NK Style drawers

[Tom Jones III]

There was a drawer building question recently and there have been others in the past. Unfortunately there are not a lot of good web pages on how to make NK style drawers (or at least I have been unable to find them). I was asked how I make them, and I just happened to be finishing a project in which I made 21 of them!

The main benefit of NK style drawers are the ease of fitting the drawers. You make a sled consisting of rails and a plywood bottom that you custom fit to the carcase. You then have a very small piece to hand plane to fit. You can also see exactly where the sled is binding and needs work. Although ease of fitting the drawers makes this drawer construction method worthwhile by itself, I also find this method to be faster and easier than any other style I've seen.

The first picture shows all the parts used to make the sled. The rails are 3/4" wide by 1/2" tall. There is a rabbet cut into them that is exactly as deep as the plywood is thick.

The width of the rabbet is determined by the thickness of your drawer sides. You want half of your drawer side to sit on the rail and half to sit on the plywood. For 1/2" thick drawer sides, you would leave 1/4" of the rail not rabbetted.

I usually make the rails out of whatever long stock I have laying around and then cut the pieces into whatever lengths I want. I try to always have some on hand so that I only have to make the rails once in a while.

Once the rails are complete lay them into the carcase as shown. Measure now to determine the size to cut your plywood that will form the bottom of your drawer. Some people like to make this measurement a hair too big, I prefer to try and get the measurement exact.

[Tom Jones III]

Lay the plywood bottom onto the rails as shown. If the plywood is a little too small, apply glue to the rails, lay the plywood on the rails and move the rails to the edge of the carcase, then clamp as shown.

If you have cut the plywood a little too big then you will have to clamp outside the carcase.

Once the glue is dry use a hand plane to make the sled glide smoothly in and out of the carcase. Spend a lot of time here because it is this step that will determine how well your drawers work.

[Tom Jones III]

Now you are ready to build the sides, front and back of your drawer. Build this any way you like, I used dovetails on this project. Measure from the top of the sled to determine the height of your drawers. Make the width just a little smaller than the width of the sled, that way your drawers will not rub on the side of the carcase and there will be no fiddling with it to make the drawer glide smoothly, you have already done this when you hand planed the sled.

Once I have the four sides (sides, front and back) of the drawer cut out and ready I apply the glue and then immediately glue it on top of the sled.

I dont' have any pictures of this step but the pictures of the finished drawers should suffice.

[Tom Jones III]

Here are the final pictures. The back is not on the unfinished carcase yet and you are looking at the back of the drawers.

The original article about NK style drawers indicated that I should cut a slot in the drawer front and that the plywood bottom should fit into the slot. I did not do this because I was making false front drawers. Even when I do not use false fronts this seemed like too much effort for very little benefit.

The close up picture also displays the relationship between the width of the rabbet in the rails and the thickness of the drawer sides.

[Mike Wenzloff]

HI Tom--good pictoral and explanation of the NK style for drawers. I do them once in a while, though not all the time. I would agree it is one of the fastest to get nice fitting drawers.

Thanks for all the pictures.

Take care, Mike

[Bob Childress]

Tom,

Good explanation, thanks for sharing! I'll be making some of those soon, so your tips will come in handy. :)

[Roy Wall]

Thanks TOM!

Cut n pasted..........

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Tom, is this the bottom of the drawer?
Is there no dado with a bottim slid in place?
If so, how sturdy is the bond between the drawer carcase and the bottom in the front and back of the drawer?

[glenn bradley]

Tom, thanks very much for the thread. I was beginning to think I'd have to buy a book or take a wild guess as to this technique. Thanks again!

[Tom Jones III]

Yes, this plywood is the bottom of the drawer. You assemble the sides, front and back to make a box with no bottom and no top. Then take this box and set it down on top of the sled. In the past I used glue, this time I used glue then put a few brad nails so that I wouldn't have to use 4 clamps X 21 drawers.

The first time I made these drawers I cut a slot in the drawer front. The plywood stuck out from the front of the rails 1/4" and fit into the slot on the drawer front. I didn't think that it added much or any strength and it certainly added a lot more work to keep everything lined up nicely. I believe that if you loaded up my widest drawer (34"X15.5") with lead bricks and held it up by the drawer sides, then the plywood bottom would fail long before the drawer carcase came unglued from the bottom sled.

FYI, I first learned about NK style drawers from Taunton's book on making Chests of Drawers. FWW has a good article in pdf format on their pay site.

[Gary Sostrin]

I was just looking for info on this. Our local librarys stopped carying fine woodworking a number of years ago. Thank you again for providing this info.

Gary

[Mike Null]

Thanks very much for sharing. I had read the FWW thing quite a long time ago and had forgotten it. It's a sensible concept.

[John Stevens]

FWW has a good article in pdf format on their pay site.

Tom, I read the FWW article some time ago, but I think your pics and explanation are better.

I also appreciate your advice about not using a slot to join the front and bottom. That was the step that made me decide not to even try the NK method, because it seemed to just shift the labor component from one aspect of the drawer-making process to another (as compared to the traditional way of making and fitting a drawer).

I have no problem believing it when you say that joining the bottom and front with a slot doesn't add any useful strength to the drawer. I find that simple "side by side" joints with plywood and PVA glue are extremely strong as long as they're clamped tightly during glue-up. I suspect that most woodworkers underestimate the strength of that type of joint--I did until I tried to break apart a "side by side" joint made with 3/4" ply by standing it. I couldn't even get it to creak.