Part 1 of 3:
Lee Valley makes and sells an aluminum extrusion that functions as both the sides and slides for drawers. See:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...50,43298,43315
Recently I made a couple of drawer units where each unit holds six drawers and the drawers are made utilizing these sides/slides.
One buys these sides/slides as 3 foot long sections of aluminum formed as shown below:
K1's drawer unit -00 -Veritas Micro Drawer Side-Slide -small.JPG
The drawer bottoms slide into grove on the left bottom of the picture and the protrusion on the right bottom slides along a groove that is cut into the case using a “regular” table or circular saw blade.
Following is a picture essay covering drawer construction using these things.
01) The aluminum is cut to the desired length for the drawer sides. In my case, this was 30 centimetres (a little less than a foot) and this allowed me to get three sides out of one piece with very little waste.
K1's drawer unit -01 -Cutting the aluminum sides -small.JPG
02) Four holes were drilled into each of the 24 drawer sides using a #4 (Imperial) non-ferrous metal countersink bit from Lee Valley (catalogue number: 66J40.04).
K1's drawer unit -02 -Drilling holes into the aluminum sides.JPG
03) Twenty four drawer fronts and backs, each 350 mm by 95 mm (a little less than 14 inches by 4 inches) were cut out of 12 mm (a little less than 1/2 inch) baltic birch. The stop on my new JessEm miter gauge came in very handy for this and, as shown in the photo below, it also made removing small triangles from each of the bottom corners a breeze.
K1's drawer unit -03 -Cutting small corners off the drawer fronts and backs -small.JPG
04) As shown in the picture to below, the fronts and backs were attached to the sides using #4 5/8 inch flat head screws with a #0 Robertson (non-power) screw driver. Before they were attached, the backs and fronts had been painted with two coats of flat black Tremclad paint.
K1's drawer unit -04 -Screwing on a drawer side -small.JPG
