Ply drawers, what sort of joint?

[Farnk]

Hi everyone,
A new ute is on it's way, and I'm designing a drawer system to go in the back to give everything a place and try to keep the back organised.

In short, there will be 2 or three drawers in a box section steel frame that will go between the wheel arches. A ply sheet will go on top to the level of the wheel arches as a false floor. The ute has a canopy so that should give me some good dry storage room when we go camping, etc.

One section of the ply false floor I'll mount on runners and this will serve as a mount for the camping fridge.

SO.. to the question..

The drawers I'm thinking of making out of ply as well, they will be simple rectangular items about a meter - 1.2m long with some ply sections inside as dividers. What is the best option for joining the ply pieces?

Can you dovetail ply?

TIA
f

[Dan]

If I was making them I'd be thinking about using Biscuits and Epoxy glue.

[greenie512]

I’ve been quickly knocking up some mobile units for the shed and first lot of draws simply used butt & glued joints; the second lot where I didn’t want to wait to release clamps I simply used butt, glue and screws. Ply draw fronts hide the fact they are basically made from offcuts. <o></o>
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=31368
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=32820

[doug the slug]

Can you dovetail ply?

well i suppose its possible to dovetail almost anything, but is it practical to do so? rebates and screws would probably be as good as anything in this case.:cool:

[Harry72]

Yep dados and rebates would be the choice of joints here, and some screws every 100mm to help handle vibration.
Or you could lighten it up somewhat if you have a few $$$ to spare, make up a frame work for the boxes from aluminum and use thinner ply as infill, the bottom of the boxes could be strengthen with aluminum angle to hold weight. Might save you some fuel... especially considering the way prices are going!

[Wongo]

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[Auld Bassoon]

I'd just do as our Seppo cousins do, and use a dado (trench/rebate) and either glue alone, or screw 'n glue. This has the advantage of helping square things up, will be strong as and look quite tidy - waaaaay better than butt joints IMO :D

[Farnk]

Thanks everyone, glue and rebate are the go.
Yes, it will weigh a bit but I'm not in a position to weld aluminium at home.

The ride of the ute is a but harsh unladen, so a few kilos in the back should help in that department. It's a company vehicle, so fuel is not an issue.

Thanks for the input people!
f

[Harry72]

No need to weld the drawer frames, it will get its rigidity from being screwed to the ply!

[soundman]

For joining ply the rebate cant be beat. ply glues very well.

On the other hand If you want to keep your weight down, you need to look at some of the equipment case extrusions I use.
We have plain angle made for reinforcing corner seams.
We have what we call corner frame which is a double angle where the ply is located in slots in the angle & held by pop rivets and alll sorts of funky stuff.

You would be surprised what sort of strength can be achived with these extrusions and 7 or 10 mm ply.

try to stay away from standard aluminium angle for this purpose as the shape and grade of aluminium make the angle prone to getting a real sharp edge on it with wear.

Send me a pm if you want furher details

BTW absoloutly no welding

cheers

[rrich]

Exactly as Wongo has shown it. A very strong joint for drawers with a few other advantages. The locking rabbets can be cut so that the joinery does not show on the front of the drawer. A rabbet or a dado for the bottom can be cut and after the joint is assembled the ends of the dado is hidden.

[silentC]

Box joints (finger joints) work well too and don't break the long grain like lock rabbets do. ;)

[fletty]

Whenever I need really strong, light, good looking and cheap boxes, it's aluminium extrusion and ply. I made a series of boxes to go on the roof of the landrover made out of extrusion pop rivetted together and marine ply ... they outlasted the landrover!
Soundman's case extrusion sounds really interesting, maybe a post?
Fletty

[soundman]

Will post some stuff of equipment case hardware when time permits.
cheers

[Scally]

Dovetails will work fine.

I have been building a workbench along the wall of the garage.
Each section is about 1m long.
I made drawers at different heights to suite power tool storage and hand tools and other bits and pieces.
So I wanted the drawers to be strong enough to take the weight and some oath yanking the drawers open.

I used 17mm ply for the frames and 13mm ply for the bases.

On the front I have Half Bind Dovetails.
The idea was to make sure the sides don't spread.
The ply chipped badly when routing the dovetails with the Leigh jig.
A bit disappointing but my main interest was strength , not looks.
If I wasn't such an impatient bugger, I could have placed a scrificial board in front of the ply and avoided the chipout.

Some of the drawers I used dados for the back. They seem to work fine.
Certainly a lot easier. I expect the long glue joint will hold.

For some unknown reason , I used through dovetails on the back of some of the drawers. I didn't get as much chipout.
They should be plenty strong enough.

here is a pic to give you an idea of the size of the drawers.
i have heavy duty hafele runners on the drawers. I started with some cheap ones from Bunnings, because I was too impatient to wait for the hafeles to arrive. They were rated at 25kg. The drawers probably weight that much. Whatever, they are holding up fine so far.

If I was doing it again, I would still use dovetail joints on the front. The butt joint, rebate and dado seem a bit too weak for a heavy drawer front.

[Scally]

Farnk
here is a shot of the half blind dovetails in the plywood.

Amazing what a bit of glue and a sand will cover up.

[Scally]

Hi I think someone try to pm me and I messed up opening the message.

It was titled Hafele so I thought someone wanted to know where to get their extension slides.
I went through their web site and sent them an email.

They rang me back within a day and took my order over the phone for 7 full extension slides. They arrived here in the bush the next day.
Pretty impressive.

I got the impression that the web site and my contact were set up for big purchases as the site wanted account numbers or to sign up to create an account.
They had no hesitation taking my small order.

Hope this helps someone.


New South Wales




Häfele Australia Pty. Ltd.
10 Forsyth Close
Wetherill Park NSW 2164
Tel: +61 (0)2 8788 2200
Fax: +61 (0)2 8788 2201
E-Mail: [email protected]

[soundman]

There are all sorts of joints that will work in thick ply, hell jsut but join anything over 15mm and you will be fine particularly if you whack a few long screws in there.
Bit if you want to get the weight down, that menas using thinner ply, 10mm, or smaller. any of the traditional wood working joints simply will not stand up.

get some aluminium extrusion in the picture and you will be surprised how much strength you can get out of very thin ply.

check out the penn fabrication web site.
they are the bigest manufacturer of equipment case hardware .
http://www.penn-elcom.com/
look under extrusion, single angle is reasonably strong if you put enough rivets in. yes rivets hold just fine in timber even better if you put a washer on the back.
The double angle is much stronger, the ply is sandwedged between matal surfraces and held very securely by the rivets.

while you are there check out the corners, catches & latches.

penn have an office in AUS and distributers in all states.

cheers

[Farnk]

Thanks everyone!

All great input, the ute arrives in a week and I'll make a start soon after!

[bat]

.

I have built hundreds of drawer boxes out of Baltic Birch using the joint that Wongo is showing and never once had a problem with it. It is a lot less work than a dovetail too.