and glue. I plugged the holes but on a utility cabinet you don't even have to use plugs. I think pocket screws have less tendency to split plywood, however.

[Myk Rian]

Probably a locking rabbet joint. Easy to set up and you can cut them very fast.
This!!! Easy to do, and strong.

[Jim Becker]

I use 1/2" material with butt joints, glue and trim-head screws. I use the same technique for the drawers I put in my tack trunks. Strong. Sturdy. Effective. And with careful planning minimal visual evidence of the joinery method.

[George Farra]

thanks everyone for your input. I am going to give pocket screws a shot on 1 cabinet and a locking rabbet on another and see which works better for me. I plan to glue the bottom in place for added strength.

Regards

George

[Jack Lemley]

But joints, glue and Festool Domino loose tenon joinery. Fast, accurate, and very sturdy. I use 3/4" ply for sides and 1/2" ply for bottoms.

Jack

[John Lankers]

Why not box joints on the table saw and 1/4" plywood bottoms in grooves. I'm not sure if the plywood would stay together when you attack it with a dovetail bit, can get dicey. I like pocket screws but I don't want to see them :D.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I used pocket hole screws because I am setup for it and it is very fast and sturdy.
I was using 1/2" plywood that I had just sitting around and it was not very good ply (sadly, given what I paid for it.... should have returned it).

[Bob Grier]

I have only used Locking Drawer Glue Joint bit for drawers so don't have much experience with other methods. The first few times using locking drawer glue joint, I found setup could be trying but once I figured out a few things, it started going much faster. I mostly use 1/2" plywood or solid wood sides and 1/4" plywood plywood in miter slot for bottoms. I use the router table and do all sides at one time and all fronts and backs at one time. Very quick and a little tearout in plywood. I use a backer board jig behind the part being milled. The backer board becomes 0 clearance after first cut. Gluing drawer square has nearly always been difficult for me. I currently attach a couple boards to the work bench at right angle and then use clamps to pull the drawer into 90 degree corner created by the 2 boards so I get the drawer clamped at right angle rather quickly. I sometimes wonder if table saw rabbit joint would make square glue up easier. After a little less than an hour I pull the drawer out of the clamps and do the next.

I mostly use a bit similar to Whiteside 3347 but mine is different manufacturer ( I don't recall) and I have another larger diameter bit that does the same thing. I don't use it as often.

Seems to me that work effort would be about same as table saw rabbit except setup would be easier with table saw and as mentioned, maybe glue up too. However, if doing a series of drawers, I don't see that the setup would be much time impact and because I like the looks of the locking drawer joint, I use it. Of course I like looks of dovetail but I also like speed of just pushing end of board past cutter and being done. I don't care so much for looks of nails and screws in drawers.

I answered your question about what I use for a joint and I added why I use it. I am not trying to advocate for it but included my reasons for using it, mostly personal choices.

[Tom Ewell]

My go to joint,
315912
built my kitchen over 30 years ago using this joint for drawers. I've replaced hinges and slides since but the drawer construction still shows tight.
All of my shop drawers use the same construction.
Simple and fast on table saw or router table, works well with 1/2" ply (decent stuff)



Could also go with a drawer lock router setup, haven't tried it on ply but pretty good with solid sides. Need to setup a tall vertical fence tho.
315913
315914

Can also work the drawer lock for a real front face without using a falsie (the Freud bit does the same)
315915

[glenn bradley]

oh, oh, oh........silly question.....I can use pocket screw joinery for the draws, cant I??

George

My usual favorite is a drawer-lock joint.

315916

Having been short on time for the last couple of fixtures, I did pocket-holes.

315918

False fronts hide the pockets.

315919

I felt good about this for the shop as we used pocket-holed drawer boxes on a bandsaw stand for dad and it has seen years of daily use without problems.

[Kent A Bathurst]

fast, cheap, and easy: butt joints with 3/8" x 1-1/2" dowels glued in place.

All 1/2" BORG ply, with ply bottoms using glue and airgun finish nails.

[Martin Wasner]

I usually use scraps of ¾" plywood and just rabbet them together and dado in the bottoms. Nothing fancy, quick and cheap to build. I usually just use KV8400's on them