Glueing the Drawer Cases

With all these dainty litte 1/4" and 1/2" pieces, getting the drawer cases square during the glue-up is a challenge. I added brads to keep the pieces together while the glue dried and used my square to keep them square. The picture below shows the drawer backs, which I cut to extend an inch above the sides. This will be my attemp at drawer stops (to keep the drawers from falling out of the cabinet when opened).

While the glue dried, I assigned a drawer to each cabinet opening and began measuring the position of the slides. I drilled a hole big enough for the screws to slip through the slides to ensure the slides would fit close against the cabinet sides. I also counter-sank the holes so the screw heads wouldn't conflict with the drawer grooves.

Attaching the slides to the correct place proved to be harder than expected. If they didn't line up exactly with the drawer grooves, the drawer would not slide in/out. When possible, I flipped several slides 180 degrees to realign using different screw holes. When not possible, I cheated by using the router to carve out wider grooves. I also discovered I had to rout out the grooves in the back of the drawer sides to open wider. This was the only way I could get the drawers to fit into their openings with my huge stops. A final problem was the clearance between each drawer side and the cabinet. During my measuring I decided to error on the side of leaving too much clearance between each drawer side and the cabinet. Which was good, because I used washers between the slide and cabinet (for about 50% of my slides) to close the gap between the drawer side grooves and slides. A 1/16" gap is shown in the picture above. Sometimes I used up to 3 washers. In the end, all 4 drawers fit perfectly. I'll have to make the drawer faces later.


My only complaint is that the drawers tip down when fully opened. This occurs because of the expanded grooves near the back of the drawer sides. I guess it was a trade off between being able to get the drawers in and out of the case and having drawer stops. I'll figure out a way to fix this later.