Five piece drawers anyone

[jteneyck]

I like 5 piece drawers. They save material and have a more refined look to me. And for drawers with some amount of overlay sliding dovetails are a great way to attach the sides to the front. Here's one of four drawers I'm building for a small cabinet.



The joint is done with a 1/2" dovetail bit set about 1/4" deep. A mortise is cut in the back of the front, and a tenon is cut on the end of the side.



Pretty simple stuff. Another pass is made at 90 deg to cut off the end of the tenon so that the side fits over the end of dovetail slot made in the drawer front.



I used a simple lock rabbet joint at the back of the drawer.



And there you have it - OK, it still needs a bottom.



So if you've always built 6 piece drawers you might want to consider 5 piece ones for your next furniture project. And if the drawer fronts have enough overlay give the sliding dovetail joint a go. It's really simple, much faster than any form of dovetail, and gives a very clean look.

John

[KyleD]

My only experience with this kind of drawer construction is seeing it on cheep factory made furniture usually made out of softwoods. The sliding dovetail joint aways seemed to come loose. The drawer would stay together as the joint does a nice job of trapping the sides to the front; but the drawer would rack every time it was pulled on and eventually would self destruct.
I wonder if it was poorly fitted joints that caused the glue holding the sliding dovetail to fail or just that what one has in this kind of construction is an all end-grain joint.

[jteneyck]

I've made a few of these type of drawers over the years. Some are over 25 years old and none have ever gotten loose. I suspect the problems you see on commercial furniture are more due to loose fitting joints than any inherent deficiency with the joint itself. It's no different in principle from sliding dovetails used to join case sides together, either with stretchers or fixed shelves. You see it in mass production because it saves material and production tooling and time.

Sometimes, this joint just makes the most sense. If you look at the drawer front in my photo you'll see that the end is cut at a 45 deg angle. There would be no way to use traditional DT's with it and a six piece design would just look crude. I wouldn't use it for kitchen cabinets, but for modern design cabinets it is a very appropriate choice.

On the negative side, there is little room for error with this joint. It either fits well or it doesn't. Finishing is a bit more of an issue, too, especially if you want to stain the drawer front on the inside. I do it first and then assemble the drawer, as I will with this project. And hanging the drawer can be more of an issue because you can't adjust the front on the box like you can with common 6 piece drawers. Like most things, there are advantages and disadvantages.

John

[Scoony]

I had one of my kitchen drawers fail last month, so I decided to make new drawer boxes for that stack. I already had poplar stock milled to 3/4" so from milling the stock to 5/8" to glueing up four boxes with bottoms, took all of about 3 hours. I had to dust off the PC dovetail jig, but the test joint showed adjustments were spot on.

For furniture, I will make drawers with 5 pieces and hand cut DTs, but for kitchen drawers, for me it is easy enough to make the drawer boxes using the DT jig, then attach the glides and drawer front.

Now I need to pick up some more poplar and and make new drawer boxes for the rest of the drawers.

[Dan Moening]

I dunno about 5 pieces; unless my eyes deceive me, in that second picture it appears as if the front alone is 4 pieces

I've used lock rabbet in 5 piece drawer fronts successfully, despite being told it would never work and would fail or fall apart. I live outside the box.

It is how the drawers in my router table were made over 15 years ago. The front here is Red Oak with wood core ply sides:

[Edwin Hackleman]

Six pieces: two sides, one back, one front, one bottom, and a face glued to the front. Works every time for me.

[jteneyck]

OK folks. I posted this because it was a slow day, week, month here, so I thought I'd show something I was working on. I thought you might like seeing something a little different. Silly me.

John

[Paul K. Murphy]

I liked it.
I just got around to looking though.

[Scoony]

I also liked it, aways like seeing how others do particular tasks. For me, hand cut dovetails are easier then getting sliding dovetails positioned accuratly. With a jig, once it is set up, I can knock out a bunch of drawer boxes in no time.

I have done drawers several different ways, but I prefer DTs either handcut or with a jig. Several reasons, but efficiency and durability are big ones.

Norm's common approach for drawers would be to DT the front and use dados for the back. For me that is two different operations and sizing the back piece takes extra effort. Using DTs all around eliminates that sizing issue.

[KyleD]

Please do not take what I said as a complaint about you being silly; it is an actual question that has bounced around in my mind for years.
I appreciate the effort you went through to throw this out there. It interests me because I hate the wasted space traditional drawer construction leaves. This would save more space front to back.
When building drawers, I typically glue and screw the bottom on. Not because it is a shortcut but because it typically gives each drawer another half inch of usable space and makes for a drawer that will never rack.
Either way one does the bottom in a five piece drawer, a stopped grove would be needed to trap it in the front board. Do you cut a stopped grove, have a different method, or just butt the bottom against the front?