Since this is my first post on any real type of carpentry project, I thought I’d share some of the process I go through when I’m starting something like the kitchen sliding drawers. If you’ve never done any type of wood working before, I hope you find this helpful.
CLICK HERE FOR PARTS 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
1. Measuring
The first thing I do is develop a plan to cut and size the wood to the correct dimensions. I’ll also take a look at the type of joinery the project requires to see if I can reproduce it myself. What kind of joint wouldn’t I try to reproduce? Well, at this point in my DIY life, I’ve never done a dovetail joint or any other type of intersecting finger joint like the one pictured below.
While these joints are pretty, they require a good amount of experience and probably a dovetail or finger joint jig, which can set you back some $. If my drawers were dovetailed, I may try to make them anyway, but not for a long, long time.
Lucky for us, the joint are basic butt joints with some material removed in a rabbit or rebate joint. Beyond that, they are just nailed and glued together. These are pretty simple and I’ll show you a couple ways of making them soon.
After examining the piece, I start writing down the cut list. I’m going to need 6 drawers made and so I start taking measurements of each existing drawer since I’m basically making duplicates of those. If you don’t have any drawers to work from, then you’ll need to determine the dimensions differently. After I’m done with this entire project, I’m going to give you a template to make your own drawers from a couple basic measurements.
First thing I measured is the thickness of the drawers. Also lucky for me, they’re all the same, 1 13/16″ or 1 7/8″ if you want to round it up. That means, the boards I’m going to buy are going to be 1″ x 3″s and 1/2″ x 3″s. The next thing I measure is the lengths of each board. For the front board, this is easy… since it’s the whole front.
The sides and the back however, are more tricky. You need to measure the length of the actual wood pieces, not the overall dimensions of the drawer. See the photos below…
For the side measurement, I’m excluding the front piece. For the back piece, I’m excluding the sides…
I’m doing that because that’s just the way the drawer is built, get it? After writing down the measurements for a couple drawers, I notice there is a pattern. All the side lengths are 21″ and there is a relation between the opening of the cabinet, the length of the front piece and the length of the back piece. It makes measuring the rest very quickly. Once you have all your lengths written down, you can figure out how much wood you’ll need. I always overestimate my lengths just so I don’t run out and if there is anything whole left over, I’ll return it. For all six drawers, I figured I needed 36 feet for the sides and the back and 12 feet for the front pieces.
2. Selecting and Purchasing Wood
If you recall from the first post, the drawers have a 3/4″ thick piece of solid maple for the front and 1/2″ pieces of plywood for the sides and back. This is where you need to be resourceful. It makes economic sense for cabinet makers to stock large sheets of maple veneered plywood and use them for the sides. The exposed plywood edge then gets taped over with another thin maple veneer. This process isn’t necessarily going to work for you or I however. I’m not interested in ordering a 1/2″ thick 4’x8′ sheet of plywood. It would be too expensive and laborious. I also don’t want to tape a veneer on either. If I was building a whole kitchen’s worth of cabinets, then it becomes a much better idea, but for six drawers… no thanks.
I’m sticking with solid maple for this project since it matches the existing drawers almost exactly. I bought my maple at a Lowes in South Philly. There are other Lowes locations closer to my home, but they don’t have quite as much hardwood available. If you can’t find the exact species you’re looking for, there are other options. Aspen looks like it might be a suitable alternative to maple. The maple was sold in both 1x (or 3/4″ thick aka “one by”) and 1/2″ thick varieties. I selected it in 1×3″ wide boards (which is actually 3/4″ by 2.5″… annoying right?), since my width is 1 13/16″. I also grabbed my 1/2″x3″ as well for the sides and back.
Another need we haven’t mentioned yet is the base of the drawer. Ours are 1/4″ thick maple veneered plywood. This is a necessity. Can you use solid hardwood for the base? Yes. Should you? No and for a number of reasons, not the least of which, you’d have to glue a few together to get pieces wide enough to use. Try to use the plywood here as no edge banding is required. The edges will be hidden. The Lowes in South Philly also had 1/4″ thick maple veneered plywood for around $28 for a 4’x8″ sheet. The 1/4″ stuff is pretty light and I had the lumber rep cut it into 2’x4′ pieces so I could stick it into my Jeep. If you can’t find the maple, you can either have them order it or you can just use another option like a birch plywood, which when poly’d will look almost identical to maple.
So now that we have our cut list and our wood in house, we’re ready to start making cuts! But that’ll be in another post!
CLICK HERE FOR PARTS 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
Any questions? Have you every done any carpentry projects before? Does anything beat the smell of fresh cut wood?
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