Building Desk Drawers.pdf

Woodware Designs -- Building Desk Drawers

Building Desk Drawers

Including a drawer in your desk may the most difficult part of its construction. Still its is worth the effort

as a drawer adds both utility and value to the desk. Building a drawer can also be a good way to learn a

new woodworking skill.

Below are many helpful hints on building drawers for any of the Woodware computer desk. We include

them to help you suit the design to your specific needs.

If you like our fun Freebies, remember we can only keep this Web site open if we sell our Low-Stress

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1. Good Drawer Requirements

There are a number of qualities that a drawer must have:

m A drawer must have strong joints between the front and the side pieces. This is the most

important aspect of drawer design.

m A drawer must not bind even with changes in temperature and humidity.

m The drawer must be well centered in its opening.

m The drawer must stop at the right depth.

m A drawer must of a size that is useful, such as a holder for disks or file folders.

All these thing combine make the construction of the drawer the most demanding part of building

most desks.

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Woodware Designs -- Building Desk Drawers

2. Size

Most of the desk drawers in Woodware designs are described a 'Pencil Drawers'. This simply

means a shallow drawer that is fitted into the available space. Their debt is set by other

requirements, such as keyboard height, that have nothing to do with the use of the drawer. The

result, of course, is that these drawers are not very useful.

If space is available, as in the Corner Desk, then the drawer depth should be set to achieve a

useful purpose, such as storing data media. A separate document in this package covers making

media storage boxes and gives the dimensions needed for storage of the different media (disks,

CD, tapes, etc.).

The best way to size a paper filing cabinet drawer is to first buy a metal hanging folder frame and

set of hanging folders. You can then size the filing drawer around this frame. These frame are

available at any office supply store and can be adjusted to any length.

You should consider both filing drawer arrangements that pull straight out and those that pull out

side ways.

3. Buying a Drawer Kit

You can purchase a drawer kit from woodworkers' mail order houses These usually feature precut

boards for the front, back, and sides. The better ones are made of hardwood and have commercial

dovetail joints in the front. The cheaper ones are made of medium density particle board and are

usually unsatisfactory.

There are two problems in using drawer kits. First, they come in standard sizes that do not fit

many Woodware desk designs. Our desks are sized to fit keyboards and to reduce stress on the

user. Most of the drawers are just fitted into the remaining space.

Many of commercial drawers can be cut down in height and shortened in length, but it is very

difficult to adjust their width You may have to adjust the width of the keyboard tray instead..

The second problem is that the front wood will not match the desk wood. This can often be

addressed by adding a matching front board to the commercial drawer.

I do not think the lower cost commercial drawers made of medium density particle board will

last. The front joints on a drawer just see too much stress for this material. I do not think it will

do your new desk justice.

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Woodware Designs -- Building Desk Drawers

4. General Drawer Construction

All the Woodware drawer variations have several parts in common: the back-to-side joints, the

back, and the bottom. Figure #1 shows details of the rear joint. The fronts and front-to-side joints

vary with the construction technique used and are elaborated below.

The back piece fits into dado grooves in the side panels and is nailed and glued. You can screw it

if you wish. It is cut narrow enough for the bottom board to ship under it.

If you have a power planner, you may wish to reduce the thickness of the sides, back, and inside

front boards to .5 inch. This gives much better proportions in a small drawer.

The bottom board is made of 1/4-inch plywood and is not glued. It fits into a dadoed slot in the

front and side boards. It should be a slightly loose fit so that any expansion will apply force to the

side boards.

For classic designs, such as the Shaker Tables, you can make the drawer bottoms of thin planks

edge glued together. Even then don't use your best wood, but use a secondary wood that is less

expensive. Old-time craftsmen did not waste good wood.

The bottom is held in place with a few nails up into the back board. For very hard wood, you will

need to predrill for the nails.

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Woodware Designs -- Building Desk Drawers

5. Dadoed Drawer

Figure #2 shows the front joints for a simple drawer. Its construction requires only a table saw,

radial arm saw, or router. It features a separate front piece to make alignment easy and dadoed

front joints strengthened with glue and screws.

It is very easy to build and strong, but it is not elegant. It really is not suited for classical designs

like the Shaker tables.

The front is made of two pieces. The outside piece matches the desk and is installed only after the

drawer is fitted. The inside piece is there only to make construction easy, the true front piece has

plenty of strength.

Note that the sides have a vertical dadoed slot for the a tung cut on the end of the inside front

piece. This joint is called a 'barefaced housing joint', but I can't think why.

The bottom fits in a dado slot in the sides. You may either dado it into the inside front piece or

cut off the front piece, just like the back, and nail the bottom to it.

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Woodware Designs -- Building Desk Drawers

6. Dovetail Drawer

Dovetailing is the joinery ideally suited for the front-to-side joints of a drawer. It is also an

excellent exercise in craftsmanship. It can be done with a few hand tools -- for centuries this is

the only way it was done -- or it can be done with speciality jigs for a router. Either way the result

is worth the effort.

Dovetailing is often featured in woodworking magazines and how-to books. You will want to

check your local library for some of these before you settle for lessor joinery. A good place to

start is Albert Jackson, David Day, and Simon Jennings, The Complete Manual of Woodworking ,

pages 238-245. You can certainly do this job with a little practice.

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