Drawer framing – when to use guides VS panels etc
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- This topic has 6 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 3 months ago by Sven-Olof Jansson.
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29 December 2022 at 2:52 pm #785006
Im hoping Paul does a series soon that includes information about drawer guides and the various ways to accommodate and support drawers in furniture. When are guides used as opposed to the frame he uses in his chest series? Or in addition to the supporting frame? When is it OK to not use guides at all? Im looking at old Shaker designs and sometimes they used guides, sometimes they didnt. Is there a general rule for this?
- This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by joemonahan.
I would be interested in this, too. The support structure for a set of drawers like two columns of drawers in a dresser seems complicated, confusing, and intimidating. You can find many approaches to them, but which are durable? Which match up to hand tool methods? When do you use housing dados in the carcase? When to use frames vs. rails? There are dozens of options.
This might be handled well just by talking to us with some sketches and photos for illustration, no need to actually build a project.
29 December 2022 at 3:35 pm #785014Agree – just a short video describing when to use what, what the benefits and drawbacks are, techniques that allow for wood expansion, etc. It seems like this area is so critical yet always neglected.
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I am puzzled by all this too! There are so many options. I have seen discussions of what the opens are, but I have not found good discussions of why people take one option rather than the other. To some extent, some choices seem dictated by the nature of the project, but even then, not all the choices are. I tend to just do what I have seen others do without clear ideas as to why
Often Paul makes a basic box to fit a drawer into, e.g., in the bottom of his drinks cabinet is just a box. He makes a drawer without guides that just fits that box. The bottom of the drawer rides on the bottom of the box and the sides of the drawer rub up against the sides of the box. Perfectly understandable construction and one we have all used Fine, but I have also seen people use various guides in such boxes. They can be cleats attached to the drawer and fit into dados in the sides, or cleats attached to the sides of the box and fit into slots in the drawer. They can be bottom guides, and so on. Why would anyone make these choices? The clearly reduce friction since the a smaller amount of the drawer rubs against a small amount of the box. Do they reduce jamming? Do they just control wear and tear on the drawer? Are some better for this or that purpose? I sort of expect that some sort of guide is superior mechanically (less friection etc.) but is thought to be less attractive — so if you can make a drawer with out the guide, it looks nicer. The only option I do understand is metal slides since they can make for smooth operation and, depending on the slide, can allow for full extension without the drawer falling out. These metal slides are also particularly helpful for drawers holding heavy things. But they are not all that attractive and can take up space.
There are also more complex constructions beyond the simple box, e.g., the complex webs people make for chests of drawers or the simpler web people make to attach a drawer to the underside of a simple table. There are a number of choices in these cases. Again, the one choice I get is metal guides since they are smooth, allow for full extension without drawers falling out, and can carry a lot of weight. But they are not very attractive and take up space. But putting those aside, there are lot of choices. I have a chest of drawers with a bottom center guide made out of wood that the drawer sits on. It seems to work okay and though it does take a bit of space, it is not visible like side cleats are. I have seen chests where the drawers ride on wooden side cleats attached either to the drawer or to the side of the cabinet. They are strong, but are not so attractive and do take up some space. I have seen also seen chests of draws with using the sorts of construction I have used for simple drawers under table: runners, rails, kickers etc. They all seem to work.
The best I can tell, the main concerns are two. (a) We want constructions that limit friction, binding etc, which points toward some sort of slide. And (b) we want constructions that are attractive and do not waste space, which generally points away from slides. Beyond that, I do not have much of an idea.
29 December 2022 at 11:16 pm #785038A few observations, if allowed, from using battens, complete web frames, and single as well as triple columns of drawers.
The first photo below is of two equally sized (35″x20″X16″ [whd]) chests of drawers. The one in oak has sliding dovetails for runners, and front and rear separators (complete web frame [Bill Hylton]. The one in pine has battens glued to the frame sides, with corresponding housings on the drawer sides.
[attachment file=”Kitchen_Bottom_Prototype.jpg”]
After adjustments of the fits, there’s no difference between the two chests with regard to operating the drawers.The second attached photo is of a sideboard (60″x22″x20″ [whd]). The web frames are running in sliding dovetails, and the drawer columns are separated by panels that also are joined to the top and bottom with sliding dovetails. From the oak chest of drawers I learnt that sliding dovetails require very little of gluing, (front divider, and tenons of the runners), they mitigate warping of the carcass, and contribute to integral stability. As both faces of the panels have dovetail recesses that are opposite to each other, the recesses are only 6 mm deep. Please note that the right pane shows the carcass from behind and upside down.
[attachment file=”Sideboard_Finished_Web_Frames.jpg”]
Once again, the drawers needed planing to fit, but actually less than for the two chests of drawers, which I believe was due to the drawers of the latter being wider.My challenge has been to get both the carcasses and the drawers into square blocks. If there’s a 0.2° error, the deviation over 16″ will 1/16″. For the 35″ width of the drawer frame, I will be out of square by >1/8″. Recognising this potential problem, Robert Wearing suggests making the carcass back a mm wider than the front.
Finally, and at long last, I’ve picked up another approach; one that – at the expense of being more elaborate – mostly removes the planing to fit a drawer, greatly reduces jamming due to variations in moisture, while making drawer operations quite smooth. Basically, only the drawer bottom makes contact with the carcass sides. The drawer sides are recessed by one mm into the drawer front, and the back is flush with the sides. Finally, the drawer front is bevelled, so that only a minute part makes contact with the drawer frame. Operation is stabilised by two guides running in grooves of the drawer bottoms. With a drawer width of 680 mm, one guide wasn’t enough.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.30 December 2022 at 2:45 am #785041Thanks Sven. Beautiful work. What made you decide to use the battens for the pine piece?
Are you and making the sliding dovetails? I have never attempted those.30 December 2022 at 4:37 pm #785050Thanks Joe, both for the appreciation but even more so for asking on the choice of battens.
Well, the piece was a pilot to test whether I could make a frame based carcass with no end grain showing. With an open space between the side stiles, she simplest way of providing drawer support seemed to bridge the gap with a batten glued to the rails. Loading the drawers would then tell whether this simple joinery would hold. As it turned out, it did. Later, time told that seasonal variations in relative humidity would be of no consequence.
The included photo hopefully explains why the final product wasn’t made as a frame construction. The mitred half-laps would reveal end grain, and the mitred mortice and tenon variant I thought short of glue surface. There were also worries that adding mitred concealed dovetail joints for the top would weaken the rail joints.
[attachment file=”Mitred_Half__Lap_Mitred_Tenon_Mortice_text.jpg”]
Your question made me realise that adding rails between the side stiles would not only provide alternatives for the drawer support, but would also enhance the strength of the frames, making any mitred mortice and tenon joints more stable.Yes, I do make sliding dovetail joints, but only with the aid of a lot of guides and jigs. At least they come out less flimsy than some other joints based on grooves.
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