The Shop Table - Drawers

Ahh, the dovetail joint. Long revered as a hallmark for fine furniture. Its beauty and elegance surpassed only by its strength and durability. They can be hand-cut or machine-cut, variably spaced or uniform. Anyway you slice it, a true delight.
That being said, we're not using dovetails on our drawers for the shop table. Dovetail joints are nice and very strong, but we're using full-extension ball bearing drawer slides. Dovetails were originally used for drawer joints because there weren't any mechanical mechanisms to ease the operation of opening/closing a drawer and a strong joint was necessary. With modern drawer slides, a simple butt-joint and a couple of brads are more than enough to withstand the stresses involved in opening/closing a drawer. The dovetail is an awesome joint and definitely has it's place, just not for this project.
Instead, we'll be using a locked-rabbet joint. This is a combination of a dado and a rabbet and is very strong. It's really overkill for ball bearing slides, but it makes assembly a breeze. Here's how we make 'em.

It starts with the material. I'm using 3/4" plywood for the sides and front/backs and 1/2" MDF for the bottom. This may also seem overkill, but I'll be storing a few heavy tools in the lower trays. All of the material was cut after I confirmed the opening dimensions of the cabinet. Then a groove was cut in the bottom of all the pieces to accept the 1/2" bottom panels. The joint starts with a dado cut in the ends of the side pieces (see picture) then a matching rabbet is cut in the ends of the front/backs. For some reason, I didn't take any pictures of the front/backs. I'm not sure why. I mean, I like the front/backs. I meant to take pictures. I really wanted you to see the front/backs. It just didn't happen. I'll try to make it up to you, if that's possible.

This picture shows all of the completed drawer parts (if you look close, you can see the front/backs). There will be 3 drawers and 3 pull-out trays. It really doesn't take long to cut all of the parts since they are all batch cut. I believe it took me about 30-45 minutes to cut all of the parts for the 6 boxes. The picture also gives you a sneak peek at the drawer box. It hasn't been glued-up yet, but soon....very soon.

Here's the assembly. The pictures show a drawer assembly and the tray assembly is the same. The parts are all arranged and I confirm that the pieces fit together (dry fit). After taking it apart, I put plenty of glue in the dadoes and then add a front/back and slip the bottom into the corner. Add the other front/back and the other side, then clamp it up. Just a little clamp pressure is needed, just enough for a little glue squeeze-out. Over-clamping leads to drawer distortion, which is bad. At this point, I check to make sure the drawer is square. I do this by measuring across the diagonals. This is why I really like this joint for drawers. It assembles quickly and easily and, if cut right, square.

Here's a close-up of the locked-rabbet. The dado (lock) is in the drawer side and the rabbet is in the drawer front/back. I've been calling these 'front/back' because, at this point, they can be either the front or back of the drawer. I suppose they could be called ends, but I think that would be confusing. I'll just stick with front/backs for now.

Now that we have the drawer boxes completed and the drawer slides have been installed in the cabinet, the next logical step would be to put the drawers in the cabinet. This process started awhile back when the drawer slides were located and then installed in the cabinet. The only thing left to do is attach the drawer part of the drawer slide to the drawer box. After marking a center line on all of the drawer box sides, I use the actual slide to mark the holes. These are slotted which makes marking, drilling and adjusting a snap.

Here's a completed, installed and open drawer. The slides were located 3/4" back from the front (which we can now call 'the front') so that the box will be flush with the face frame when closed. This will allow the applied drawer front (to be constructed later) to close against the face frame. You'll also notice that the back of the drawer is almost flush with the face frame when it's in the open position. This is a characteristic of the full-extension drawer slide.

Here's the cabinet as of this posting. The drawer slides I bought were supposed to have the screws included. As I was installing the drawer slides in the cabinet, I noticed that one set didn't have the little bag of screws. It didn't matter at the time because I had plenty to get the slides into the cabinet. Now that I'm finishing the drawer slide attachment, it matters. You can see in the picture one drawer and one tray that needs to be installed. It should be done by the next posting...if I can find the very specific screws required.

Now that the drawers are in, it's time to build the drawer fronts and doors. These will be made the same way I did the panels for the cabinet. I've had the stock for these hanging around the shop since I started and, frankly, I'm tired of having to move this pile around every time I want to do something. It'll be good to put these pieces to work.