[funky bass line] [upbeat music plays] now that we've completedthe construction of the cabinet, it's time to build the drawer. and, if you think about it, the drawer is constructedpretty much just like a cabinet. you have two sidesand a top and a bottom, or in the case of the drawer,a front and a back. i’m going to run through the stepsof constructing the drawer,
starting with the measurements. we're going to be measuring allof our cabinet parts based on the manufacturer'sspecifications. and we're going to cut the partson the table saw, and we're going tomake a dado here. then we're going to goover to a router—, table router, and we're going to cutsome more dados. and then we'll come backto the table saw and cut some specialty notches
and that'll give me a chanceto show you how to use a dado blade. and we have a special little jig herethat blum hardware gives us to drill this holein the back of the drawer. so let's get started. all right, so now it’s timeto cut our drawer parts. we have a front and a back. we have two sides and a bottom. we don't just start cutting themrandomly. we refer to,in this case, the blum catalog
for the tandem drawer guides,which are what we’re using. we're using the 562-f guide. so i would get in the book here,find all the information i need. and, —actually when i do this,i do something very similar to what i'm going to doon the board, draw it outand calculate my parts. so, we've got three thingsthat we need to size. we have the sides. we’ have the front and back.
and i’ll just abbreviate thatas f and b. and we have the bottom. so let me show youhow you would go about calculating all of these parts. all right,so let's start with the sides. that's probably the easiest one to dobecause all we have to do is referto the tandem 562-f catalog page, go in and look at it, and it tells us thatwe're going to make a side
that's 305 millimeters. and actually, we're usinga mis-manufactured drawer guide which is actually going to require itto be 300 millimeters. now let’s calculate the frontand back. now, consulting the hardware pagesin the blum catalog, it tells us that the distancefrom the inside of the cabinet to the inside of this drawer is 24.5 millimeters. and the same would be trueon the other side.
24.5 millimeters. so, let's lookat what the inside measurement of our drawer is. we built the cabinetat 348 millimeters. our sidesare each 19 millimeters. so combined that would be 38. and if we take 38 millimetersoff of 348, we're at 310on the inside of the cabinet. all right, so the insideof our cabinet is 310 millimeters.
the blum catalog tells usthat the inside of the drawer will be 24.5 millimeters on each side,so that's 49. so i'm just goingto subtract 49 millimeters off of our insideof our cabinet and i'll get 261 millimeters. so the interior measurementof the drawer is going to be 261 millimeters. okay, we're almost there. we have the inside measurementof our drawer.
but whatwe really want to know is the measurement of the backand the front of the drawer. and remember,we have a lock shoulder joint here, where this little tongue goesinto the cabinet 6 millimetersand 6 millimeters here. so if we take the inside measurementof the cabinet and add 6 millimetersand 6 millimeters, we’ll have the measurementfor our front and back. we knowthe inside measurement is 261.
our tonguesare each 6 millimeters, so then there's two of them,so that's 12 millimeters. so i'm just going toadd 12 millimeters to the inside widthof the cabinet. and, we get 273 millimeters. so our front and back... are both 273 millimetersin length. now we haven't talkedabout the bottom yet, and i'm going to come back to itin just a moment.
but the one thing we still need to dois figure out what the height of the drawer sidesand front and back will be. and once again, you have to refer to the blum catalog... which tells us this: it says that the distancefrom your drawer hardware that's mounted to the cabinetis 14 millimeters. that’s just a fixed distance. they also tell youthat this distance from the top of the drawerto the top of the cabinet
can be no lessthan 6 millimeters. all right, so all i have to dois measure the distance from my hardwareto the bottom of the cabinet. and you just go overto your cabinet and measure that outin millimeters. and it should be 145 millimeters. so i’ll write 145 here. and then, to size the drawer, you're going tosubtract 14 millimeters
because that's the fixed heightof the bottom of the drawer from the bottomof the hardware. and, 6 millimeters off of... the bottomof the top of the cabinet. and actually, when i did this, i did it just a little bit more. but if we take these twoand add 'em together, we have 20 millimeters. so, what the catalog is telling youis that whatever this height is,
the drawer can be no more than 20 millimeters lessthan that distance. i'm going to make mine just 5 millimeters smaller. so i'm going to take145 millimeters, subtract the 14 and 6,which is 20, and i'm going to addanother 5 millimeters to it. so i'm subtracting25 millimeters. so my drawer heightwill be 120 millimeters. so i'll write that over here.
120 millimeters... and 120 millimeters. so for the bottom, its widthwill be exactly the same width as the front and backbecause it’s in a 6-millimeter dado, just like the front and back is. so i'll just write 273 here. all right,so now let's do the front to back or the depth measurementof our bottom.
the drawer sideis 300 millimeters deep, and the thicknessof our material is 12 millimeters. and we knowthat we have a 6-millimeter dado that is going tohouse the bottom. so, if we just subtract 6 millimetersoff of the front, 6 millimeters offof the back, we're going to subtract12 millimeters, making our bottom 288 millimeters in depth. so the bottom will be 273 by...
288. so hopefully you can seehow important it is to refer to the hardware pagesin your catalog with whatever hardwareyou're working with. so let's go over to the table sawand build our drawer. [saw motor whining] all right,now that we’ve calculated the sizes of our drawer parts, i'm going to cut themon the table saw.
so i'm going to cut 'emto length and width, and i'm also going to cut a dadofor the bottom. [saw buzzes] [saw buzzes again] [saw buzzes yet again] now i’m going to set upfor the dado cut. [clank] accordingto the blum specifications for the tandem drawerthat we're using,
the dado for the drawer bottom is up 12.5 millimeters. [shop noises audible, no dialogue] [again, the saw buzzes] good fit. okay, now we're goingto cut 'em to length. all right, now it's timeto cut our drawer parts to length. and up 'til nowwe've used —the fence and the blade and we haven't hadany problems. but at this point,with these narrow pieces,
running themthrough the table saw up against the fenceis kind of dicey, because you don't have much materialagainst the fence and it's very easy to have the piecemove away from the fence and then you get kick back. so, i want to show youa couple of strategies for cross-cuttingwithout using the fence. probably the simplest wayis with a mitre gauge. fits in the dado trackon the table saw.
and we canjust take our material, put it againstthe back edge here, which should be perpendicularto the blade. and that’s one thingyou want to test before you actuallyrun material through. and then turn the saw onand then you can cut. the one last thing i’ll mentionabout the mitre gauge is that it can be turnedon an angle, and the anglesare listed right here.
it's just like a protractor. and so,if you needed a 30-degree angle, you could set it, put your piece on,and run it through like so. so let me show you the jig that i liketo use for cross-cutting. and that's the sled. and this is a shop-builtpiece of equipment. it has two tracks here, two pieces that gointo our dados.
that keeps it nice and squareto the blade. one thing we have to dois remove the... guard, get it out of our way. and then something else we should dois with this sled... we should removethis custom throat plate with the little fin on it. so i’ll just puton the regular plate. and we’re essentially ready to go.
what's nice about this is that you can put a piece of materialagainst the fence here, and you really have good controlover it, whereas you don't havequite as much control with the mitre gauge. couple of more little safety tipsabout using the sled. if i'm cutting piecesthat are a little bit smaller than half of the sled, i can put a block on here
at whatever dimensioni'm trying to get, clamp it onand use that as a stop. but, if i need to cut a piecelonger than the sled and come over hereto the fence.... remember,if you're over here holding on to this side of the piece, when you run this through,you're going to lose control of the piecebetween the blade and the fence. and, we all knowthat's not what we want to do
because kickback will happen. so, a strategy to help youwith that is to set the measurementover 3/4 inch, since this material is 3/4 inch, and then just set upa simple little block on the fence that you can nowput your piece against and then run it through. and once it goes through, whether you’re holding on over here or over here,
it’s not touching the fence so it can't bind. i've set up a stopon the sled. and i've set itat 300 millimeters because the lengthof our drawer sides is 300 millimeters. and it's kind ofa lengthy set up, you set it up, run a test piece,measure it, make sure it's 300, if it's not,then you're going to slide the block backand forth a little bit. and, i thinki have it set just right,
but maybe we should test itand make sure that we're right on. [saw blade cutting wood] 300 millimeters. i always startby trimming the ends. all right,so our sides are cut. and they're 300 millimeters long. the front and backare 273 millimeters, so that's a 27-millimeterdifference. so rather than move this block,
i'm just going to leave itright where it is. i've cut a little piece of materialthat's 9 millimeters, and i'm just going toclamp it on. and once again, if i had,you know, 30 drawers to cut out, i'd want to cut allof my sides first at the 300 millimeter setting. and then i'd wantto move it back and forth for the different widthsof the drawers. okay, now all of our drawer partsare cut to size,
we just needto cut a couple of extra dados—-- additional dadosusing the table router. all right, now that we haveour drawer parts machined on the table saw, we're going todo some extra machining to make the jointsfor our drawer. and, there are lots of waysto put a drawer together. probably the simplest waywould be just a simple butt joint. of course,the downfall of this is
is that all you haveholding it together are the nails and any glue. and edge gluingnever works very well. another thing you could do isdo a rabbet. and you pick up a little bit moregluing surface here. but if the drawer is bangedup against the cabinet, you can seethat this can just fall apart. so probably the best jointfor the small cabinet shop is what’s calleda lock shoulder joint.
the sides have a dadoand the front and back have a rabbet. and we're going to use the table routerto do this. now, the table routeris set up specifically for this task. and it's really quite simple. it's all basedon the thickness of the material. and so our first rule isis that our material has to be somewhere closeto a 1/2 inch or 12 millimeters thick. this actuallyis 12 millimeters.
our router bit,which is sticking out right here—, sticking out horizontally... it's sticking out halfof that thickness, or 6 millimeters. and it’s 6 millimetersin diameter. and it’s 6 millimetersoff of the table. so what this does is it allows usto cut a 6-millimeter dado that is 6 millimeters away from the edge.
it allows us to cut a rabbet that's 6 millimeters deep... and leave 6 millimeters. and sowhen we put this together... it fits nice and snug. it's flush on the face. and it fits togethervery nicely. and one thing i wantedto mention about this joint, and you'll see it when we put it together, is that by having this rabbetand this dado,
we have lotsof gluing surface here. there's lots of area for usto get glue on here and it makesa really strong joint. now as i said before,the side is going to get the dado. and the waywe're going to do that is we're going to run a drawer partthrough just like this. and that's going togive us the dado. and we're going torun the front and back of the drawer through like this.
and that's going to give us a rabbetfor the front and back. all right, now i’m goingto put my test piece aside and get readyto cut the actual drawer parts. now remember,we're cutting dados on the sides and rabbetson the front and back. so it becomes very important to identify what's a front, and what’s a back,and what’s a side. so i'm going to mark these, and i'll just mark iton the bottom.
i know that the— drawer depth is longer thanthe drawer width, so i’m going to mark... the longer pieceswith an s for sides, and the shorter pieces f and bfor front and back. now, one other pointthat i want to make is that when yourun these pieces through, for example, here's a back, so it’s going to runthrough like this.
this would be wrong, this is kind of what looks to be right. but actually,we want the inside of the drawer against the table, always. so, for our fronts and backs, you'll want to put the dadodown towards the table, turn it around,run it through again. and then on your sides, you want the dado against the fence. run it through...run it through. to recap that,
the insideof the drawer always goes against either the fenceor the table. and finally,when we run these sides through... we want to use a follower strip... behind it. because what happens is, is as this piece runs throughand it comes out here, it's going to wantto tear the material away. and so it'll tear it up,
and you'll havea real patch job there. but if you put a follower stripbehind it, the materialhas nowhere to go. it's kind of likethe throat plate; you remember we made ourcustom throat plates over there, so that as the table saw bladeturned down, it didn't allow the materialto blow out. so we want to dothe same thing here, we want to put a little follower stripbehind it.
all right, so let’s go aheadand route our drawer parts. [router whirs] [router continues to whir] [router still whirring] okay, now that the rabbetsand dados are cut into our drawer sidesand front and back, we’re going to cut a bottom. in order to cut the bottom, i’m going to dry fitthe drawer parts together,
and just take a measurement. and dry fittingjust helps to make sure—-- ensure that everythingfits properly... that the dados are allon the right side and on the insideof the drawer. and it gives me one last opportunityto measure the drawer. and i’m supposedto be 285 millimeters in width. and that's good. and the depthis 300 millimeters.
and that’s right on. now, it’s very simple to calculate the width and depthof the drawer bottom. all we have to dois take the depth and subtract 12 millimeters. but, i’m going to add1 millimeter to that, and i’m actually goingto subtract 13 millimeters. so that just gives usa little bit —of play in there. we don’t wantto make it exactly to size.
we want it just a tad smaller,just 1 millimeter smaller. so, i'm going to take the depthof the cabinet, i'm going tosubtract 13 millimeters. i'm going to take the widthof the cabinet and subtract 13 millimeters. so my bottom is going to be271 millimeters by 287 millimeters. so let’s go to the table saw and we’ll cut the bottom. [saw blade whirs]
[saw powers down] all right,now that my bottom's cut, i’m going to dry fit itone more time, just to make surethat all of my calculations were done correctly. usually what i do isis put a side down on the table... and then fit the front and back on and then the other side. goes together nicely that way.
all right,looks like a good fit. so, now we can glueand nail the drawer together. and just a sort ofa refresher on—-- this is very muchlike building the cabinet. we want glue, of course. we need to havea wet rag ready. i’ve got the hot melt glue gun hereall set up, and we're going toglue the bottom. and, then i've got my nail gunright here,
with one-inch pin nails in it. all right,one thing that i want to say, and one point i want to make is,do not glue the bottom in. no glue in these bottom dados. the hot melt glue is going to hold 'em in. what happens isif you put glue in here, once you put it all togetherand squeeze it together, the glue will squeeze outon the inside of your cabinet and it'll make a messand you'll never get it cleaned up.
so that's why we hot melt iton the bottom side of the drawer. so, i'm going to glue it up. make sure that you get glue on all of the surfaces. all right. going to put my bottom in. and a side. oops. and the other side. now i'll glue...
the dado on this side. and put it all together. and now... i'm going toclean it up a little bit here, got quite a bit of glueoozing out. it's really importantto get this glue off... before it dries. now the pin nailer. now...
don’t nail like this because it's very difficultto align the nail properly, because we want the nail to goin perpendicular to this face. so, i think an easier way to do itis to align it this way. that way you can see a nice clean lineright along there. and really the sole purposeof these nails is just to hold the drawer togetheruntil the glue can dry. and there i did it--just what i told you not to do. i’ve been doing thisfor 20 years,
so i get to do itevery once in a while. there and there. and there’s our drawer. now all we have to dois to make sure that it’s square. and, this is somethingthat's really an important step. one other thingi want to point out is that, particularlywith larger drawers, oftentimes your materialwill have a little bit of warp to it. it'll be warped.
and so you want to sight down it—,or even take your square-- a bigger square is even betteron the larger drawers. and make sure that there’s not a bow going out, or going in like this. you can get rid of thatwith the hot melt, once you determinewhere the problem is. this one looks pretty clean,it looks like we're in good shape. i’m just going tosquare it up here. i'll check itin a couple of different spots,
it looks really good. and nowi’m going to hot melt it. one thingi do want to point out is we have a— little devicethat goes on the front of the cabinet right hereand right here-- or excuse me,on the bottom of the drawer. so we want to hold our hot melt back,just a little bit, so that it doesn't get in the wayof that piece of hardware. so i'll run a bead here.
here. and here. now the hot melt gluewill keep the drawer square until the gluein these joints dry. so we're almost readyto put the drawer hardware on, but this particulardrawer guide requires that we cut a little notchin the back, on each side of the back. and so we're going to usethe dado blade to do that.
so we have to go back overto the table saw. okay, now we're goingto set up a dado blade, and in order to that, i’m going to go aheadand take the guard off... and takethe regular cross-cut blade off. now, let me show youwhat a dado blade looks like. this is calleda stacked dado blade. and it has several cutters;it has an inside cutter. this one goes on first.
and then,depending on how wide a dado you need, you’re going to stackthese cutters. and probably the most important thingto note when you do this is that you don't wantto get the cutter up onto the edgeof the other blade. it needs to fitin there nice and tight. in other words, don't get one tooth touching the other tooth. it needs to be right in-between,
otherwise, it'll getout of alignment. we need a 1 5/16or 33-millimeter dado. now, this will only go a little biggerthan 3/4 of an inch, so we’re going tohave to make a couple of passes. and i’m not going to worryabout it being a particular width. i know it’s going to bewide enough. and put the nut on now. and... i need a special wrench...
for putting that nut on. and of course... it's right back here. all right,just like with the table saw blade, i’m just going to pull it niceand snug. now, the other thing is,obviously we don't want to use our custom-made throat plateon here. and we don't even want to use the— other throat plate that we saw before that camewith the saw.
this onebecause it’s just not wide enough. so, they make a special throat platejust for dado blades. and it's just a little bit wider than it needs to be. so what we're going to do iscrank the blade up. and i’m going to run a coupleof test cuts so that i make surethat the height is at 12 millimeters, which is the distance from the bottom of the bottom to this edge right here. so let me run a test cut.
[dado blade whirs] [dado blade whirs again] all right, that's set right at 12 millimeters. all right,so now we've set the depth of our cut at 12 millimeters, and now we just needto figure out where to set the fence. now, the blum hardware manual tells usthat this little notch needs to be 33 millimeters widefrom the inside of the drawer. so, i know that the drawer sideis 12 millimeters,
so i'm goingto set the fence at 12 millimeters from the inside edgeof the blade. now i’m readyto make my first cut. now, i've made a markat 33 millimeters, so i’m just going tomove the fence over until the left edgeof the blade lines up with my mark. [dado blade cutting wood] now i'll set up for the other side. [dado blade cuts wood again]
all right,now we have our notches cut and it's time to puton our hardware. all right, i wanted to show youwhy we cut the notches in the back of our drawer. the drawer guidegoes on just like this. and it actually protrudesthrough the back end of the drawer, and there's a little pin right herethat goes into a hole that we're going to drill next. blum has, of course,
engineered a nice little jig for usto bore that hole through. so, i want to just point thisout to you: there's two waysthat you can put this jig on here. there’s a right wayand a wrong way. the right way is to flush itup against the inside of the drawer, not against the outsideof the drawer, all right,because all of our dimensions, if you remember, were calculatedfrom the inside drawer measurement.
so it's important to force itup against the drawer. we have a special drill bitthat's going to go in here, it has a little stop on itso that it'll go the right depth. and so let’s go ahead and--[drill whirs] bore the holes. [drilling into wood] all right, and there it is. and now you can see thatthat little pin... fits in there just right.
so now that that's done,we have one more thing to do. and that's to installthese little receivers here. this is what actuallylocks the drawer guide—, which this drawer guideis fastened to the cabinet. this is what fastens the drawer guideto the drawer. all right, now to get these locking devicesmounted, we have to very preciselyput the screws in. and blum gives us this same jigto use for that operation.
now these screw holes haveto be put in at an angle, and that's the waythe jig is set up. so, all you do isis simply butt it up up against the insideof the drawer. [drill whirs] mount this special screwand it’s--—or this special bit... and drill out these two holes. [drill drilling wood] then you just simply turn it aroundfor the other side.
make sure you butt it upagainst the side and the front. and drill this side out. [drilling wood] now, it's just a matter of screwingin the locking devices. make sure that the orange part istowards the inside. that’s actually unlock, lock,unlock, lock, just like that. now i’m going to use these specialnumber 6 half-inch screws that are phillips-headand they have a round head on them. and i’m just going toscrew them in.
[drill whirs again] that’s it,the drawer is finished.