Optimal drawer Width

[tim walker]

For my miter station build, is it best to build base cabinets at 30" or 36" and have a single drawer spanning those widths or would you build 24" wide? I also assume the wider may require a bottom of 1/2" vs 1/4". Thoughts or suggestions?

[Paul F Franklin]

It's nice to have at least one drawer that can hold 24" rules and such if it's in a place where they would be handy. I have 30" cabinets under my bench and those drawers have 1/4 plywood bottoms. They are plenty strong but the drawers are only a few inches deep. If you will have deeper drawers that will hold a lot of "stuff" then moving to 3/8 or 1/2 bottoms would be reasonable.

Wider drawers can be more susceptible to racking, depending on what type of slides you will use. If you build the cabinets wider, you could always have 1 or 2 wide drawers and then have a divider with the rest of the drawers 1/2 width.

[Jim Becker]

My opinion is that things should be the width they need to be to provide the required utility. As Paul mentioned, you can increase the strength of wider and deeper drawers by using a stronger bottom...I tend to make drawers for this kind of application out of .5"/12mm plywood and use the same material for the bottom glued inside of the backs and fronts. The glue gives "yuge" strength once cured but you can also add mechanical fasteners if you prefer...I tend to use #7 trim head screws in pre drilled/countersunk holes for that. Having the drawer bottom inset into the drawer body and glued like that deals with squareness and resistance to racking. If undermount slides are used, they can be glued appropriately spaced up from the bottom of the sides/ends. If side mount slides are used, put the drawer bottom flush to the bottom of the drawer.

[Lisa Starr]

I usually figure out what I want to store in the drawer, lay it out on my bench and determine the optimum drawer size. If there will be several drawers in the stack, I do that for each drawer and then reach a consensus for the entire cabinet.