eWoodShop - Garage Cabinet Storage Drawers

[Swingman]

Nothing special, just some woodworking content: drawers for a client needing a few _budget_ file folder and storage drawers in his garage cabinets:

For those clients on a budget, lately I've been using pre-finished (clear UV topcoat), 1/2" birch plywood "Drawer Sides" (pre-cut dado for drawer bottom, and rounded top edge) for a cost effective, reasonably strong, nice looking, budget drawer box.

Locally, "Drawer Sides" come in 60" lengths and six height sizes: 2 1/2,

3 1/2, 5", 7", 9" 1/2", and 12", and average +/- $1/lf, depending upon width (a 12"x 5' side being the most expensive at around $12.99/ea)

1/4" x 4 x 8, pre-finished birch plywood for the bottoms runs about $26/sheet.

Due to not having to finish, I find them cost effective, being fast and easy to fabricate with locking rabbet joints, a pinned rabbet joint, or, for a bit more class, a domino'ed rabbet joint, a la Leon.

More and more folks seem to be budget oriented these days, and these fill the bill.

[Leon]

Being prefinished is the real time and expense saver. Add $10 ~ $20 per quart for a decent varnish to that expense and $30 for a sheet of ply. At $12.99 x 5 you are looking at $65. vs up to $50 for do it ALL your self. AND I HATE finishing drawers. I'll look into this method when ever my customer wants a finished drawer.

Now that is the real time saver. I suspect that the prefinished is better than paint grade, which is what I usually buy, for about $10 less.

Who is that?

Are these pre finish drawer sides top and bottom edges sharp edged or have they been rounded over?

[G. Ross]

They look fine to me. And it's good to have some inside work on these chilly days.

[Sonny]

Last time I built drawers was for my router bit cabinet. I don't build often enough to produce excellent results, consistently. Having this prefab option is good to know.

My latest "drawer" project, last week: Used a salvaged kitchen drawer, added a door to the opening, a shelf inside, to hang on the wall at the farm shop as a first aid kit/box. Kept the pull on it, to carry where needed, if needed.

Sonny

[nailshooter41]

To me, this type of build looks great. I >>REALLY

As always, we seem to suck hind teat here. We can readily get 3 1/2", 5" a nd 9". As of early this year, the other sizes were catch as catch can or s pecial order. The 1/4" drawer bottom is about $34 here, finished one side.

Karl - is the drawer side stock you are buying dadoed top and bottom? The ONLY thing I don't like about the stock they sell here is most of it has th e dado cut into both interior edges (same side) to accommodate any trimming for width you might do. So they look OK of you rip that extra dado off, b ut to me they don't look so good when you have an open groove on the top ed ge of the drawer box.

As part of an overall fixit list for one of my clients, they had several dr awers that were feeling their age in the house. They had nicely built cabi nets, and though a bit dated, not too bad. A couple of estimates for new c abs plus countertops revealed to the client that their existing cabs were m uch nicer than they thought. So you know the drill; new slides, refinished or touched up facings, and new hardware. Nothing special. The are still considering tops.

But I tried something I did years ago on a super rush project where I had t o build six drawer boxes to replace the existing POSes the guy had on a des k in his machine shop. 20 minute epoxy! It is really inexpensive at one o f our local craft chains, so easy to experiment with. I opened up the drawe rs at the joints, squeezed some epoxy in the open joints, then tapped them back together and pinned them. It worked great! By the time I got to the last drawer the first one had cured enough to reinstall. And since I didn' t break the drawers down completely, I didn't need to square them up or eve n clamp. One brad at the top of the joint, one at the bottom. Finished in record time.

Previously I had used epoxy on wood repairs off and on, but never this much . Worked great!

Just random thought there...

Robert

[Swingman]

Nope just on the bottom. The top edge has a finished roundover for those off-the-shelf widths mentioned. I have cut down some of this stock for custom height drawers, and then roundover the cut edge after assembly, and spray that edge with rattlecan Deft.

[Swingman]

According to CLP, the material for those six, 12"H x 19"D x 18"W drawers was $107.87, or +/- $18/drawer.

And that included the 3/4" MDF ($30/sheet) for the drawer fronts,

Best part, when they're glued up, they're done.

Drawer fronts went on after installation, and after client's painter finished them.