flush drawers

[Chris Mehl]

My husband and I are complete amateurs but we seem to take on advanced projects. We just did a tv stand and although it was beyond our abilities it turned out real nice. Now we are building an end table and we want the small drawer 5 x 14 to sit flush with the face frame. We don't even know where to begin. I wanted to order a drawer from a site online, but my husband says no - that we will have to figure it out. Any suggestions?

[Alex Berkovsky]

Chris,
Welcome to the forum! First thing is that we like to see pictures. After you're done reading this, you will post a picture of the TV stand. Otherwise you'll face the wrath of the pic police. :D

Now to your question... are you asking how to build a drawer or how to fit an inset drawer?

[Sam Yerardi]

Hi Chris,

There are numerous ways to approach this. Since this is your first, you could build the drawer first and then build the cabinet around it, or the other way around. Normally I would build the cabinet and then the drawer but I think if you're just starting, it might help a bit to start with the part that will require the most effort - the drawer. If you started with the cabinet first, you now have two tasks - make a drawer and make it the right size to fit which might be difficult if you tackle dovetails, etc.

I would first suggest picking up some books or patterns of very simple drawer/cabinet designs. Rockler has a ton of it as do other woodworking vendors.

One approach that you can take is to make the drawer (since it will be a flush fit) the same size as the opening and not try to make the size reduction initially in the build of the drawer. Christian Becksvoort (see Fine Woodworking - he uses this approach). That way, you can then focus on bringing the drawer front size down to give you a nice small gap all the way around the drawer front.

To help with having the drawer end up in the middle of the opening both horzontally and vertically, I would suggest doing daoes on each drawer side and make the internal rails that the drawer will ride on to be adjustable. That way you can play with it until you get it where you want it.

There are so many ways to build drawers, install them, etc., that it's hard to suggest one approach that's best. I would suggest that you make your first drawers out of pine or poplar for practice.

[Danny Thompson]

I won't say this is the best example in the world, but follow this link to see an example of a drawer I made that sits flush to the frame. It has a plywood drawer with an applied solid wood face; no dovetails:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=74322&highlight=drill+press+table

Another is David Marks's "Contemporary Writing Desk," the plans for which can be found on the DIYNetwork site. It has half-blind dovetails for the front.

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/ww_tables/article/0,2049,DIY_14446_2490624,00.html

[Sam Yerardi]

Chris,

You can also go to Popular Mechanics website and Popular Woodworking's website. They both have some simple end table designs. Arts & Crafts designs are a good beginning point becasue they tend to be simple, usually don't require a lot of handwork, and you end up with beautiful furniture.

[John Thompson]

I will second Sam's suggestion of making the drawer the size of the opening or even a tad larger. You can take it down to fit easy enough.. but you can't build it back up if you come up short without difficulty. A few strokes with a hand plane (and this could be a mnor road-block as you say you and hubby are new to WW) will take it down to size. Been using that method for years on the few flush fit drawers I do.

Same principle as cutting a tenon slightly over-size after you cut the mortise. Easy to take down to size but building back up becomes a major task that the experienced would never have let happen to begin with, IMO.

Good luck...

Sarge..

[Mark Singer]

The Kreg style drawers that I have made are easy and pretty fool proof.

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=15940&highlight=kreg+drawers

[glenn bradley]

Controlling the inset to arrive at flush can be a feature of your slides or of a stop at the rear of the carcase. Plus about a gazillion other methods . .. but, stops; built into the slides or attached to the cabinet, are easiest for me.

[Barry Anderson]

I saw an interesting way of making an inset drawer in a build-it article.

First, the author cut an inch or so off of the bottom of the apron of the side which would have the drawer. Then, he cut the 3 sides of the drawer out of the remaining apron. He used a bandsaw for the side cuts and used a plunge cut with a circular saw on the upper cut with a guide to keep the cut straight. The piece he removed was the front of his drawer. It fit the opening perfectly with the width of the saw curf as the clearance around the drawer. Once he glued the piece he originally removed from the bottom back on, the top/bottom clearance was half the kerf of the upper cut.

The reason he went to this trouble was in the end, the grain was continous across the front of the apron (once re-assembled) and really looked cool!

That seems like a pretty easy way to do it and get those results ... particlarly if you are using figured wood!!

Of course, the easy way would be to make the drawer the same size as the opening and plane it down to the exact clearance you desire. That's what I usually do. But then you don't get the grain match.

Barry in WV

[Chris Mehl]

I will have to post some pictures.

[Matt Campbell]

I'm currently building inset drawers, and I started by cutting the drawer faces slightly too large. From there I used my hand plane to fit it. Plane, check in drawer opening, plane more, check, plane more, check, etc. Now that the face is the correct size, I used 1/2" stock for the sides. I cut half-blind dovetails by hand, and instead of setting my marking gauge to 1/2", I set it to about 7/16". That way I could plane down the sides to ensure a good fit in the opening. I believe this is referred to as a piston-fit drawer.