Number of Dominos - 10" Height Drawer

[grbmds]

I recently made a drawer for my under-workbench storage area. The drawer is 20" front to back and 10" high. I used 2-#5X30 dominos at each corner along with gluing the oak veneered plywood at the joints also. (Note: This particular oak veneered plywood is many years old and is actually 3/4" ply with a solid pine core, or at least solid pine around the edges, sandwiched between 2 outside layers of fairly substantial oak veneer.) The joint seems solid and the drawer isn't going to hold anything exceptionally heavy; probably just files which is why it was made to a height of 10".

In this case, given the core of the plywood and the extra strength from face grain gluing it will give, I doubt there will be a problem.

My question is for other scenarios where the plywood might be a layered core. Would 2 #5X30 dominoes at each corner yield sufficient strength? The drawers I make for most projects are less in height so the situation doesn't come up for me regularly.

 

[ChuckM]

For a 3/4" - 10" tall drawer, I'd use at least three (3), probably four (4), #6 x 40 dominoes. If in the future, the drawer is needed for heavier goods, I wouldn't need to do anything.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I'm with ChuckS on this, at least three. The main thing to pay attention to when using 6mm Dominos with 3/4" material, is that you have to offset the Domino or it will cut through the side.
They are 40mm long, so 20mm in each piece is not going to work. Offsetting to 25mm and 15mm works well, but you have to keep your wits about you, to not mix them up.

 

[Birdhunter]

I recently built 6 drawers 30" wide, 18" deep, and 8" high out of 3/4" Baltic birch for a dresser. I used 5mm tenons top and bottom of each corner. I used two pocket hole screws for each corner as well. Bottoms were 1/4" Baltic birch. The drawers were very solid.

My biggest problem was getting all the drawers to line up perfectly. I had a 1/8" gap on all sides. Lots of fiddling with the slides. A professional would have gotten it perfect the first time. I bought a Rockler drawer jig  that looked great on the videos. It was OK, but didn't help all that much with alignment.

 

[ChuckM]

Any particular reason why you didn't use only dominoes or only pocket screws? And by 1/8" gap, did you mean the finished drawers were undersized?

 

[guybo]

hi, try either a story pole an a square or i cut a spacer block for slides .I use this sight for a nice visual for balance.BTW nice job on that WO dresser.https://woodbin.com/calcs/drawer-sizer/

 

[Packard]

Confirmat screws, notably the 7mm are roughly the equivalent of a 3/8” dowel and can be added after assembly.

3/8” dowels can through installed after assembly. Both will add substantial strength. 

I don’t use dominoes, but I guess they can be through installed also.

It seems that you have some options available.

If you don’t want any fasteners showing, then glue triangle of stock (3/4” x 3/4”) to the inside of the drawers at the joint.  That would be face grain to face grain on both surfaces along the 10” joint.  That would increase the strength considerably and not change the appearance of the drawer.  You can clamp it, but I would use a 18 gage pin nailer.

I would probably go with the glue block myself.  It is faster and easier and adds a lot of strength.

 

[Birdhunter]

"Any particular reason why you didn't use only dominoes or only pocket screws? And by 1/8" gap, did you mean the finished drawers were undersized?"

The Dominos were used for alignment. I've found pocket hole screws can pull the joint out of alignment unless it is clamped or otherwise fixed. The combination of tenons and pocket holes is very secure and doesn't pull out of alignment.

The 6 drawers comprised the entire front of the dresser except for the 3/4" edges of the top and the sides. I wanted the top/bottom and side/side gaps between the drawers to be small. The 1/8" gap turned out to be very challenging for my abilities, but eventually nailed it.

I did end up using a story board for setting the slides. The tweaking was due to slight inaccuracies in my construction. Had I done a better job, the tweaking would have not been necessary. My excuse is that I've never built anything this complex before. Probably won't ever do it again.

 

[Packard]

“Tweaking” is another term for “custom woodworking” or “hand-crafted”.

I have probably made projects that did not require tweaking.  I dont recall.  But tweaking is part of the process.  Better craftsmen find better solutions to small gaffs. 

Surprisingly, the “huge errors” I see in my projects are entirely unnoticed by anyone else who all gush, “You made this?  You didn’t buy it?”

The more woodwork you do, the better you are at the fixes (“tweaks”).