Computer Cabinet - #4 Starting the Drawer Fronts

Once the drawer sides are at their final thickness the drawer fronts can be worked on.  They were left to make sure they were going to stay flat and true rough sanded at 80 grit.  In checking all was good so I could finish the thickness sanding down to 220 grit. 

Deciding which blank gets cut down for which drawer takes a little time as there are some flaws to work around like a few cracks, some dowels and a couple of screw holes.  When done here are all the marked pieces ready to be ripped to rough width and length.  The numbers are the nominal height of the drawer front.

Here are the drawer fronts ripped to rough width and length set in front of the cabinet case.  One of the things I like to do when making drawer fronts is to have the grain flow from one drawer to another.  Horizontally that’s down by cutting the fronts from the same long blank.  Vertically it’s accomplished by matching similar grain.  In this case all the fronts are from the same board.  The chalked notes on the pieces indicate which front goes where and the order of operations, more on that later. 

The drawing below shows the drawer joint where the front and side come together.  More details of how the sides are going to be joined to the front come later.  The 3/8” lip at the side is for the metal drawer slide.  Cutting the 7/8” x 5/8” rabbit into the drawer front comes next.

Cutting the rabbit starts by roughing it out the with a ½” wide stacked dado in the table saw.  Two passes are needed to remove the material and that’s been done in this photo.  The number one on top of the front lets me know this is the first end to be cut.  I will cut all of the rabbits on one end before cutting the fronts to their final length.  That’s to give me a cushion in case something goes wrong and I have to cut it off and redo the rabbit.  

Final cleanup of the rabbit is done on the router table where the bit takes off just a few thousandths of an inch to clean up the cut.  Since this joint will be visible every time the drawer is opened, I want a nice crisp joint.  Not shown in the photo is sacrificial piece on the exit side of the cut to help keep the front square to the fence and to reduce blowout when the bit exits the cut.

Cutting the fronts to their final length is next.  That’s done on the chop saw using a stop for consistent results.  After that the second rabbit is cut following the same steps as before.

Ripping the drawer fronts widths down to just an eighth of an inch over size is next.  Here is what the fronts look like set into the cabinet.  They will be ripped to final width at the same time as the sides so they all match dead on.

Early on I decided to omit the handles on the drawer fronts since I did not want to shorten the drawers to provide for clearance between handles and the existing doors.  A simple drop cutout will be used instead to provide a hand hold.  Since the outer cherry cabinet has doors, I am not worried about the drawer contents getting dusty.  The profile starts by laying it out on a piece of carboard then cutting with scissors.  That’s laid on a ¼” thick piece of scrap oak veneered MDF the same width as the drawer front and cut out using a jig saw.  I could have used the bandsaw but because the template is only ¼” thick and the blade has 3 teeth per inch there would be at most only one tooth in contact with the template during the cut.  That’s not enough so I would have to change the blade and reset all the guides which makes just using the jig saw a lot quicker.  To get a better cut a jigsaw blade with ground teeth is used rather than one that is just stamped out.

Once cut the oscillating drum sander with a coarse sleeve is used to clean up the edge and bring it close to the line.  Switching to a finer grit sleeve the edge is brought right to the line.

To assure a good mirror image the template is set on a piece of paper and the cutout is traced onto it.  The template is then flipped over and any high spots are marked then sanded off.  This process is repeated until when the template is flipped over there is no difference making the cutout is truly symmetrical.

Making the cut outs starts by putting three roughly 1” squares of cloth based double faced carpet tape on the jig then setting it on the drawer front making sure the top and both sides are aligned with the edges on each side.  Once I am sure the alignment is good it goes in the bench vice for a quick squeeze to set the tape.  Here the template is attached and ready to go.

From there the bandsaw is next cutting about 1/16” away from the template.

With the handhold roughed out cleanup of bandsawn cut using the oscillating drum sander is next to prevent grabbing by the router bit.  Only a small amount of material is left to be removed with the router bit.  There are a couple reasons why.  First, is because it’s easier on the router to take off a small amount.  Second, and more important when cutting the right side of the handhold curve the rotation of the bit and its cutting angle can catch the end grain tearing out chunks of material.  This is not a good thing.  Making whisker thin cuts with a really sharp bit greatly reduces the chances of this happening.

A bottom bearing template cutting bit is in installed in the router table.  The height is set so the bearing rides along the template and the cutting edge trims the blank’s edge flush with the template.  Even though the amount of material to be removed is 1/32” or less multiple light passes are made to prevent catching.  Another way to get around the problem of making the uphill cut on the right side would be to only route the left half with the bottom bearing bit.  The right side would them be cut using a top bearing bit with the piece flipped over so the template is on the bottom.

Here is what the finished routed handhold looks like set in place.  One down and five to go.  Making all six really went pretty quick, less than an hour not including hand sanding of the routed edge.

Next Up –Drawer Fronts & Sides Almost Compete