Hey @PhilDejarnett
This is incredbile feedback, thank you! I’ll do my best to respond to each of your points below. I’d be more than happy to set up a call for us to chat more!
Bottom panel w/Blind Dados
This is a great point! We’ve had pocket hole construction on the roadmap for a while now, including more recent discussions among the team about how we would integrate them into Easel Cabinetmaker to be cut with a CNC router bit. Our goal would be to offer a pocket-hole only solution, and another option for both pocket screws and blind dados.
Questions:
- You said you were “able to get a screw on each side of the bottom, but not the middle.” Could you share some pictures of this?
- Do you use any specific pocket hole systems in your work?
Drawer Bottoms & Backs
I’m sorry your drawers have these gaps! We chose to have the drawer backs “come down longer while the drawer bottom stops” to accomodate the holes that go into the back of the drawer for the back hooks on Blum drawer slides. If the drawer bottom went all the way to the back of the box, those holes for the hooks would fall at the intersection of the bottom and back drawer panels. We’re doing some additional testing of the fit and assembly of drawer cabinets, and I will make a point to review this concern during the testing and consider improvements to the current construction.
Questions:
- Did you measure and update the thickness of the material used for your drawers before generating the workpieces?
- Easel Cabinetmaker generates the geometries based on whatever material thickness is entered in the
Materialdetails. We’re working on improvements that mitigate some of these challenges with nominal and actual material thicknesses, but for now it is best practice to make sure your material thicknesses are accurate in Easel Cabinetmaker before generating workpieces or cut lists.
- Easel Cabinetmaker generates the geometries based on whatever material thickness is entered in the
- Can you share images of the gaps at the back of your drawers?
Drawer Sides & Bottoms
Great suggestions! I’ll play around with this during our upcoming drawer base testing to see if we can make a change here to improve the strength and appearance of the construction like you’ve outlined.
Edge Banding
More stellar feedback! In addition to pocket screws, we’ve also had some recent conversations about edgebanding among the team. The work we are doing with the cabinet compiler project should set us up for success down the road to make it easier as we build out tolerances for edge-banding. We’ll need to finish up the cabinet compiler work that we are currently doing before I’d know when we can start working on support for edge banding, but stay tuned!
Your Results and Findings
Thank you for such detailed feedback about your experience making these drawers. It is incredibly valuable for us to get this direct input so we can continue to improve our software. I’m going to test out your recommendations for drawers and look into how we can make some positive changes to our current implementation. I’ll let you know how this goes!
As for the 1/2" slides, we have a card in our queue to allow users to cusomize drawer dimensions - no longer restricting those dimensions based on the Blum TANDEM 563 specifications. Please stay tuned as we move this card into developments, and as we work on adding additional drawer slide hardware directly into Easel Cabinetmaker!
Questions:
- How many plies did you have in the plywood you used for the drawers? Did you use graded plywood? Do you know how thick the veneers are?
- I just want to make sure we are thinking of all the different variables at play on our end when considering box construction methods.
- What drawer slides do you typically use?
Thank you again for sharing your time, efforts, and expertise to bring us this feedback! Please let me know if you’d ever like to set up some time to chat with our team!