Drawer Thickness

[Scott Halverson]

Good Morning,

I'm looking for some expert advice on drawer construction. I am building four drawers. The dimensions are as follows:

16-1/2" wide, 19" long, and 6-1/2" high.

I am making the drawer sides out of red oak. I have resawn some red oak and glued two piecs together to come up with the 6-1/2" height. My goal was to have them 1/2" thick, but I cheated and cut them a little thinner.

By the time I run them through my drum sander I'm coming up with a finish thickness of about 5/16".

Do you think I will be able to get away with this thickness?

I plan to just rabbet the four corners, and cut a 1/4" groove for the oak plywood bottom.

Thanks,

Scott

[Jamie Buxton]

That's pretty skimpy, especially in the corners. Rabbetting the corners generally involves driving nails. They're likely to split oak which is only 5/16 thick. Dovetails or finger joints would be better.

[glenn bradley]

At that width and height someone could put something substantial in that drawer. I would consider 5/16 too thin unless the drawer is just to look at. Even then, finger joints at the corners would almost be a must for strength to survive the stress on the corners from being pulled out and pushed in.

You could save your 5/16" panels for another project(?).

[Scott Halverson]

Thanks guys. I forgot to mention the drawers will be for dvd's and cd's.

[Al Navas]

...16-1/2" wide, 19" long, and 6-1/2" high.

...By the time I run them through my drum sander I'm coming up with a finish thickness of about 5/16"....
By no means am I an expert, but I can provide some suggestions ;) .

As already mentioned, 5/16" will be on the thin side.

However, you may do well to reinforce with either dowels, or with small brass rod driven and glued in holes drilled in the corners. The idea is to reinforce the rabbet joint. I suggest three dowels or rods in each corner.

What will be the contents of the drawer? If heavy stuff, the thickness will be quite marginal, as the bottom may tend to want to push and break the thin wall you will have when you put in the 1/4-inch dados for the bottoms.

I would look at it this way:
a) For a non-critical application, you can always redo the drawers if they fail.
b) For a critical application, such as for a client or a spouse, I would redo the drawer(s).


.

[Harley Lewis]

Dove tail the joints and there will be no problem.

As noted above there is not enough material for a rabbit joint. Perhaps a person might get buy using a pin nailer and good glue, but it is a risk. For sure use euro style drawer slides that supports the bottom of two drawer sides.