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Custom Drawers and Hardware A cabinetry student learns how to handcraft drawers and install hardware. From "Trade School" episode DTRS-403

Cabinetry student Gustave Anderson continues his foray into custom cabinetry. Here, he crafts drawers and faces, installs hardware and adds the finishing touches to his personal island kitchen cabinet.

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Figure A

Steps:

1. With the carcass finished, Gustave turns his attention to crafting one of several basic drawer boxes, each consisting of four sideboards and one bottom board. To interlock the sides and bottom pieces together, he uses a table saw fitted with a dado set to cut a dado lengthwise into each sideboard and a rabbet on each end (figure A). After test-fitting the bottom board into the dado grooves, he closes the box with glue and a nail gun.

	Figure B
	Figure C

2. Next, he crafts several drawer faces out of solid hickory pieces that were cut previously. For these, he employs tongue-and-groove joinery to connect the pieces that form a frame. He makes many passes on the table saw to cut the tongues or grooves on the ends of each piece (figure B). After several test-fittings, he can begin assembling the faces.

3. To assemble the drawer faces, he applies glue inside the grooves and hand-fits the pieces together, including hickory-veneered medium-density fiberboard (MDF) panels. For a tight fit at each joint, he attaches with several clamps while the glue dries (figure C).
* Note: Gustave crafts doors for this cabinet using the same tongue-and-groove technique.

4. Next, Gustave installs pre-manufactured hardware for the drawers and doors. After cutting two dado notches, he screws two slide hooks and two locking devices on the bottom of each drawer box.

5. Inside the carcass, he measures and then screws down a series of runners using an angle driver.

Figure D

6. To install a door latch, Gustave uses a drill press to bore a hole into the door. After drilling two pilot holes, he embeds the latch (figure D) and attaches it with a pair of screws.

7. Before taking his nearly finished cabinet home, instructor Neil Scherrer helps him align and then attach the faces to the installed drawers with a nail gun.

8. At home, Gustave's wife helps him finish his first cabinet by clamping and screwing down a large butcher-block top. The cabinet is completed just in time; the next meal is right around the corner.

RESOURCES :
Red Rocks School of Fine Woodworking and Lutherie
Website: www.rrcc.edu/finewood