3 Ways to Build Professional Quality Drawers

when i first started woodworking i remember the  most intimidating thing was building drawers   i thought it was impossible to get them to fit  right and measured correctly but i've learned a   lot of tricks over the years and that's what i'm  going to cover right now i've got three different   styles of drawers on this workbench there's the  wooden slides the side mounted slides and the   under mounted slides these are all great things  to know if you're going to build furniture if   you're going to build shop furniture so let's get  into the details of how these drawers were made i'm going to start off building the top three  drawers which are the ones that are going to use   the wooden drawer slides i've chosen wooden drawer  slides for a few different reasons i like that   they're removable it's really easy to just pull  them in and out so that ashley can use them for   storing parts and then she can set them on top  of the workbench it's also a great option if you   just don't want to go out and buy drawer slides  these can be made out of the same material as   the drawer itself and it's super handy and super  affordable i'm going to start off by measuring   everything out i like to do little drawings inside  of my sketchbook so i can track exactly where all   the measurements are that i have in my head and uh  and i'm going to lay out all the different spacing   i have two inches is the depth that i want in my  drawer i'm gonna have a quarter inch bottom and   then three quarter inches for the runners so i add  all of that up and then i also drew a drawing of   the the drawer itself and um and the joinery  just little details really all i'm trying to get   is a cut list so that i know exactly how many  pieces that i need to cut and what thickness   over the table saw i can set up my depth of  cut in this case it's going to be two inches   these are going to make up the sides  back in front of all the drawers so i don't have a stop block on my chop saw i  know this is barbaric but what i do is i just   screw a block of wood down to my table top it  works for now i think down the road i'll probably   install some t-track or something this  first setup is to cut the sides of the   drawers and then i'm going to use those drawer  sides to measure out for the drawer faces the drawer sides are made out of half inch plywood  and i'm going to be cutting a quarter inch rabbet   into each one so with that quarter inch rabbet  doubled it equals half an inch so i can use that   half inch plywood to measure my mark for the  faces and the backs once i cut that mark i   want to cut it a little bit small because  i want to have some play inside the cabinet   so that the drawer box doesn't bind this will  make a lot more sense once it's assembled   but for now i've got the fronts all cut and it's  time to set up to make that rabbit a rabbit is   just a fancy term for a notch at the end of your  work piece and all i want is to remove a half an   inch which is the thickness of my plywood and  have that at the depth of a quarter inch so i'm   just setting this up on my my cross cut sled  it's really easy to do this with a stop block   i'll i'll make the first cut and then  i'll just hog out the rest of the material you may have noticed that i was  cutting the initial rabbet on a piece of scrap   it was intentional i actually made two scrap  cuts and tested the fit just to make sure that   everything's lining up properly make sure that  my blade's at the correct depth and that i have   enough of a gap on the sides of the drawer  to to make sure it'll run smoothly once i've   confirmed that i can go through the six sides  of the three drawers and cut out all my rabbets   i've only cut these rabbets on one edge because  this will be the face for the back i want to inset   that rabbet which an inset rabbit is called a dado  and i'm going to be using another stop block plus   a scrap piece of plywood so that i have the exact  thickness of the plywood now if i slid it over and   cut it exactly against the stop block i would add  an eighth of an inch from my saw blade so i offset   that with an eighth inch spacer and then that  should give me the exact same width as my plywood   the reason i'm going to the trouble of insetting  this as opposed to putting a rabbet on the other   side is that there's no physical stop  in this drawer i want it to be removable   but there's no stop so if you were  to pull the drawer all the way out   and you get to the end of the drawer you'd  probably just dump things on the floor by   setting it in by three inches it gives you  three inches worth of space to just make sure   you can access all the contents but you don't  accidentally pull the drawer all the way out so now i can dry fit the drawer and make sure  everything looks right and measure out for   the drawer bottom i'm making the bottom out of  quarter inch plywood these are just going to be   glued directly onto the base and for that i just  need to cut them exactly the same width and depth   as the size of the drawer since this is a two inch  deep drawer it's not going to take a lot of weight   and i'm not too concerned about this as we get  into other drawer construction options further   on in this video i'm going to show you how to do a  captured bottom that will be quite a bit stronger   so if you're going to have a lot of weight in  your drawer this might not be the best method if you don't have a brad nailer in your shop  that's fine you can glue and clamp this i do   recommend reinforcing the base with nails  or screws just because i think over time   especially with cheaper plywoods the quarter inch  can kind of pull apart you totally don't need an   air compressor in order to build drawers  it just speeds things up to deal with the   squeeze out inside the drawer i like to just use a  regular drinking straw and pick up the excess glue   while i wait for the drawers to dry i can start  making the runners and i'm going to be making   these out of three quarter inch plywood this is  baltic birch plywood if you're using a lower grade   plywood you may want to make this actually out of  hard wood i'm going to be pre-drilling the holes   to attach it to the cabinet and i'm drilling  through the plies so this will help to strengthen   that plywood prevent it from delaminating over  time i can then flip the cabinet upside down and   insert the first drawer so this will eventually  be the top drawer i use handy shims which   you guys know that i love these are the 16th  inch handy shims and they just give you enough   space so that the the drawer has room to move  i use those pre-drilled holes to connect the   runners to the sides of the cabinet and then i  can repeat the process for the rest of the drawers with the drawers fully installed you  can now see how that false back works   it allows me to fully extend the drawer without  pulling it all the way out of the cabinet   so the first three drawers are done and they're  working great they still need drawer fronts but   before i do that i want to build the lower drawers  these three drawers are gonna take a little more   weight and they also don't need to be removable  so for them i'm gonna use metal drawer slides   this is the type of drawer slide that you  can find in pretty much any big box store   these i purchased the soft clothes variety so  the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going   to stack both of them against each other  and i'm going to measure out the width   and measure out the height and again i'm  going to go back to my sketchbook and make   some drawings the purpose of this drawing is to  make sure that i have all the spacing correctly   so i i can figure out what drawers go and where so  essentially i just divide up the cabinet into its   excess spaces and what i found out was i needed  one eight inch drawer and two four inch drawers   so that's what i'm doing here you'll notice that  i switched to three quarter inch plywood i'm doing   that because i want to show how to build drawers  with a pocket hole construction i don't generally   build this style of drawer with client builds  with proper furniture but i do this a lot when   i need to make drawers for shop furniture so if  you need to bang out a bunch of drawers for your   shop this is a great way to go once again i've  cut the sides first and now i'm going to measure   out for the front we're not using the rabbet  on this one so it's just a straight measurement   the only thing is i don't want it super tight  there's actually flexibility in this style runner   so you want a little bit of space once again  so that it doesn't bind up i cut a test piece   to make sure that it fits really nicely and then  i go through and cut my actual pieces to length   another difference with this drawer construction  is that we're going to do a captured bottom   and so i need a dado track in there to receive  the bottom i set my table saw fence at a quarter   inch and the depth of cut at a quarter inch  then i can run all of my pieces through   now this dado track is only an eighth inch wide  since my table saw blade is only an eighth inch   in order to double that up i'll move  my table saw fence over an eighth   inch and then i'll cut the track  again to give me a quarter inch with the dado tracks cut in all the pieces i  can now figure out how big of a drawer bottom   to use i like to use this method where just take  a drawer face lay it on the side and trace it out   trace out where the dado stops and i get a  really close measurement if i if i just trust   my measurements from before there's a good  chance it's not going to line up perfectly   you also want to cut these  drawer bottoms a little bit   short so measurements that i'm finding  on the tape measure from the mock-up   i might shape off a 32nd of an inch just to  make sure that it doesn't bind up during glue up now it's time to add in the pocket holes so  i get out my pocket hole jig kit here and i   just drilled two per side on the four inch drawers  and i did three per side on the eight inch drawers with that all the parts are ready to  go and they are ready for assembly   i'm not using any glue on these i'm just using the  screws so makes for a really really quick build before i install the metal drawer sides into  the cabinet i like to cut a couple jigs first   these are just simple plywood jigs that allow  me to stack the drawer slide on top of them and   get even spacing the main thing is not that the  spacing is that important it's more that they're   consistent so if you're making a bunch of these  cabinets you can have them consistent across   an entire kitchen or you can also just make sure  that they're parallel on both sides of the cabinet   so as you can see i just stacked the drawer slide  into place you may need to pull the drawer slide   apart just to get access to all the different  holes and then once that's done i can remove   those jigs and use them again on the other side  making sure that both sides are exactly the same i set up the spacing on the drawers so  that i had three quarters of an inch   between each one so i can just use these  scrap pieces of three quarter inch plywood   to set the drawer on top of and  then i can mark out for my holes to start from the front of the cabinet  and work my way back you can see i slide   those uh spacer pieces the three-quarter  inch plywood out as i go just to make sure   it's fully supported and make sure that  it's parallel to the bottom of the cabinet   i found with these drawer slides that i  needed to release this little catch mechanism   to get all the way back to the back screw  hole the next drawer goes in exactly the   same way i use those same scrap pieces put  them into place and then slide in the drawer real quick i wanted to mention that the plans  for this workbench are finished and they are   available on my website at olmfab.com plans i  have them available in imperial as well as metric   i have a version of it that is just made  out of wood so if you don't have a welder   you don't have to make the steel frames  there's an alternative to that as well so   go check out the plans i've worked really hard  on these to make them really comprehensive easy   to follow and a great entry-level build for  your workshop again that's almfab.com plans with the six drawers built and installed  it's time to make some drawer fronts   and for this i'm just going to start at one  drawer i'm going to start with the bottom drawer   get that one lined up nicely and then work my way  in from there i find that if i try and cut all   of the drawer fronts at once i'm going to mess  something up and not get the spacing just right   i put a chamfered edge around the outside of  the drawer front just to give it a little bit   more of a finished look and then i could clamp  it into place and screw it in from the back the next easiest drawer to  measure is the top drawer   and since the top drawer is exactly  the same as the two drawers below it   and i gave that three quarter inch space they  should be exactly the same so i just made three   drawer fronts exactly the same way added a  chamfer and then i can install those as well now all that's left to measure is the two  center drawers and this is super simple   i stacked up three 16th inch handy shims  because i'm doing a 16 inch gap and there's   three gaps and then i measure between the two  and then take that number and split it in half   like i can already hear the comments  from the metric users out there   i i know i literally have to look  this up on a chart it's ridiculous with those two drawer fronts  cut i can just set them up on   a couple of handy shims at 16th  of an inch once again handy shims   are coming through for the win i'm not sponsored  by handy shims by the way i just absolutely love   the product and i find myself using them  all the time i will put a link down below this cabinet is just about done but i do need to  add some drawer pulls and for that i have this   cabinet hardware jig from craig this is super  handy if you're going to do a bunch of these   especially if you're going to do an entire kitchen  it's got positive stops for the standard sizes of   hardware and you can set the depth so that every  cabinet comes out exactly the same one thing that   you might find if you do false fronts like this  is that the screws that come with the cabinet   hardware are just not long enough an easy solution  to that is to drill your hole and then go back   with a forstner bit and open it up so that you've  got enough room for that screw head to sink inside as you can see i have the cabinet reinstalled and  all the drawers are in so that section is done   i've also installed a couple blocks under here and  here and those are going to be for the third style   of drawer slide and these are under mounted  drawer slides these are made by blum they're   available on the rocker website and i love these  style of drawer slides they are full extension   soft close feature really strong but the coolest  thing about them is that they completely conceal   underneath the drawer when the drawer box is  built the only downside to these is that they have   really confusing instructions i'm at the point now  where i just measure directly off of the cabinetry   i'm going to show you how to do that so it'll  make it way easier to install this style slide   so i'm going to install the drawer slide  right away this is this way i can just get   direct measurements off of the cabinetry  and make sure that i don't have any issues   one of the things that the instructions tell  you to do is sort of plan out and add this and   take away that depending on your situation i  find it's much easier to just measure directly   one thing to note about these clips  is that they sit about a 30 second   wider than the runners so you're going to want  to take that into account when you measure the   runners you're going to add an extra 16th because  there's two of these 30 seconds one on each side   so the measurement that i just took is the width  of the rails and then i add that sixteenth which   is that thirty second on each side and that  gets me the space in between the inside of   the the sides of the drawer what i want is the  outside which means that i just have to double   the thickness because i've got two sides each  one is a half an inch wide and so i end up with   an extra inch wider so i started with 21 and 7  8 ended up with 22 and 7 8. the next measurement   that you want to take is how much height you have  in this case i don't have a lot i'm going to go   with an inch and three quarters just so i've got  plenty of room above it and then when it comes to   the thickness it's about a half an inch until it  bottoms out on this little tab here so i'm gonna   do a profile i'll draw out all the elements and  figure out how how tall i need these drawers to be if that seemed a little bit confusing i think  it's going to make more sense once i put this   together so i've cut it down to two and a  quarter inches which is going to be the height   of my drawer and then i'm going to cut the  sides to 21 inches which is the length of the   runners it's it's basically what it says on the  package i'm rabbeting both ends of this and so   both sides will get two rabbets one on each end  i'm gonna dado in the drawer bottoms on this one   as well the only difference is rather than doing a  quarter inch i'm doing a half an inch you need to   do a half an inch on this style so that there's  enough room for the clips to sit underneath the last thing to do is to take the back  piece and actually trim off at the same width   because those runners need to go through the  back and some people just notch these out i just   cut the back off so it's a little bit shorter  i'll show you how it all assembles in a minute   this is really a hybrid between the  first two methods of drawer building   and this is really close to how i build  drawers for high-end furniture not not   a whole lot different i might edge band them or  i might do a little bit fancier joinery but for   the most part this is this can be a really nice  drawer that can go in a fine piece of furniture so you can see that the bottom panel now sticks  out all the way to the back edge and that just   allows for glue surface for this back piece  to be glued on and as you can see the back   piece lines up with those side pieces because  it was cut using the same setup on the table saw i've seen other people slide in the bottom panel  at this stage which is a great way to do it as   well you can slide in the bottom panel you can  actually build these so the bottom panel is   removable and replaceable but i didn't  think that was necessary in this case i just got this jigit under mount drill guide  system from rockler and it's a great little jig   if you're going to be doing a bunch of under  mounted drawer hardware it's set up to drill the   holes for the clips as well as the little hole  in the back which we'll talk about in a minute   all you have to do is set up the stop collar  and then align your jig with the corner and   it's set up to drill the holes in exactly the  right position as well as the correct angle you drill those holes on both sides and  then you're ready to screw in the screws   and attach the clips there's a registration pin  in the back of each under mounted drawer slide   and in order to accommodate for that  you need to drill a hole in the back   the jigget drilling guide is also set up  to drill that hole in exactly the right   spot i did find with my type of construction  that i needed to put a little quarter inch   shim in the back corner to get it aligned  correctly but that wasn't a big deal   after that we are ready to install the  drawer it's super simple these are easy   to install as well as remove and there  are loads of adjustments on them as well   in case you just need to slide it  to the left to the right up or down   you can see that nice soft close the last  thing to do is to attach the drawer front and   once again i'm just using handy shims some  clamps and i screwed in from the back side while i was working on the drawers i  also made one of these which is a mock-up   side frame for this workbench i have full  build plans on my website for the workbench   in both the steel and the wood and imperial as  well as metric so make sure you go check those out   we're going to be wrapping up this project  next week with the back panel we'll organize   that all out get it ready for ashley to use  and then it'll all be done so make sure you   hit that subscribe button that notification  bell and i'll catch you on the next one

Channel: Michael Alm

Views: 376,022

Rating: 4.951344 out of 5

Keywords: blum undermount slides, blum tandem plus blumotion, blum undermount drawer slides, how to install blum drawer slides, how to build drawers, woodworking, michael alm, alm fab

Id: 051Wv5ilrR0

Length: 23min 59sec (1439 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021