Drawer Boxes With Pocket Screws
One of the best ways to create organized storage is with drawers.
They make it so much easier to access whatever you lot're keeping—from pots and pans in the kitchen to clothes in the sleeping accommodation to tools in the workshop.
Many project builders shy away from incorporating drawers into their projects, though, for a couple primary reasons. A big 1 is figuring out what size—or sizes—those drawers should be. We'll evidence you lot some simple ways to figure that out. But first we'll look at another reason people don't create projects with drawers: figuring out how to build them.
Once y'all sympathise how to build and size drawers, you lot'll be able to step up your storage and organisation game.
Build a simple, sturdy drawer
When you look at a drawer, there'southward not a lot to information technology: two sides, a front and dorsum, and a bottom make upwardly the drawer box. If you're using drawer slides—which really is the way to go—you'll also add together a false front to embrace upwards the gaps needed for the slides.
You can build the drawer sides, front end and back, and the imitation forepart from solid wood or plywood., depending on the needs of your projects. Plywood is the material of choice for the bottom. Then join it all together with pocket-hole screws.
If you want to acquire more almost edifice and installing drawers, cheque out the "related articles" at the lesser of the page.
Use the opening to find the correct size
Whether you're building a kitchen cabinet, a dresser, a bath vanity, or a storage cabinet for the garage, the procedure for finding the correct drawer size is substantially the same:
- Measure the HEIGHT, WIDTH, and DEPTH of the opening for the drawer.
- Subtract at to the lowest degree 1/2″ from the HEIGHT to allow clearance above and below the drawer.
- Decrease 1″ from the WIDTH to let space for the drawer slides. Drawer slides—whether the ball-bearing style or the uncomplicated roller style—are always ane/2″ thick, so the two slides together total ane″.
- Using your depth measurement, notice the longest drawer slide that volition fit inside. Slides are unremarkably bachelor from 10″ to 28″ long in 2″ increments. Make your drawer sides the aforementioned length equally the slides you lot cull.
- To determine the size of the false front, add 1″ to the Summit and add 1″ to the WIDTH. That mode, the imitation forepart will overlap the opening past 1/2″ on all sides.
Drawer sizes for different types of projects
It's dandy to know how to size a drawer for an opening, but that doesn't necessarily tell you what size drawer you demand in order to store specific items. That reply varies a lot, only a good identify to look for reference are three mutual types of projects with drawers: A kitchen cabinet (which is very similar to a bathroom vanity), a dresser, and a tall chest of drawers.
The illustrations below show some typical measurements for the drawer openings in these kinds of projects. These are examples, and of class you lot'll discover variations. Simply you lot'll get a proficient idea of common drawer sizes that you tin can apply to your projects.
Kitchen Cabinet/Bath Vanity
Create your ain custom drawer sizes
One thing yous'll notice is that these opening sizes aren't based on standard dimensional lumber sizes. For case, a drawer opening with a summit of eight″ would call for a drawer box with a superlative of 7 i/two″. The closest dimensional lath would be a 1×viii, which is actually 7 1/four″ wide. Information technology'southward ok to decrease the height of the drawer box a little bit and use that 1×8 board in this instance, just you will lose a little bit of storage space.
The need for custom sizes is why many people build their drawer boxes from plywood. With plywood you lot tin can build drawer boxes to whatever dimension you need, without being restricted to off-the-shelf sizes of dimensional lumber. To size all your drawer parts consistently, cut them to size using a circular saw and a saw guide, such as the Kreg Accu-Cutting™ or Rip-Cut™. These guides make it easy to get directly, accurate cuts in plywood.
If y'all prefer to build your drawers from solid wood, you'll need a way to rip boards to the custom widths you demand. You can do that without a table saw using the Kreg Adaptive Cutting System.
Of course, y'all can build drawers for your projects using dimensional lumber. Just realize that yous may accept to programme your project from the "inside out." In other words, you'll start by figuring out the drawer sizes you need, and then work outward to determine the dimensions of the cabinet or instance they'll fit in to.
Whatever materials yous use to create your drawers, once you know how they're sized and built, you'll be ready to step up your storage game.
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Source: https://learn.kregtool.com/learn/demystifying-drawer-sizing/