Woodworking is a humbling hobby or how I screwed something up

[Brian Runau]

I try not to go into my shop when I am mentally tired, I like my fingers. I've been pushing to finish a project and screwed up a dimension and I am well downstream at this point.

I have drawer boxes that are too large for the opening. I forgot to deduct the clearance for the guides on some of them. The box fits in the opening, but does not work with the under mount guides it hits the angle on the steel on the side of the guide. I can take a little material off each side on the outside of the of the box so it will clear. They are 5/8" now so I have it to give up on the outside, but my fit for the under mount guides will be off, they will not ride against the side underneath the box. Is there someone way to make this works properly without scrapping everything and starting over? I suppose I could cut a spacer and glue this into the bottom against the side?

Just a piece for my wife and I to use so perfection is not required

Thanks.

Brian

[Lee Schierer]

Depending on how much you need to remove sometimes you can carefully cut one side free from the front and back and re-cut the dovetails or other corner joints.

[Jacob Mac]

How did you join the drawers?

[Brian Runau]

I did one as a test to see if this would work. I jointed about 3/8" total off the sides, did it equally (@3/16") on each side. I opened the daido in the back and added a 3/16" spacer inside the bottom on each side. This gives me the side clearance and supports the guides underneath and lets me have a positive stop for the guide release on the front of the drawer in the corners. Thanks. Briandrawer bottom.jpg

[Tom Bender]

testing post

[Jim Dwight]

The only way not to mess up is not to make anything. We do not still have them but one of the first cabinets I made about 40 years ago tapered from the front to the back. So I cut the drawers in the middle and glued them back together. Crude but we used the cabinet for several decades.

My most recent two dressers have not had a problem with drawer size but my next one could. I discovered today that when I cut the pieces for the legs of a crib I cut the rough pieces to roughly the finish dimension. So when I trimmed a little off the ends they are 1/4 inch short. I can adjust for this but that is a pretty stupid mistake to make at my age. Nobody will notice the crib is 1/4 inch shorter than the plans but it will throw off the slat dimension.

[Terry Wawro]

If it's for your use than I say do whatever it takes to make it work. 4 weeks from now you will not even think about the mods you did.

[Edward Dyas]

Could you live with old fashion wooden drawer guides? These were made with the drawer boxes closely fitting the opening.