Hardwood Slides, Pine Fronts for Under-Workbench Storage Cabinet Drawers

Once the "cabinet" and drawers for the under-bench storage was done, I set about making slides for the drawers.

Translation: we're in trouble now.

Originally I was going to use metal slides. But after pricing them, I got scared off. Even the cheapest slides could have cost about $10 a pair. Meaning, $100 for all 10 drawers.

I also started looking at the dressers I have, and saw they used wood slides. Hmmmm.

While pondering this, and researching on the interwebs, I came across this fabulous web site. Lots of great DIY ideas, including slides.  So I borrowed some of his ideas in making slides for my drawers.

You can see on the picture of the drawer how I put hardwood (poplar) slides on the sides of the drawers. And I'll have mating slides on the cabinet. The slides position the drawer horizontally, and they sit a few millimeters above the drawer sides. So we wind up with hardwood-on-hardwood for the slides instead of plywood. Meaning they will slide more smoothly.

This whole process was a good learning experience. As you'll see, the drawers didn't come out perfectly, but they are functional, which was the goal. And it somehow seems more appropriate to have wood slides versus metal ones.

A couple of notes - really lessons learned - about the slides. I went with slides on the sides of the drawers like this because I wanted to maximize the heights of the drawers, since I am working with a fixed space. You'll see slides under the drawers on a lot of dressers and other cabinets (see these)  - I think they probably work better. But I didn't want to sacrifice vertical height of the drawers by having slides under the drawers.

Also, I made one small goof. I planned the drawer widths beforehand, based on what I thought the final width would be based on the cabinet plan I drew up. I should have made the cabinet, then calculated the drawer widths.

As it turns out, I had a lot more width to work with than I thought I would. You can also see the width of the slides are wider than they need to be. Had I better planned this, I could have made the drawers a bit wider, and the slides narrower.

When I realized this, I did just this on the right-side drawers. As a result, the right-side drawers are wider and deeper than the ones on the left side. Maybe by 3/4 of an inch or so in each direction. Not much, but that made each right-side drawer about 8 or 10 cubic inches bigger total, which means that much more storage space. So, lesson learned.

Here's an overview of how I made both the drawer slides and the cabinet slides. I had calculated some measurements for the height of both; I did get "reality" measurements once I had the drawers done.  Here I'm cutting the cabinet slides. I believe I needed 0.469 inches for the cabinet slides, so I (attempted) to set the bandsaw to rip that much off the 1x3 poplar pieces.

I realize you can't get to that level of accuracy but I did have a good excuse to use my new Starrett rule which measures 32nds, 64ths, 50ths, and 100ths!

Now we rip the poplar. I'm using a piece of pine as a feather board/guide - it's attached to my miter gauge.

I got pretty close, all things considered. Here's a typical piece - actually within a few thousandths. I'll plane and sand these to an exact fit when they all go together.

I started from the bottom on the left side and worked upward. There are two slides under the drawer which are attached to the cabinet. Then I put two more slides - see a top one here - onto the cabinet. I glued and nailed them to the cabinet.

Then I repeated this process. The two top slides for this drawer are also the bottom slides for the next drawer.

This process let me be (reasonably) accurate and ensured the drawers fit pretty well.

I also made the cabinet slides a bit too wide - I could have cut them down. But by the time I realized it, I had already put a few in place and decided it wasn't a big problem. I would have just saved some wood if they were narrower. Live and learn.

I also found out using a nail gun can be a bit...unforgiving. I made a couple of goofs like this when putting the slides on.

By the way, this is the 'revised,' Mark II version of the drawer slides I used on the right-side drawers. I made the drawers wider and ran a strip of poplar on the top of the sides rather than the side.

A Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel makes short work of an overshot nail.

Once I had all of the cabinet slides in place, I figured it might be a good idea to double-check the overall fit of the cabinet in the space under the bench.

It fit fine. Wow. This is going to work!

Note the left side vs. right side slides - the right side slides are narrower, and the drawers are a touch wider as a result.

Now we're getting somewhere.

I used a piece of cardboard to take some measurements for the drawer fronts. There is one taller bottom drawer on each side and four shorter ones above that.

The drawer fronts will hide the slides from view from the front of the cabinet.

The stack of drawer fronts ready to go. I spluged for "select" pine (no knots, nicer grain, less warp in the boards) for these, since they'll be the outward face of the cabinet to the world.

I made one and triple-checked it for fit, then I cut the rest of them.

Used my trusty Stanley No. 7 (Type 12 I think) plane to shave the fronts down to the exact height needed.

I wanted some sort of liners for the drawers. I originally was going to use rubber or foam liners similar to the ones in my steel mechanic's cabinets. Then I read on Lumber Jocks about using cork. Great idea, and it seems appropriate to use wood.

This is Con-Tact self-adhesive liner. It's thinner than I would have liked, but it's very easy to put on. And it's really smart - it speaks English (Natural Cork), French (Revêtement Couverture en Liège, and Spanish (Cubierta de Corcho).

You have to love tri-lingual cork!

I figured the cork would be easier to work with if I put it on before I put the drawer fronts on.

Pocket screws in to hold the fronts to the drawers. They're also glued as the sides and backs were, so it's a very strong assembly.

I discovered that it helps to drive the screw in partway before the final attachment to the workpiece. The screws are self-threading and it takes a second for them to grab and start to thread. In a couple instances, the screw would try to start, and the whole joint would shift a bit, so I started pre-driving them.

One drawer down, nine to go.

The assembly is quite strong. I'm glad I used 1/2 ply for the bottoms, I may be storing tools in these and the extra strength is probably a good thing.

One other detail - select pine for the bullnose trim on the front edges. This covers up the ugly plywood cabinet edges.

And there's my trusty new nail gun. Chick-chick-bang-pssst!

The clearance between the drawer fronts is very close. In a couple spots I had to shave just a touch more off them to get a nice fit.

Used my wonderful Stanley Sweetheart (ca. 1920) No. 18 block plane. What a great tool.

The end result. Not great, but not too bad.

The left-side drawers needed a lot more fitting than the right side. Lesson learned: don't make final measurements too early in the process. Duh.

Next job is to make custom pine drawer pulls.