A couple of design suggestions

Easel Cabinetmaker
3

I just finished assembling and putting finish on the drawer boxes, and I’ve decided I’m really not a big fan of the current design.

  1. The half-blind dados lead to splitting in the plywood. Obviously nicer plywood would help, but even with high-quality plywood, the design puts a lot of stress on the veneers, both at the edges and also along the drawer side. Most of the six drawers I assembled are showing visible splitting between the veneers (and again, I acknowledge that a lot of this is due to cheaper plywood). I believe this has to do with the way the dados interact with the sides.

    In some drawers I designed myself previously, I used a simple 1/2" rabbet (with no shaping on the front or back panel) and it didn’t put the stress on the veneers, also with cheap plywood.

  2. Besides the note above about the bottom & back design leaving gaps, the bigger issue I’ve now noticed is there’s no support for the bottom across the drawer. This will almost certainly lead to sagging drawer bottoms. I’m already feeling more flex in this design than I like, and this is with 1/2" bottoms!

    If the drawer design is switched to a rabbet, the front can be milled to include a dado to support the drawer bottom horizontally. This, combined with the bottom mounting under the back panel, would eliminate any potential gaps, and increase the strength of the drawer bottom.

    I don’t think the simpler design would meaningfully reduce the strength of the drawer box, either (and it’ll look a little nicer at the top than the current half-blind dado, since it shouldn’t leave a visible gap). It would also be strong enough to switch to a 1/4" bottom, if that option ever became available.

  3. The current design requires assembling all 5 pieces at once, around the bottom, which can be time-consuming when putting together a lot of boxes. With the bottom a separate piece, it would be possible to glue up the sides, pin the frame, and then slide the bottom in for squaring if desired. There’s a lot less pieces to glue up at once.

These issues, combined with the lack of option for 1/2" side-mount slides, mean I’m probably not going to use the generated drawer boxes for the rest of my cabinet build, which is a big part of the value of the CNC-built cabinets. Luckily for my case, most of the remaining drawers are the same dimensions, so I only have to hand-design a couple of them to finish out the build.

If you want more clarity, I’m happy to write/talk/etc to provide more direct feedback. I can also take some photos and provide drawings of what I mean by the above comments.

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