Thread: Joining Web Frame to Carcass

Looks like your going to have problems with the way your front has been made JK. Cutting three holes for drawers and leaving the cross grain sections between the drawer holes like that isn't a good way to do it . You see antique country rustic drawers put in like that but it would be one drawer in the middle and that's all . A 300 wide drawer in the middle of a 1200 wide table .
Those dividers should be joined in and running vertically . Unless your intending on using some tricky way of it holding together over time by adding screws through the top and up through the bottom to help it out . With weight and time you may have to do that if it fails

As for Web Frames . I wouldn't use such things . Id add in runners and guides the traditional way as separate pieces from front to back then add guides on top of them after making drawers.
If doing frames though, tongue and groove is a good way to do it but machining or planing the groove into the front apron before assembly is a good idea. Drilling and nailing through the back is one fast way to support the back of the runners or frames . Or if single runners they can be dovetailed up into the back apron so its not seen through at the back and skew nailed up into the back as well would be the old way of making it last .

Rob

Originally Posted by auscab

Looks like your going to have problems with the way your front has been made JK. Cutting three holes for drawers and leaving the cross grain sections between the drawer holes like that isn't a good way to do it . You see antique country rustic drawers put in like that but it would be one drawer in the middle and that's all . A 300 wide drawer in the middle of a 1200 wide table .
Those dividers should be joined in and running vertically . Unless your intending on using some tricky way of it holding together over time by adding screws through the top and up through the bottom to help it out . With weight and time you may have to do that if it fails

As for Web Frames . I wouldn't use such things . Id add in runners and guides the traditional way as separate pieces from front to back then add guides on top of them after making drawers.
If doing frames though, tongue and groove is a good way to do it but machining or planing the groove into the front apron before assembly is a good idea. Drilling and nailing through the back is one fast way to support the back of the runners or frames . Or if single runners they can be dovetailed up into the back apron so its not seen through at the back and skew nailed up into the back as well would be the old way of making it last .

Rob

Hi Rob,

I hadn't thought about that joint being weak, but throwing some extra support in now to prevent future issues makes sense, do you think dowels would be adequate?

If you were doing runners going from front to back would you just mortise and tenon them? Guides glued to the runners or just screwed in place?

First time building something like this and there is a surprisingly small amount of info out there about the best ways of joining drawer support structures into a carcass.

Cheers, Joel.

Originally Posted by JK_Qld

Hi Rob,

I hadn't thought about that joint being weak, but throwing some extra support in now to prevent future issues makes sense, do you think dowels would be adequate?

If you were doing runners going from front to back would you just mortise and tenon them? Guides glued to the runners or just screwed in place?

First time building something like this and there is a surprisingly small amount of info out there about the best ways of joining drawer support structures into a carcass.

Cheers, Joel.

Imagine the drawers full of something heavy and the weight that would be hanging on that side grain . The weight of full drawers will sag a table like that over 100 years . A well built table like that can get a 1 inch dip in the middle between by around 200 years old . Only the standard well designed ones last that long though .
Dowels would work but I think screws done right put in from the bottom up would be stronger . But they can get in the way of your joinery for the drawer runners . Anything will be better than nothing .

Runners with a tenon at their fronts into the Apron is a good way. You could peg them through the front of the Apron but it doesn't look like that's the style for that . Another way is resting them on a glued in inner rest but if the runner is 19mm and the rest is 10mm then the front bottom apron minimum thickness has to be 29mm . If yours is 20 then 10 and 10 mm ? Once the runners are fitted so their all level and true and level at the back as well , You have to carefully sight them up . When their dry and not going to move any more . I make the drawers. With the top still off and the drawers made I fit guides on small tables like this by marking off the made drawers . One way is with a lengthened and shave pencil or a long chisel . Then the guides are just glued in . if I think they need nails they go in after glue dries or they have been clamped for a few minutes.

Proper planning is the way to go .

There's lots of ways to get the info but not off a computer sometimes. Go into an Auction room with Antique furniture and you will see and be able to inspect plenty . Chest of drawers will show what you want. All the Victorian ones will have a groove ploughed in the back of the rails to take the small tenon . They did them right through from one end to the other . Earlier can have just a Rebate or mortises to match the runners .


Rob

Short Grain.jpg

Originally Posted by auscab

Looks like your going to have problems with the way your front has been made JK. Cutting three holes for drawers and leaving the cross grain sections between the drawer holes like that isn't a good way to do it . ....

Unfortunately Rob is correct, Joel. That short grain is a weakness and it will eventually fail, possibly quite quickly.

Probably the best option would be to remove it and replace those four webs with timber running vertically, with mortice & tennon, dowelled or domino joints.

Alternatively, you could reinforce it with battens glued on behind, but the rails are quite narrow for transferring/absorbing forces. The short grain might still split, but not catastrophically.

Finally, you might think about boxing in the draw slide as Derek Cohen has done here.
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