Lipped drawer fronts

[opalko]

I am ready to make some drawers for the lower half of a hutch. I am interested in what I have seen called "lipped" drawer fronts or rabbeted drawer fronts as my Leigh DT jig manual calls them. It's unclear to me, though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a roundover edge) on all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2 sides and the top, with no edge treatment on the bottom.

If there is an edge treatment on all 4 sides, then it would appear that the bottom of the drawer front does not have a rabbet? So that the 2 sides and top overlap the drawer opening (acting as a stop also), and the bottom one would be directly in line with it? Wouldn't this look kind of weird? I can't picture it very well. Any pointers to images or other references welcomed..

Cheers

[opalko]

I am ready to make some drawers for the lower half of a hutch. I am interested in what I have seen called "lipped" drawer fronts or rabbeted drawer fronts as my Leigh DT jig manual calls them. It's unclear to me, though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a roundover edge) on all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2 sides and the top, with no edge treatment on the bottom.

If there is an edge treatment on all 4 sides, then it would appear that the bottom of the drawer front does not have a rabbet? So that the 2 sides and top overlap the drawer opening (acting as a stop also), and the bottom one would be directly in line with it? Wouldn't this look kind of weird? I can't picture it very well. Any pointers to images or other references welcomed..

Cheers

[opalko]

Sorry for the double post.

[LEGEND65]

You can have a rabbet all the way around. On my Akeda jig the side stops are built in a way to allow the inside of the rabbet to index on them so you don't have to do anything special. On the Leigh you may have to make a block of wood equal to the width of the rabbet to offset the sides, I'm not sure.

That being said, I prefer to use a false front instead. Make the dovetails through dovetails and just add a front after.

-Kevin

[Leon]

For best appearances the rabbet should be all the way around the drawer front, bottom included. This will hide, as intended, all gaps around the drawer.

[opalko]

Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd (?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't anticipate the drawer being removed frequently however..

Cheers!

[Larry Blanchard]

I prefer a roundover, or whatever, on just the sides. The tops and bottoms overlap such that they touch their neighbor, with allowance for expansion. Looks really nice if you can match the grain.

I've got a tool stand in the workshop that has 10 graduated drawers in pairs. On it I only did a roundover on the outside edges so the the front looks solid. I found wood wide enough that I could make the 4 largest drawer fronts from a single piece. Likewise the 6 smaller ones. Came out pretty nice. Of course, I'm not unbiased on the subject :-).

[Leon]

Traditional huh? Strange. Seems you would not add a design element that would look asymmetrical so that you could add a layer of protection when the drawer was not in its normal location. I wonder what technique would be advised to keep you from stepping on the drawer and crushing it.

Basically you would end up with a drawer that looks "different" 99.999% of the time to protect it against a situation that it may be exposed to .001% of the time.

I could be wrong.

[Lew Hodgett]

Last project I built had rabbit around top and sides with flat bottom for drawer fronts.

Looks just fine for my purposes since bottom of drawer is almost hidden from view.

Lew

[Jim Hall]