I am ready to make some drawers for the lower half of a hutch. I am
interested in what I have seen called "lipped" drawer fronts or
rabbeted drawer fronts as my Leigh DT jig manual calls them. It's
unclear to me, though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a
roundover edge) on all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2
sides and the top, with no edge treatment on the bottom.

If there is an edge treatment on all 4 sides, then it would appear
that the bottom of the drawer front does not have a rabbet? So that
the 2 sides and top overlap the drawer opening (acting as a stop
also), and the bottom one would be directly in line with it? Wouldn't
this look kind of weird? I can't picture it very well. Any pointers
to images or other references welcomed..

Cheers

On Apr 14, 10:17 am, " wrote:
I am ready to make some drawers for the lower half of a hutch. I am
interested in what I have seen called "lipped" drawer fronts or
rabbeted drawer fronts as my Leigh DT jig manual calls them. It's
unclear to me, though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a
roundover edge) on all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2
sides and the top, with no edge treatment on the bottom.

If there is an edge treatment on all 4 sides, then it would appear
that the bottom of the drawer front does not have a rabbet? So that
the 2 sides and top overlap the drawer opening (acting as a stop
also), and the bottom one would be directly in line with it? Wouldn't
this look kind of weird? I can't picture it very well. Any pointers
to images or other references welcomed..

You can have a rabbet all the way around. On my Akeda jig the side
stops are built in a way to allow the inside of the rabbet to index on
them so you don't have to do anything special. On the Leigh you may
have to make a block of wood equal to the width of the rabbet to
offset the sides, I'm not sure.

That being said, I prefer to use a false front instead. Make the
dovetails through dovetails and just add a front after.

-Kevin

" wrote in message
...
I am ready to make some drawers for the lower half of a hutch. I am
interested in what I have seen called "lipped" drawer fronts or
rabbeted drawer fronts as my Leigh DT jig manual calls them. It's
unclear to me, though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a
roundover edge) on all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2
sides and the top, with no edge treatment on the bottom.

If there is an edge treatment on all 4 sides, then it would appear
that the bottom of the drawer front does not have a rabbet? So that
the 2 sides and top overlap the drawer opening (acting as a stop
also), and the bottom one would be directly in line with it? Wouldn't
this look kind of weird? I can't picture it very well. Any pointers
to images or other references welcomed..

Cheers

For best appearances the rabbet should be all the way around the drawer
front, bottom included. This will hide, as intended, all gaps around the
drawer.

Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd
(?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the
more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken
off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't anticipate
the drawer being removed frequently however..

Cheers!

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:17:31 -0700, wrote:

It's unclear to me,
though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a roundover edge) on
all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2 sides and the top, with
no edge treatment on the bottom.

I prefer a roundover, or whatever, on just the sides. The tops and
bottoms overlap such that they touch their neighbor, with allowance for
expansion. Looks really nice if you can match the grain.

I've got a tool stand in the workshop that has 10 graduated drawers in
pairs. On it I only did a roundover on the outside edges so the the
front looks solid. I found wood wide enough that I could make the 4
largest drawer fronts from a single piece. Likewise the 6 smaller ones.
Came out pretty nice. Of course, I'm not unbiased on the subject :-).

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

" wrote in message
...
Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd
(?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the
more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken
off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't anticipate
the drawer being removed frequently however..

Cheers!


Traditional huh? Strange. Seems you would not add a design element that
would look asymmetrical so that you could add a layer of protection when the
drawer was not in its normal location. I wonder what technique would be
advised to keep you from stepping on the drawer and crushing it.

Basically you would end up with a drawer that looks "different" 99.999% of
the time to protect it against a situation that it may be exposed to .001%
of the time.

I could be wrong.

" wrote:

Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd
(?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the
more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken
off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't
anticipate
the drawer being removed frequently however..

Last project I built had rabbit around top and sides with flat bottom
for drawer fronts.

Looks just fine for my purposes since bottom of drawer is almost
hidden from view.

Lew

I'll second that.. Many shaker drawer fronts were made that way..

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
...
" wrote:

Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd
(?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the
more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken
off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't anticipate
the drawer being removed frequently however..

Last project I built had rabbit around top and sides with flat bottom for
drawer fronts.

Looks just fine for my purposes since bottom of drawer is almost hidden
from view.

Lew