preferred kitchen cabinet drawer construction method.

[bonesbr549]

Hey, I will soon be building my (last) home for retirement and working with my builder have agreed I will do the cabinets and he will be doing install and counter tops etc. 

I'm going to doing full overlay shaker style painted (antiqe white) fronts. Slides will be Blum Tip on slides.

My question is best material/construction for the boxes?  I'm thinking maple for boxes.  What is your recommended box construction type?

I'm fine with Dove Tails in front locking miter etc.    Have you guys worked a lot with the locking miter?  I'm a furniture maker so first thought is just dovetail the whole thing as I've heard that the lock miter bits are very difficult to get perfect alignment etc? 

For the draw-fronts could do Maple and paint but thinking Poplar maybe?  May have to do some dry runs to see how they would work out.   

Anyway any thoughts appreciated.

 

[Paul G]

my only opinion is between poplar or maple for doors and drawer fronts use maple, poplar dings too easy for this part that is most prone to accidental contacts.

 

[Sparktrician]

Lock miter joints ARE a PITA to set up right, but once set up right, they are fantastic.  Infinity Tools makes very nice set-up jigs to help align the router bit, but final adjustment is a trial-and-error thing.  Best of luck with that. 

 

[Billedis]

I prefer 1/2" maple dovetailed front and back.  I radius the tops, and use blum soft close, full extension undermount guides.  The best price I have found on blum products is AHTurf.com.  They are close to half price of other sites.  Bill

 

[mleny77]

I prefer 1/2" maple dovetailed front and back.  I radius the tops, and use blum soft close, full extension undermount guides.  The best price I have found on blum products is AHTurf.com.  They are close to half price of other sites.  Bill

I used AHTurf for my last kitchen build, shipping can be a little pricey. I e-mailed them before I placed my order to make sure they had everything and they called me back and said if I placed to order over the phone they would be able to get the shipping cost reduced a little.

 

[johnbro]

I prefer 1/2" maple dovetailed front and back.  I radius the tops, and use blum soft close, full extension undermount guides.  The best price I have found on blum products is AHTurf.com.  They are close to half price of other sites.  Bill

Wow, thanks for the tip on AHTurf.com; just ordered 10 pair of slides on sale for $3.71 each. Awesome deal!

 

[Cheese]

Maple ply, also use it for shelves as mdf likes to sag. Tempered glass also works well for shelving on display cabinets.

ahturf.com  [thumbs up]

 

[morts10n]

I'm pretty sure that if you bought slides for $3.71 that they are not tandem undermount. Tandem is what you will need if you plan on using tip-on. (562 is required in USA, Not 563 by the way, and different model in other countries ) Don't kill yourself with drawer construction if you are using tandem slides, tho dovetail is preferred .
Cheers

 

[morts10n]

Looking at their website, I see they are basic 100lb box slides for $3.71. At that price they are knock offs, most likely Chinese....yikes! No tip-on with those. Good luck!

 

[rmwarren]

If you are in Pottstown check out Industrial Plywood in Reading, They have the prefinished ply in 4 by 8's but also have it in 24" with edge banding on one edge.

Also have a line of hardware and can provide drawer boxes.

RMW

 

[tiralie]

My question is best material/construction for the boxes?  I'm thinking maple for boxes.  What is your recommended box construction type?

Any well constructed box is a good box. I have used 1/2" melamine with rabbeted sides, glued and stapled, Baltic birch plywood with finger joints, and etc. Blum Legrabox and tandem boxes are great too if you like that look. They all have their place in the cost of a kitchen. Since this is your house I would do all dovetailed maple. Aesthetically they look very pretty.

For the draw-fronts could do Maple and paint but thinking Poplar maybe?  May have to do some dry runs to see how they would work out.   

Again it's your house and I would use maple as it doesn't show the dents as easily.

Tim

 

[Cheese]

Here's what you probably want..TANDEM plus BLUMOTION slides. These are self closing, silent slides that will run around $20-25 per pair...they are well worth the expense.  [thumbs up]
http://ahturf.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=26941_21232_884_274_25244_25245

 

[overanalyze]

This is FOG...Domino drawers!

Sent from my SM-T310 using Tapatalk

 

[tiralie]

Here's what you probably want..TANDEM plus BLUMOTION slides. These are self closing, silent slides that will run around $20-25 per pair...they are well worth the expense.  [thumbs up]

In the time spent making drawers they pay for themselves.
Tim

 

[Master Carpenter]

Maple sides. Dovetailed. My own house, Blum push to open, softclose undermount slides.

 

[bonesbr549]

hey thanks for all the replies!  Had not considered the issue with dents and dings with poplar.  Maple will be the choice.  Looks like I will be doing maple fronts.  For the boxes torn but probably will be DT's on front and probable just a locking joint in the rear and good solid bottoms. 

Thanks for the tip on ply vendor, and I do use them now for my good ply for my wine cabinets i build.    Fantasic place and good people.  I will miss them when i move away. 

 

[Cheese]

For the boxes torn but probably will be DT's on front and probable just a locking joint in the rear and good solid bottoms. 

If you're willing to mix up construction methods, why not consider as [member=22025]overanalyze[/member] suggested, using dominos for the rear with the dovetails for the front. The domino is strong and fast.

Here are a couple of bed boxes that I made, the domino method took only 10% of the time compared to the dovetail method.

 

[kevinculle]

Dovetails made a lot of sense when drawers ran on wood runners as the racking forces imposed on the corner joints were very large.  With the use of modern ball bearing undermount slides with soft close mechanisms the corner joints of drawer boxes lead a very easy life as the inertial loads of the contents are largely transmitted through the drawer bottom to the slides.  I build drawer boxes out of high quality 1/2" plywood prefinished on one side (the inside) and join the corners with #0 biscuits in butt joints - they work and look fine!

 

[mikeyr]

my plan for my next set of drawers is domino joints...now that I have a domino

 

[JimD]

I built the island in my last house.  The cabinet was flat panels of 3/4 cherry frames and cherry veneer mdf panels (the only true 1/4 I found).  I made drawers of 1/2 Baltic birch plywood with all 4 corners dovetailed.  I use an inexpensive half blind jig and once it and the router is set up, it takes no more time than any other joint.  I've made glued and braded drawers, screwed together drawers, and pocket screwed drawers.  They all work.  But dovetails are recognized as better construction.  And machine cut ones are easy.  My shop drawers are a combination of dovetails and pocket screws.  The first cabinet when I was in a hurry are pocket screwed drawers of 3/4 plywood.  The other cabinet is dovetailed, mostly out of "scrap" 3/4 softwood from house projects.  I like the dovetailed drawers better both because they are solid, old, wood but both types of drawers work fine. 

I recommend cutting dovetails in plywood going in the reverse direction of normally router cutting.  It minimizes splitting of the plywood.