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  1. 14th October 2010, 05:45 PM #1
    beeroll
    beeroll is offline Member
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    Default Advice required on how to cut drawers

    Hi there,

    I'm building a standalone bench for my girlfriend which is going to have four drawers. The design is essentially a long thin table - like a hall table, but bigger.

    I have a wide board to be the front rail which I'd like to cut the drawers out of directly, if possible. But I'm trying to figure out a way to cut the square drawer out without having the corners being rounded. If I use a jigsaw or bandsaw, I won't be able to get the corners anything like sharp. But I can't figure out how else to cut them out that will leave a relatively straight line.

    OK, to clarify - the cut that is worrying me is the cut marked in red on the attached image - the two cuts in from the edge don't trouble me at all. And I would be happy making most of that cut with a Japanese hand saw. It's cutting the corner and initiating the straight line that has me stumped.



    The tools I have at my disposal are:
    • Jigsaw
    • Bandsaw (small GMC-type model)
    • Table saw
    • Handsaws, both western and japanese
    • Router (maybe use a tiny bit on the router and a straight-edge?)
    • Drill
    • Bosch multitool (the Fein equivalent) - that seemed like another possibility, but not sure how straight you can cut with it.


    The board dimensions are approximately 1800 x 200.

    What would you guys do?
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  3. 14th October 2010, 06:26 PM #2
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    Ian Smith
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    Beeroll,
    I'd be ripping that board on your table saw full length along the line of the top of the drawers and then cutting the drawer fronts out from that.
    You would then need to joint the " in between" bits back onto the top piece.
    If you are concerned about grain continuity then just make sure you indentify what goes where before you cut out the drawer fronts.

    If you try to muck about keeping it all in one piece you are going to have problems with different saw kerf widths and keeping it all nice and neat

    Ian
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  4. 14th October 2010, 06:30 PM #3
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    malb
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    One standard technique is to rip the board into 3 pieces (top, centre, and bottom) then crosscut the centre section to give the drawfronts and infills, dress to clean up edges the reglue then infills between the top and bottom rails. Drawer fronts then fit flush in the openings with a quite reasonable grain match.
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  5. 14th October 2010, 09:08 PM #4
    beeroll
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ian Smith View Post
    Beeroll,
    I'd be ripping that board on your table saw full length along the line of the top of the drawers and then cutting the drawer fronts out from that.
    You would then need to joint the " in between" bits back onto the top piece.
    If you are concerned about grain continuity then just make sure you indentify what goes where before you cut out the drawer fronts.

    If you try to muck about keeping it all in one piece you are going to have problems with different saw kerf widths and keeping it all nice and neat
    Thanks Ian,

    I can certainly do that - I've already cut the tenon on the end of the board, so I guess I'll be ripping through that, too - it finishes below the level of the drawer top. I guess that just means both the top rail and bottom infill piece will be tenoned in at each end, which is probably a good thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by malb View Post
    One standard technique is to rip the board into 3 pieces (top, centre, and bottom) then crosscut the centre section to give the drawfronts and infills, dress to clean up edges the reglue then infills between the top and bottom rails. Drawer fronts then fit flush in the openings with a quite reasonable grain match.
    Thanks Mal - looks like that's the accepted proceedure, given that Ian's gone down the same path of advice.

    Well, never need much of an excuse to fire up the table saw!

    Thanks guys!
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