Reply To: Videos of workbench drawer
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Hi Jason,
I also never found anywhere Paul answered how he makes the drawer supports – I suspect he does it much better then me 🙂
For anyone who may be interested, this is how I did it on my Paul Sellers style workbench. It’s a utility method rather than a pretty one. Probably someone else has a better method in all ways, but I can tell you that this one does work to get a functioning drawer if that is what you want…Just don’t look too closely at the photos 🙂
#1 Make a drawer box however you like. I simply made a large rectangular box with dovetailed corners, a few through mortice and tenon support rails spanning the width of the bottom of the box and a plywood base just closely fitted and double taped on top of the rails. I decided to not bother with a drawer pull as I didn’t like the idea of one sticking out from the apron. I just drilled a circular hole to use to open the drawer – it works, is comfortable and I actually quite like the look of it.
#2 Mark the rectangle on the apron in the appropriate position using the dimensions of your box. I used the front plate of the drawer box before glue up.
#3 Knife wall and drill or chop the hole out of the apron. It’s the same as fitting the vice really. I got some tearout on the rear of the apron due to haste and lack of skill, but it works.
#4 cut two battens that are the length of the internal distance between the front and rear aprons. You will want the battens and ends to be square in order to make the next parts easier. It also helps if your bench is square (mine isn’t, but that’s another story…)
#5 Use Metal L brackets and screws to attach the brackets to the aprons from the inside. This was a bit fiddly, but possibly easier than attempting some in-place pre-screw joinery technique I don’t know about.
I positioned the battens using the drawer opening. I aligned the top of each batten with the bottom of the opening for the drawer, and the outside of each batten just very slightly outside of the side of the drawer opening. The square batten ends hopefully will mean that the battens are going square across between the two aprons. I also used a spirit level to ensure that the battens went horizontally rather than ramping up or down.
This done, the drawer should have basic support so that it can slide in or out of the opening.
#6 Attach side pieces to the outside of the battens from #5 at right angles. These make the drawer “runners” essentially L shaped and ensure that the drawer can’t twist or rack sideways, jam or otherwise cause mischief. You can do this before attaching the battens to the aprons, too, of course.
#7 Application of wax liberally to drawer and runners.
I hope this helps someone.
Mike