Making Drawer Boxes From Plywood
I of the benefits of using plywood for any awarding comes from its dimensional stability; plywood doesn't expand or contract with changes in humidity like solid woods does. It also comes in large sheets, in a variety of thicknesses, eliminating the need to laminate pieces together to create a piece of wood that's as large every bit you lot demand, too as the need to resaw lumber to get thinner pieces.
This makes plywood an excellent choice for article of furniture building, including building the drawers which get in many types of article of furniture: cabinets, dressers, tables, etc. The dimensional stability of plywood means that the sides of the drawer won't aggrandize in humid weather. Such expansion can cause the sides to demark in the drawer opening, making the drawer stick and hard to open. Using plywood for the bottom every bit well, minimize the movement from side to side, again preventing binding of the drawer along with its runners.
On tiptop of these important benefits that plywood offers the woodworker who is making drawers, plywood construction reduces the overall labor required. When you're making half-dozen drawers for a dresser, that can exist important, saving a considerable amount of fourth dimension.
Properly made, the only hardwood function needed for the drawer is the face up, every bit plywood probably won't lucifer the wood used in the rest of the piece of furniture, even if it is the aforementioned blazon of wood. Lastly, using plywood is considerably cheaper than building with hardwood. Even if you apply hardwood plywood, the only function of the sheet which is hardwood is the confront veneer, saving on the cost of using solid hardwood throughout.
Plywood Drawer Construction
Regardless of the style, drawers consist of 5 parts; a forepart, back, lesser and two sides. The front end is commonly composed of solid wood and reflects the overall fashion of the slice being built. The back, bottom and two sides are oftentimes composed of plywood, fifty-fifty in commercially manufactured furniture.
In the case of drawers where the drawer front overlaps the furniture's framework, in that location are really 6 parts, although two are attached together as if they were one. These 2 are the structural drawer front end and the decorative drawer face. If a decorative drawer front is used, the structural drawer front is also made of plywood. In the case of drawers where the drawer front sits flush with the chiffonier frame, the structural drawer front too serves every bit the decorative drawer face.
Low-cost piece of furniture may not have this structural drawer front, opting instead to use some sort of bending brackets between the drawer sides and the decorative drawer front. A cake of wood in the corner tin can also accomplish the same thing.
Some lower toll furniture uses MDF or particle board for the construction of drawers, rather than plywood. While this works fine in most applications, MDF is non as stiff every bit plywood and is harder to join together. MDF joints will not be every bit stiff as laminated softwood or hardwood plywood volition be and if they break, it is extremely difficult to make effective repairs.
MDF and particleboard are too more absorbent. When they do absorb water, it causes the pieces to nifty, peculiarly along the edges, weakening its structural integrity. This can cause several issues, including drawers sticking and falling apart.
Drawer Bottoms
At that place are ii basic ways of mounting a drawer bottom into the drawer. As they touch on the size of the size of the parts and how the parts are cut, deciding which manner to mount the bottom is an integral part of the drawer design process.
The easier method of installing a drawer lesser is to cut a rabbet in the bottom edge of all the drawer parts for the plywood bottom to sit into. The drawer bottom then sits into this rabbet and is nailed in place. While easier to make, this method isn't equally secure and doesn't allow any room for the wood to expand.
In this pattern, the drawer side is made of ½" to ¾" thick plywood and the drawer bottom is made of 3/viii" to ½" thick plywood.
A variation on this blueprint is to attach a thin piece of forest to the inside of the drawer's sides and dorsum, which leaves a step, similar to the rabbet cut. Small blocks of wood are installed below the drawer bottom, holding information technology in place. This is somewhat stronger than the first method, but makes the inside of the drawer both narrower and shallower.
In this case, the drawer side is still ½" thick, simply the drawer bottom might be simply ¼" thick. However, it is best if the drawer bottom is 3/8" or fifty-fifty ½" thick, so that it can support more weight.
Finally, the almost common method of installing a drawer lesser, especially for low-cost article of furniture, is to install it into a groove or dado. This reduces assembly fourth dimension and allows the bottom some room for expansion due to moisture. For this reason, it was common in olden times, earlier plywood was used for making drawer parts.
In this third case, the drawer side is still ½" thick. Lower-cost commercially manufactured article of furniture will often use ¼" thick plywood or even masoninte for the drawer bottom. Yet, this makes for a rather weak drawer bottom. It's ameliorate to apply 3/8" or even ½" thick plywood and make the dado wider to receive it.
Drawer Sides
Drawers come in all sorts of sizes and styles, but the size is generally determined past the drawer opening you make in the chiffonier that the drawer is going to mount into. This is something you should decide before even starting the project. Determining exactly how your drawer will be fabricated and its size is role of the design process.
The overall outside dimensions of drawers must always exist smaller than the drawer opening, even if it's only one/16" smaller. Y'all need a lilliputian clearance all the way around, just to ensure that the drawer doesn't stick. At the same time, you lot don't desire too much space, equally that could brand it too easy for the drawer to go cockeyed in the opening, causing jamming.
Drawer runners or slides volition take a big effect on the size of the drawer. Single runners, which mount nether the center of the drawer will accept the least touch on, equally they sit down behind the frame, with simply a modest effectually pushing up into the recess in the bottom of the drawer. Pairs of side mounted drawer slides tin can have a greater impact, as near will take up from 3/8" to ¾" each, with ½" being the most common dimension. With ½" thick drawer slides, y'all need to make the drawer 1 1/16" to ane i/viii" narrower than the drawer opening . This deviation has to exist calculated into the overall size of the drawer, every bit well equally the size of individual drawer parts.
The other major design consideration is whether the drawer front end is affluent with the cabinet frame or sits on top of the chiffonier frame, overlapping the drawer opening, equally we discussed above. If it overlaps, information technology is typical to make information technology overlap ½" to ¾" on each side, although it might not overlap by the same amount on all sides.
Drawer backs and sides are usually non the full height of the drawer opening, although the structural drawer front end will be, less about 1/16". Rather, these parts are cut ½" to ¾" shorter, to ensure that they volition non bind up in the drawer opening. This is a judgment call, with some people preferring shorter sides and backs, to avoid binding and others preferring to make them as tall every bit they can, without bounden, so that they can fit more in the drawer.
It is typical to run drawer sides full depth, overlapping the ends of the structural drawer front end and the drawer back, in cases where in that location are both structural and decorative drawer fronts. In cases where there the decorative drawer front is as well the structural drawer front, the drawer front will overlap the drawer sides, then as to hide the stop grain in that location. On improve quality piece of furniture, this is washed past assembling the drawer using half dovetails.
Determining the dimensions of the part starts with knowing the size of the drawer opening and the depth bachelor. In some cases, shorter drawer slides are used and the drawers practice not run the total depth of the chiffonier. A lot depends on the drawer slides selected.
Assembling the Drawer
Attaching the drawer sides to the front and dorsum pieces can exist done in a number of ways. The simplest method to attach the sides to the back and forepart is using a uncomplicated butt joint. However, this simplicity comes with a cost; the joint is prone to separating and won't stand upwards to heavy utilize.
This can be improved upon by using a rabbet articulation instead of the butt joint. This joint involves cutting a rabbet in the sides of the front and back pieces (equal to the thickness of the side pieces) and inserting the sides into this rabbet. The benefits of this articulation involve additional surface area for the glue and the ability to use mechanical fasteners to reinforce the bail between the side pieces and the front/back pieces. Notwithstanding, the glue volition exist trying to stick to cease grain, which does not make for the strongest joints.
Driving a nail or small bore dowel from the side pieces into the front end/back pieces adds considerable strength to the joint while remaining invisible on the exterior portion of the slice.
A variation on this method, particularly useful if you have a tabular array saw, is to cut a joint chosen a lock-rabbet articulation. This articulation attaches the forepart and back to the sides using a series of cuts that increase the glue expanse and add a measure of strength to the articulation relative to a straight butt-joint or rabbeted joint. Cutting this joint is a little across the scope of this article and a practiced tutorial for cutting this joint has been published elsewhere.
Dovetail Joints
The strongest way to adhere drawer sides to the front and back to the sides relies on dovetail joints. Since showing endgrain is generally avoided whenever possible, the dovetails for attaching the drawer sides to the forepart are usually one-half-bullheaded dovetails. Unless yous are familiar with cutting half-blind dovetails past mitt, the near effective fashion to cut them is using a dedicated dovetail jig and a router.
However, using a router to cut tails out of plywood exposes one of the few weaknesses of plywood—blowout or tearout. Dovetail joints are a perfect match of pins and tails where the pins are cutting in the front and back pieces while the tails are cutting in the sides. Cut the tails in the side pieces volition occasionally result in the layers of plywood splintering as the router bit comes through on the backside. Since this behind represents the interior of the drawer, it won't be seen when the drawer is closed, or is it visible on the outside of the drawer. Notwithstanding, it may cause problems on the within of the drawer— with splintered wood damaging drawer contents or give the person opening it a splinter.
The easiest way to avert this unpleasant occurrence is to cut the joint while using a very sparse piece of capitalist-board—a sacrificial slice of thin forest or plywood behind the drawer side.
Source: http://theplywood.com/drawers
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