Making Wooden Drawers

Discover the secrets to making strong drawers by cutting locking rabbet joints on the tablesaw as taught by wood magazine design editor jeff mertz.

Making wooden drawers.

Nowadays we take drawers very much for granted. In wood magazine torture tests this drawer joint proved stronger than even dovetails. Inset drawers fit inside the drawer opening as you can see on my diy daybed with storage drawers. Glue and nail a plywood base cut to size of the drawer box.

This is the traditional and many would argue the strongest way to make a drawer. Ultimately making wood drawers slide easier is a painfully simple 5 minute task. In the kitchen the bedroom the study and the workshop. Also i make all my drawers using plywood for the box and plywood for the bottom.

See below for tips and tricks to make this foolproof. Build the drawer box using wood glue and 1 pocket hole screws keeping all the sides square. What you will need to follow this tutorial. Pro tips 1 you can take advantage of paraffin substitutes too.

An article on wooden drawers by ian taylor. Our favorite technique is to make the drawer sides front and bottom using 1 2 thick stock and then glue on a 1 4 thick piece of veneer for the front. A whole lot of making installing and building drawers is making sure things are lined up and square. They come in different sizes and designs.

How to make drawers for any cabinet or other woodworking project where you need storage. Making a wooden drawer. Let s jump into the easy peasy tutorial below. This is the drawer box base.

Limiting yourself to building cabinets or furniture without drawers is like driving a car without a steering wheel in both cases you won t get too far. Traditional drawers have through dovetails at the back of the box and half blind dovetails at the front. I like to use plywood to build my drawers because then i don t have to worry about twisted or warped boards causing me issues with alignment. They appear everywhere in the house.

Best of all this technique allows you to cut all parts of the joint with just a dado blade and a single setup on the tablesaw. This will vary widely depending upon what type of design and construction you use.