Thread: Fine internal cut into kitchen draw

How wide is the panel?
If its not too wide, you could just rip a veneer off the face, and then just cut the holes in the thicker piece using a router, jigsaw whatever. And then just use that veneer you made and laminate that to a piece of mdf/pine/ironbark and cut the draw to an exact size less 1mm all around for draw clearance.

The other way to do it is to rip the board into 3 pieces with the grain. the top section, the middle section, and the bottom section. then cut the draw panels out of the middle section. After that you will have 7 pieces total (2 draw fronts, top piece, bottom piece, and 3 pieces between the draws). joint the edges and laminate it back together without the draw fronts in it. this works best is the grain is very very straight grain, curly figured timbers look like garbage using this method. when cutting and jointing the pieces, you have to be very precise and the less material you remove from saw kerfs and jointing the better. usually people will use a thin kerf/zero kerf bandsaw to cut the boards and then joint the boards with less than 1mm taken. results in a gap around the drawfront of around 1.5-2.0mm

How are you with hand saws?

You can start a cut with something like a flooring saw (although Bunnings sells a "veneer saw" that will do the job) which has a rounded, toothed nose for just this purpose. It can be difficult for a beginner to use this way, so I'd suggest some practice pieces first.

Once the cut is started you can switch to a more normal hand saw.

Personally I use a Japanese alternative called an Azebiki to start. This is much like a Ryoba, but with convex curved edges. I then use a Ryoba for cutting out the rest... mainly because these japanese saws have very fine kerfs. Typically under 0.5 mm!

This means I still have a margin of error of a mm or two where I can sand the edges straight (in case I cut wonkily ), etc. and still have an acceptable gap.


(Mind you, with Ironbark it will be a hard slog! Just saying... )

Try using a reciprocating multi-tool the blades are only about 1mm thick and you can make plunge cuts.
Clamping a batten to the workpiece will ensure a straight cut.

Originally Posted by mark david

Try using a reciprocating multi-tool the blades are only about 1mm thick and you can make plunge cuts.
Clamping a batten to the workpiece will ensure a straight cut.

Great idea but I'd add one further refinement; instead of trying to keep the blade flush with one side of a battern I'd take the idea a bit further and physically trap it between two. Put a rectangular slab of wood the size of the desired hole exactly where you want the hole to be and then place batterns around the outside only a blade's thickness away (+ a smidge for clearance). Use the widest FLAT ended blade you can get and keep it sweeping from side to side but keep out of the corners. Finish off in the corners using a pullsaw as per Skew's suggestion.

You don't say though what gap you're expecting. If you'd be happy with 2-3mm all round then to be honest I'd be looking at doing a plunge cut with a good quality jigsaw blade and running that along batterns.