Progress on the Nightstands

Great! If you have any other questions or problems let us know. ;~)

It seems once you "get it" Sketchup is simple to use. It took me a few times to "get it". ;~)

If you give me an e-mail address to send the file to I send it. Keep in mind that I often modify and dimensions might differ in different parts of the drawing.

Replace "dot" with "."

On Sun, 31 Jan 2016 13:12:37 -0600, Swingman wrote:

Actually I was just looking at the way Leon did things and seeing the future potential for the cabinets he built that were already designed to begin with the way he does it. Like someone wanting a change order on a cabinet or two.

I can see disasters trying to do that with pre-existing cabinets unless they just happened to qualify. (Like you say below)

Believe me when I say none of this is lost on me. And I suspect many others will appreciate what you wrote as well.

Looking at your jig reminds me of the saying, "Those that can, do, and those that cannot teach." Obviously you jig is built of experience one that the home project person with a certain skill level sure can make use of. A few months ago I might have used that to improve a couple cabinets so as to be able to reach what is stored in back of the shelves, fact is my wife say some prebuilt drawers for sale at Costco, called me, and while it seemed good until she brought them home and I found they were way too short, rendering them useless. So she took them back. Meanwhile we started up grading the kitchen appliances which required the removal of a couple cabinets as well as a couple wall cabinets. In looking at them I found they were in such sad shape that it basically requires a whole new kitchen cabinet setup. Wall cabinets coming loose from the ceiling, doors have to be forced shut, and in the lower cabinets the shelves warped (particle board) and the floor panels that were particle board in some areas were deteriorated due to a couple leaking dishwashers over the years. Then looking at the dead space in the corners 2x2 each and not accessible I said hey, why not? First I called out a so-called kitchen designer, who asked what I wanted in a kitchen, but had no idea's of their own for a total remod. Ends up they were basically interested in replacing the cabinet doors and painting the FF's. Most of what he had to show was stamped out MDF doors with a style that resembled real wood arched with raised face panels. Even a half blind person could see they were crap, like paint on a street woman. and then He said minimum of 3,000 dollars. For that kind of money I could go out to a contractors warehouse, bought a full set of cabinets, with doors and done a R&R and thrown some white paint on them (wife insists) and saved money. (my own labor)

Long story short, I am redesigning the kitchen, doing far more than originally planned and on paper, it is looking mighty good. Even so, we are going to sell, hopefully, in a couple years and get out of Dodge.

The help and the info I've received here has helped incredibly and I am sure has prevented my from making more mistakes then I otherwise would have.

I totally agree, even with my limited knowledge in this area.

I noticed in your "resume'" that you were fortunate enough to work with wood workers in England or Europe, with a family from a long line of carpenters. I know from having read and studied a bit about wood working in England the respect a Master Craftsmen earns, plus I read about furniture making and so on in my spare time when I was in High School in the middle of the last century, grin. I am only saying this so as to ask you this, if it is possible could you recount some of your experiences while you lived and worked there. I am sure there are some good stories in your memories and it is a sure thing that I'll never be able to do as you did, but I would find them interesting on many levels, and I'd bet that others would as well.

I know work may prevent it, or other things, but I just had to ask. Thanks, no matter how it turns out.

I should have been more clear ... The jig in the link above is only used to attach the drawer slides to spacers in a repeatable, accurate, production like manner.

Not intended as an installation jig, like the Rockler that Mike mentioned.

Sorry if that was confusing.

I can see that, and the ability to screw below the slides is a great option as well.

I'd like to ask a question here, it has been on my mind ever since I started looking at these things, the metal slides. The side slides take up space, making it necessary to narrow the drawer and everytime you pull the drawer out you see that big gap.

Is mounting the slide portion that attaches to the drawer possible to install in a groove/dado about 1/4" deep that would pretty much make the gap look normal and cover the slide when looking from above? Or would create complications down the road?

Somehow it just looks obscene to me on/in a wooden cabinet, and the gap enhances that look.

That's quite alright, just being able to see how someone in your position does things is what is important to me, since you would more than likely emphasize it.

Sort of like we would on HVAC and Control drawings.

Will be sending you my addy tonight. :)

The grove down the side of the drawer would have to be approximately 2" wide and about 1/2" deep to fill the gap. That would not work with 1/2" thick material.

I think that the gap would not be a thing to fixate on. Instead look at the big gap between the drawer sides when you pull the drawer open. ;~)

Alternatively, and referencing Swingmans link showing his jig and "undermount" slides, you see no hardware at all with that set up. BUT IIRC you have limitations as to how tall the drawer can be compared to the height of the drawer opening.

You got mail!

Something else I will tell you about my drawing. You will notice components are a few different colors. Those colors/materials are named to suggest what type material I am using. The brown is Oak Plywood. the Green is solid Oak wood, and the blue is Baltic birch plywood.

I don't have a problem knowing what it what however it assures me that I have properly assigned each component a particular type material.

I use an import program that copies all highlighted components into my CutList Plus program and it imports the material assigned to each component also. Color coding materials helps to insure that the optimization cutting program, CutList Plus does not think that solid wood components should be cut from a sheet of plywood, visa versa, or a what ever.

Just in case you were wondering. ;)

Many "undermount" drawer slides, designed to mount under the drawer, allow you to build a wider drawer, but the bit you gain in drawer width you may lose in drawer height, but not all that radical.

That said, I most always use those in fine cabinetry and high dollar kitchens.

Basically, there are tradeoffs the consumer pays for modern technology/conveniences ... like easy opening and closing, long lasting, smooth operating, low maintenance, and modern features like self closing, and full extension slides.

There are many more traditional ways to build and mount drawers, but in environments like kitchens and bathrooms the drawbacks of those traditional methods (mostly that rely on inherent wood on wood contact points that do not handle gracefully the load of a modern kitchen drawer, especially over long periods of time), all are a hard sell these days.

When you get right down to it, the aesthetic beauty of the old fashioned, hand crafted drawer in a fine piece of furniture will generally not hold up to the use required in the modern kitchen.

Depends. If your project has face frames, then you won't see most of the drawer slide. No need for dados there.

The drawer would have to have a groove big enough for the whole slide to fit into, including the cabinet portion of the slide.

If not, the drawer would not close as the drawer portion of full extension slides imbeds into the cabinet side of the slide.

Yeah, you guys are probably right, no sense swimming against the tide, all things considered. But I will probably try at least one for the garage to see.

I thought the jig was for his side mounts, anyhow I was looking at the bottom slides, but the costs drive up the job higher than the wood for the carcases. If it was my final home I would go for it. But the house I am in it just isn't worth it for this area, unless I happened upon a real discriminating buyer.

Do you make dovetails on all four corners of your drawers? Normally speaking?

Given even the straight hardware costs I can see why. When I counted up the drawers I'll be installing, it gets pretty pricey.

I can see why, every one wants "nice."

My Kitchen and bathroom drawers lasted 30+ years before the drawer faces would occasionally come free, or the drawer boxes started coming apart.

Here is the way I look at it, if you are introducing mechanical metal slides you are crossing that line away from really high end craftsmanship. IOT if I don't to see compromises I build a web frame in the cabinet, with center guide and a matching center guide for the drawer, out of wood. No metal.... But in kitchen cabinets that will see a lot of wear, and like Swingman said, wood on wood movement does not hold up for the long haul.

Anyway if you are looking for a pretty good side mount full extension

The jig, as shown, works equally well with side mount drawer slides.

AAMOF, that is what it was originally designed for.

The practice of mounting "side mount" drawer slides on a spacer, then mounting that assembly to the sides of face frame cabinets, dates back to the introduction of the modern drawer slide.

Go on any residential construction site in the country during installation of the kitchen cabinets and you will likely see something identical in use by the trim carpenters during drawer installation.

For fine furniture and cabinetry, normally yes.

For Tier 1 kitchen cabinets with 3/4" sides and 1/2" bottoms, depends upon the budget.

Tier 2 kitchen cabinets, not usually, just on the front.

Consider the two most detrimental forces that act upon a kitchen cabinet drawer that cause it to fail:

1. The downward force of the load on the drawer bottom from the contents.

Front dovetails totally mitigate #1;

And a dadoed drawer back, cut high enough to allow a thinner drawer bottom to slide into grooves, thereby allowing for drawer bottom replacement, instead of a new drawer if it becomes necessary from overloading, mitigates, to a large extent #2.

Proves the point: A 30 year old kitchen is not a "modern" kitchen, and it appears some of the existing drawers did not even withstand that. ;)

Note: I can make a good living just bringing 7 year old kitchen cabinet components in multi-million dollar homes up to modern standards (that's how shoddy residential construction workmanship is these days) ... and certainly anything older for damned sure. LOL

I think you better reword that. LOL Most residential construction sites use prefab and the drawers and slides are already in the cabinets when they are delivered.

Yeah, you're right. I wasn't thinking.

Not all new homes being built today are cookie cutter "tract" homes; and certainly not all those use pre-fab cabinets.

Although the trend to further cut costs by using pre-fabs (versus built-ins or custom cabinets) has certainly grown since the bust of 2008 in the "spec" home market, pre-fabs, being particularly suited to "cookie cutter" constructions methods, are still rarely seen in "spec" homes; and even more rarely in "custom" homes.

Even then, it is evident that the cabinetry in _most_ homes in existence in most parts of the country today are not prefabs, but most likely to be onsite built-ins, which almost always require component installation to be done onsite.

Just another reason why the modern drawer slide/cabinet hinge hardware business has grown by leaps and bounds during the last twenty+ years.

And, which makes knowing how to efficiently, and cost effectively, use and install that type of hardware a valuable skill today.

That skill being basically being the subject of the thread. ;)