On 24 Oct 2005 09:43:06 -0700, "Mark Wells"
wrote:

I am confused about how tightly a drawer should fit. My recollection
of the Frank Klausz video is that he made them fit very tightly. He
would size the front and back to fit exactly and then once he assembled
the drawer, would plane it a little to make it fit. However, I'm
concerned the the wood will move, particularly in the height (depth of
a the drawer), and make the drawer too tight. Of course if you make
the drawer too short, it will tip out easily. Any advice out there?

I made a small chest of drawers for the shop and fit them as Klausz
suggested and they seem to work pretty well in all seasons, although
some are a little tight. My next project is a large chest of drawers
and I want the drawers to work well.

Mark


for an overlap front I use about 1/8" clearance all around with a
center maple dovetail slide and a stabilizing nylon pad on each side
under the drawer sides which extend below the bottom. Every couple of
years I wax the slide and the bottom of the sides with paste wax.
even very large drawers with heavy loads seem to work well with this
drawer system.

A friend put all the lower dimensions on CAD for us a few years ago.
dimensioned drawer bottom slot on the sides,back, and front.
Dimension for the short slot for the dovetail slide tongue and the
back cuttout dimension for the rear end of the dovetail slide. No
matter what the other drawer dimensions are, this under carriage
design remains the same.

Never done an inset drawer. Not sure I'm skilled enough to get it
consistent.

Frank