How can an imbecile like me make decent drawers?

[Scott Winners]

I have a full time day job, OT coming out my ears. I want to build a saw till, an upgrade to my plywood and drywall screw monstrosity. I have some longer saws and some shorter saws. In my existing till I have an opening under the shorter saws, the opening is nominal 4.5" tall, 16" wide and 11" deep.

I want to put two drawers in that space when I upgrade the till. One drawer will be the router plane crate from Lee Valley I already have on hand - with a face on it, the other drawer is going to hold my saw sharpening stuff, files and guide and set tool and etc. Yes, I am going to have to trim some height off the LV router plane caddy and live without the plexiglass top. I can make it fit.

When I look at you guys building drawers in all manner of things I just sit down on the sand like a Labrador Retriever on the beach watching a greyhound disappear in the distance. I don't have the skills to run with the average here.

What is the bare minimum joinery I need to make a drawer say 4.5 tall x 7" wide x 11" deep, load it up with saw files and expect it to last long enough for me to get my game on to make drawers like y'all are making everytime I log on here? Halfblind mitered quasar Einstein dovetails are not on my short list of things to learn how to do. Saw sharpening files are items I add to my LV orders routinely to qualify for free shipping, I should start buying little sharpening stuff for other tools.

No metal. The till is going to be American Beech that has been seasoning on the floor of my home office, stickered, for greater than one year and it has to go to work. I am going to use the same material, American Beech, for sliders or runners on the bottoms of the drawer sides so I have like scraping on like. I don't care two hoots what wood I use for the drawer bodies, pine, oak, hickory, poplar, whatever. I have one piece of figured Beech 4.875 wide I want to use for the drawer fronts and tote rails, but I only have enough length to make the saw tool drawer front twice.

Thanks in advance. I can cut regular dovetails kinda OK, don't own a plow plane. EDIT: I do have the optional fence for my router plane.

[Scott Winners]

I did weigh the stuff I want to put in the drawer. I have plenty of files for saws 4-12 tpi. When I put backsaws in my vise with raking light at 14-20 tpi I just don't have it. I will be sending the saws with more than 12 tpi out to younger people with better eyesight than me for sharpening. Need to fit five pounds in this drawer, roughly 2.5 kilograms.

[Ben Ellenberger]

You can always rabbet and nail the drawers together. Here’s an article with some examples: https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/tag/drawer-construction/ I often make the back of drawers using a dado for joinery, so the sides stick out an inch or so past the back. Then when you pull the drawer out to get at something in very back, the sides are still in the case and the drawer doesn’t fall out. I think that’s the design Paul Sellers uses in these videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIdutuqiOGw

you can use the router plane to make the groove for the bottom, or just chop it out with a chisel. A plow plane is definitely faster and easier, but not necessary.

[Ben Ellenberger]

Also, you can make a drawer that is through dovetailed at each corner. Your grooves for the bottom will show as holes in the tails on the face of the drawer, so you can just glue little plugs in to fill the gap. If you pick your grain direction on the plugs right, they basically disappear. Here’s a chest I made that way.

451586

[Jim Koepke]

What is the bare minimum joinery I need to make a drawer say 4.5 tall x 7" wide x 11" deep, load it up with saw files and expect it to last long enough for me to get my game on to make drawers like y'all are making everytime I log on here?

If you are just making drawers you plan on remaking in a few more years, Ben's suggestion of rabbet corners nailed would likely be fine.

If you want something longer lived that won't have to be rebuilt then you might want to go ahead with a couple of dovetails at each corner.

This one with through dovetails:

451588

Has been holding together fine for over seven years and it was never glued.

For holding the bottom in the drawer you might check out Derek Cohen's site > www.inthewoodshop.com < for some of his drawer builds. He uses slips instead of plowing groves in the front and side boards. It wouldn't be difficult to make slips using a rabbet plane and some glue.

A drawer is a box by another name. Here is a box build of mine with an emphasis on cutting the dovetails > https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?259750

And another > https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?286634

One thing to remember when making dovetails is things need to be square. The sides of the box or drawer need to be square on all six sides. The mating sides of the tails need to be square to the face of the stock. The end of the stock needs to be square to the face so that one can make sure the faces of the pin are square to the end. The squareness of one face ensures the squareness of the next.

Be square or they won't be there.

jtk

[Phil Mueller]

Scott, for a quick utilitarian drawer, there is nothing wrong with just butt joints glued and screwed. Or if you own a pin nailer, glued and nailed. Front/sides and back can all be joined this way. If you use plywood for the bottom, it can be glued/screwed as well. If you use solid wood for the bottom, grain should run side to side and you can screw it (not glued) to the sides and front. Holes in the bottom for the middle and back screws should be elongated to allow for expansion/contraction.

If you don’t want to look at screws holding the front to the sides, just glue a thin “false front” over the screwed front.

[Matthew Hills]

I just wanted to jump in here to say that I appreciated the dog analogy.

I'd recommend through dovetails as a viable option for both fun and function. Do a practice one and then go for it. Shop furniture is perfect place to get experience with new techniques and, for functionality, through dovetails are as forgiving as a lab. (see what I did there?)

It does help to have stable and square lumber. Chasing twist is really annoying for drawers.

Have fun!

[Thomas Wilson]

I use a dovetail jig. It gives a fast, strong joint. There are some techniques in using the jig to make it fit just right. I can put together some of mine with photos when I a get back to the shop later this week. There is some aversion to the jig so I won’t put in the effort without some interest.

[lowell holmes]

I would make the drawer box using 1/2" plywood with a 3/8" bottom. I would put a 3/4" solid wood front on it, I would paint the draw box as well. Having a thickness planer, I make my own drawer sides, but you may find it at a local lumber yard.

Make a practice drawer first. In a previous life, I was a home builder.
Just a thought.

Also see this, https://www.google.com/search?q=drawer+stock+lumber&oq=drawer&aqs=chrome.0.0i67j69i57j0i67i457j0i67j0i67i433j0i2 0i263j0i67i433j0i67.10329j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Bruce King]

The 1/4 - 1/4 system looks really easy. One saw setup does all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z3pMyNPfi0

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Step 1: Decide how fancy you want it to be.

It has already been stated that you can simply glue and screw.

Note, I have some bottoms that are simply glued in place on the bottom, but, there is not much wood movement on those.

I usually cut the groove for my drawer bottoms on the table saw. I don't even usually use a dado blade for that, just a flat topped blade.

I have seen lots of drawers where a strip of wood is glued around the perimeter of the draw and then the bottom sits on that. The long grain glue joint is pretty sturdy. You can then drop your bottom on to that. That bottom can either be glued or screwed onto that strip of wood glued in place.

If you want an easier through dovetail for your fronts, you can always screw a front face onto the front of the drawer. This is especially nice when you do not have inset drawers, but you could do it with those as well. This will hide the through dovetails (or box joints, or whatever) from the front until you pull out the drawer. Most of my drawers are done this way.

Even a sloppy dovetail is usually pretty strong, just make sure that you put the pins on the front and back and the tails on the sides; so that the geometry can add to the strength. I did that wrong on a case frame that I built. I was sad, but it is holding together just fine; so still pretty strong. Get it wrong on a drawer, you stress the joint every time you open the drawer.

The question really, is, what part of the joint or construction do you feel will be the most problematic with our skill set and tools?

[Scott Winners]

I use a dovetail jig. It gives a fast, strong joint. There are some techniques in using the jig to make it fit just right. I can put together some of mine with photos when I a get back to the shop later this week. There is some aversion to the jig so I won’t put in the effort without some interest.

Appreciate the offer, I will pass personally but don't want to stand in the way of other interested parties. I will use through dovetails, make the strongest bottom I can manage with the tools and skill I have - and then test run it for a while with a sacrificial weight in it before I risk all my saw files dropping to the floor through a failed bottom.

Thanks for the input to all.

[Joe A Faulkner]

For a 7”wide drawer, I don’t know why you need any more than 1/4” thick drawer bottoms. If you are up for through dove tails then let me encourage you to go ahead and use this project as an exercise in half blind dove tails for the drawer fronts. They really are not that hard, and the joinery only shows when the drawer is open. If I can do it, you can do it. You are only talking 3 or 4 tails per side. My initial thought was to recommend rebate or rabbet joints but then you wind up with false drawer fronts which reduces the interior dimension of the drawer.

[Thomas Wilson]

Appreciate the offer, I will pass personally but don't want to stand in the way of other interested parties. I will use through dovetails, make the strongest bottom I can manage with the tools and skill I have - and then test run it for a while with a sacrificial weight in it before I risk all my saw files dropping to the floor through a failed bottom.

Thanks for the input to all.
You can use a Barron magnetic dovetail saw guide. It improved my sawing. I got passable accuracy in 1 1/2” stock for a saw bench on the first try. My saw accuracy freehand is not very good.

[Jim Koepke]

You can use a Barron magnetic dovetail saw guide. It improved my sawing. I got passable accuracy in 1 1/2” stock for a saw bench on the first try. My saw accuracy freehand is not very good.

My freehand sawing accuracy was also atrocious at one time. It took practice to achieve improvement.

Part of the practice was from sharpening my own saws. Making sure they were sharpened well required testing. Testing became practice cuts to analyze any errors in tracking.

This became a challenge to myself. Lines would be marked at ~3/16" spacing across the end of a piece for a rip saw. After sawing these a cut would be made between two kerfs without any marking. This helped me to "saw to the line."

For a while any piece of scrap 1X4 was used to practice cutting dovetails. The joint was then cut off, labeled with a date and tossed into a box. By the time a few dollars worth of fir was turned into firewood, careful examination and analyzing the joints helped me to see the causes of my errors.

Something noticed on every project with dovetails was after the joints were cut it became obvious the last one cut looked much better than the first one cut.

Now before making any dovetails a few practice pieces are undertaken. This provides a 'warm up' before the job, it also helps to see if the spacing looks good.

Rob Luter recently posted "The Journey." Part of my journey is to sometimes with only a few minutes of shop time available is to make some practice cuts. In the long run it has paid off in an ability to produce much better fitting joinery.

jtk

[Jim Matthews]

With an overlay, a good looking drawer need not take hours. Once it's done, you could use the cabinet while you make replacements.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?288231-Bleached-Alder-desk-for-my-teenage-daughter/page2

Years back, I watched a vidjayo of Gary Knox Bennet describing his drawer making technique of (straight shank) drywall screws and glue to hold rabbeted front drawer faces on. Rear of drawers and drawer bottoms were simple inlet pieces tacked in place - with plywood onna bottom.

It's heretical, sturdy and best of all - it can be refined with careful countersinking to hide fasteners and plywood edges. I use the plywood base and side pieces to dial in the fit in a given opening.

At 1:27 GNB explains his rationale :
"(Dovetails)...it's worthwhile, and it keeps the tradition going - I just can't afford the time."

https://youtu.be/k69YgtS1CD0

I'm experimenting with an interlocking joint as shown by Terry Gordon at 10:30 in the following video.
(Using dado planes)

https://youtu.be/JxOgPAEtUuk