Attaching hardwood drawer faces to Baltic birch drawer sides
[email protected]
| Posted in General Discussion on
Made drawers for a cabinet project and I’m trying to decide the best way to fasten the faces that are 4/4 cherry to the Baltic birch sides while allowing for wood movement without fasteners visible from the front. The birch is rabbeted into the cherry and the drawers range from 8″ to 12″ tall.
In retrospect a false front would have been far easier, but no way to go back now.
Ideas?
Replies
You could attach a plywood front dovetailed to the sides and then screw the cherry to the plywood from the inside with oversized holes in the plywood front. I have done this on many projects. Another option is to use pocket screws drilled into the sides also with an oversized hole.
Like that:
You could glue a 3/4"x3/4" strip to the plywood side and use screws thru it to attach the front from its back. Decide where you want the drawer front to not move and have that pair of holes tight; the rest oversized. Might want to add some design element to the strip so it doesn't look like an afterthought.
The false front would have worked, what about a "false back"? You could add a 4th plywood side to your drawer boxes with glue & pocket screws from the blind side (or biscuits or dominos or whatever). Your sides would still extend into the rabbets you cut and you could screw the cherry front to the false back from the inside with allowance for movement.
That's an interesting idea. I might play with that.
Thank you.
You've already made the parts for the drawers? You may be well passed being able to do it but half blind dovetails would work even with plywood. Without going to the false front solution I don't see why doweling the front to the sides wouldn't work.
I have some drawers made with dowels in my kitchen. 9 years and counting without an issue.
Maybe glue/laminate a piece onto the drawer front creating essentially a rabbet deep enough that you could then glue it to drawer bottom and pin through the plywood sides with multiple dowel pins?
Any fastening method he uses will have to accommodate the seasonal movement of the drawer face and the lack of movement of the plywood. Dovetailing or doweling them would not hold up to the stresses, especially at the sizes he is talking about.
The plywood sides are dovetailed to a plywood front, the box is then screwed to the solid wood drawer face, the screws allow for any small seasonal movement.
Personally I wouldn't worry about it.
Unless that piece is outside, even at 12", the cherry isn't going to move enough to do any damage at all.
This correct. Wood movement in general is something to worry about on large solid wood panels like a table top.