Build a Rolling Storage Cabinet
Handy cabinet fills the space under your extension wing, and keeps your accessories close at hand.
~ Asa Christiana
OVERVIEW
Under the extension table of your SawStop cabinet saw, you’ll notice a large unused space. That’s the perfect spot for a rolling storage cabinet like this one, which will keep all of your tablesaw accessories organized and at the ready, from spare brake cartridges and throat plates to push sticks, blades, and wrenches. If you have a router table installed in the extension table, this cabinet will gobble up those bits and accessories too. Better yet, you can build this essential storage cabinet almost entirely on your tablesaw.
Good looks and smart features
This project features simple, sturdy construction and lots of smart touches. First, it’s made from Baltic birch plywood, a high-quality material made of extra-thin plies, which create lovely lines on the exposed edges. We use the 3/4-in. thickness for the cabinet, and 1/2-in.-thick Baltic birch ply for the drawer boxes inside. Handsome, stainless-steel pulls and high-quality casters complete the look.
You’ll notice that the cabinet has an overlapping top and bottom: This creates a larger surface up top, for storing a crosscut sled, for example, and gives the casters a wider stance down below, for better stability. I borrowed this design idea from John White, Fine Woodworking magazine’s former shop manager and a frequent contributor on shop cabinetry.
This versatile cabinet design is so stable, sturdy, and smooth-rolling that it will works just as well as a mobile stand for a sander, drill press or planer.
Speaking of mobility, the wheels are polyurethane swivel casters from Rockler. Their big 4-in. diameter will roll easily over dust and debris, and they provide 5 in. of overall clearance below the cabinet, raising it above the mobile bases on most saws. Also the two front casters lock, so the cabinet will stay put when you pull out a drawer.
Inside are deep drawer boxes, mounted on full-extension slides that allow full access to the cargo area. To create thin, attractive gaps around the drawer fronts, I attached those separately, using the same screws that hold the drawer pulls in place.
Handy lessons for the future
The techniques you’ll learn here can be applied to a host of future cabinet projects, for your shop and for your home.
You’ll learn how to manage large sheet goods, like plywood and MDF, safely and accurately on your tablesaw. You’ll learn how to join that plywood with pocket screws—hands-down the fastest way to make strong cabinetry. All it takes is a $40 jig from Kreg, a box of screws, and a few tips.
Inside the cabinet, you can use any joint you like to make the drawer boxes, from box joints to simple butt joints with screws. But I recommend trying the interlocking dado-and-rabbet joint shown here. This is another joinery method you’ll use in the future, and it’s done entirely on your tablesaw using a stack dado blade and two simple setups. It’s especially good for plywood but no so great for solid wood, where the short-grain areas could break off.
And last, the drawers are hung on ball-bearing drawer slides, useful in dozens of other projects too, and you’ll get surefire tips on installing those as well.
Note: The Rolling Storage Cabinet was designed to fit under your SawStop Professional Cabinet Saw, but saw setups vary, so be sure to measure the space under your saw and adjust the dimensions as needed. The design can be sized differently without altering the basic construction.
Step 1: Size it to fit your needs, and get started
All your accessories in one spot. This compact cabinet will stow a surprising amount of gear. And you can build it with your tablesaw. The version of the cabinet shown here is sized to fill the space under a SawStop Professional Cabinet Saw with a 36-in. fence system, and also works well under an Industrial Cabinet Saw with a 52-in. system, due to the extra space taken up by the motor door on the right side of the ICS’s cabinet. That said, this versatile design can be easily resized fit under the extension wing of almost any cabinet saw. The drawer heights can be varied just as easily, to suit almost any cargo.
Looks good, works good. The edges of the Baltic birch plywood look great when sanded and finished, and the drawer fronts have a nice 1/4-in. inset. The pulls are handsome and practical, and the big casters roll smoothly and help the cabinet clear most mobile bases.
Full-extension slides. Heavy-duty slides from Accuride give you access to the entire drawer.
Divide and conquer. There’s enough room to store blades and push sticks in one drawer, dado supplies in another, and router-table gear in yet another.
Extra space above. This lets the cabinet clear the router installed in this saw, but it also creates easy-access storage space for the router-table fence or a shopmade crosscut sled, for example.
Step 2: Cut the cabinet parts
Ask your lumber dealer to crosscut your 4×8 sheet of 3/4-in. plywood at the 50-in. mark, and that half will yield what you need for the bottom, top, and sides of the cabinet. It will also make the plywood far easier to transport home and handle on your tablesaw.
How to make big rips safely. Make sure you have a large outfeed table or workbench positioned behind your saw, and pay attention to two things throughout the cut: keeping the edge of the panel against the rip fence and your hands clear of the blade.
The factory edge is your friend. If you can find two factory edges that form a perfectly square corner, you can simply run one of those edges against the rip fence to crosscut the parts. If no corners are square, you’ll need to square one edge using a crosscut sled or a circular saw, guided by a fence of some kind.
Crosscutting with the rip fence. When crosscutting a longish piece like this one, using the rip fence, be extra careful to keep the end against the fence the whole time to prevent twisting and potential kickback. Anything longer or narrower than this piece should be crosscut another way.
Trim away the factory edges. If you cut your workpieces 1/2 in. extra wide, you can now flip them and trim away the factory edges, leaving clean edges on every side.
Step 3: Join the cabinet parts with pocket screws
Here’s how to use a $40 pocket-screw kit from Kreg to make strong, accurate cabinet joints.
Set up the bit. Fit the bit into the case, and set the stop collar at the mark for 3/4-in. material.
Set up the jig. Set the little fences on the sides of the jig to the 3/4-in. mark also.
Clamp and go. Kreg also offers a self-adjusting vise-lock clamp that holds the jig in place quickly and securely. But almost any woodworking clamp will work. I drilled for five pairs of screws along the top and bottom edges of the cabinet sides. These do not have to be spaced precisely.
Make a magic spacer strip. Rip a 1-5/8-in.-wide strip. On cabinets like this one, this simple strip will do three important things.
The spacer solves three problems. When you clamp it flush with the edge of the bottom panel, the spacer strip lets you clamp one cabinet part square to the other for pocket screwing, positions it accurately at the same time, and also prevents the pocket screws from shifting it sideways, as they tend to do when tightened.
Attach the sides to the bottom. You’ll be using 1-1/4-in.-long pocket screws with coarse threads, designed for plywood and softwoods. Use the long square-drive bit included in the kit to drive them home firmly, but don’t overdrive them.
Add the top. Use your spacer strip to position these parts accurately too.
Quick roundover. Take a few minutes to round over the edges and corners of the cabinet with a 3/16-in.-radius router bit. For less of a rounded look, chamfer the edges with 120-grit sandpaper, backed with a flat block.
Step 4: Cut accurate drawer parts
One important note on cutting the front and backs of the drawer boxes to length: the metal drawer slides need a precise gap on each side of the drawer box (exactly 1/2 in. or just a whisker more, but never less) to work smoothly. So measure the actual width of your cabinet interior and factor that into the lengths of the parts. See the plans for more details.
Rip strips for the sides. Make the first one extra wide so you can flip it and rip off the factory edge. Check the plan for the drawer heights. These are narrow strips, so use a push stick to finish the cut safely, and as always, an outfeed table for all rip cuts.
Add a fence to your miter gauge. This does a few key things: It helps support long workpieces, it gives you a place to clamp on a stop block, and it creates a zero-clearance slot that prevents tearout at the back of the cut.
Add a stop block. After cutting a clean end on all of your strips, use the slot in the fence to measure and mark the length of the drawer parts. Clamp on a square stop block at that mark.
Cut the drawer-box parts to length. Bump a clean end against the stop block and hold the workpiece against the fence as you cut. The sides are all the same length, and all fronts and back match also.
Step 5: Dado-and-rabbet joint makes quick, strong drawers
Using two blades of a stack dado set, you can make this simple but sturdy drawer joint entirely on your tablesaw. To size and fit the parts of the joint, I recommend a dial caliper. These are indisipensable for precision work, and you can get an inexpensive one online for under $30. By the way, a rabbet is a notch in the end of a piece, a groove goes along the grain, and a dado is just a groove oriented across the grain.
Measure the thickness of the MDF. You’ll be using 1/4-in. MDF for the drawer bottoms, which is usually just under 0.250 in.
Set up your dado set. Install the dado cartridge in your SawStop, and the two outer dado blades from your set. Try different shims between the blades (with the arbor nut snug each time) until the measurement across the tips of the blades is about 0.005 in. more than the MDF thickness. You’ll also need an extra throat plate with a wider slot. I made this one with a wide stack of dado blades when cutting a larger joint.
Check the fit. Cut a test groove in scrap to check the fit of the MDF. There should be just the slightest amount of wiggle. Too tight and the joint will get stuck as you add glue and assemble the drawer boxes.
Set the height to 1/4 in. Be sure you are measuring the teeth at the top of their arc.
Measure the width of the drawer material. This “1/2-in.” material is about 0.015 in. thinner than its stated dimension. Lock the calipers at this dimension.
Set the distance to the fence. The caliper has a depth gauge on the end. Use that to set the dis-tance from the outside of the dado blades to the rip fence to match the thickness of the plywood.
Make a test cut. Make a cut in scrap as shown below, and verify that the outside of the dado is exactly the same height as the drawer material. If it isn’t, you need to adjust the rip fence.
Dado all the drawer sides. The sides get a dado like this on each end. Guide the workpieces by using the miter gauge and rip fence in tandem, as shown.
Make grooves for the drawer bottoms with the same setting. Without changing the blade or fence settings, plow a groove in all of the drawer parts (sides, fronts, and backs), using a push stick at the back of the workpiece to keep your fingers safe.
Set up an auxiliary fence. You’ll need a tall fence to cut the second part of this interlocking joint. It’s nothing more than a piece of plywood clamped to the rip fence at the front and back. To bury the dado blades in the tall fence for the next step, retract them below the table, move the rip fence so part of the plywood is over the blades (but not the rip fence itself!), turn on the saw, and bring the spinning blades up into the plywood.
Blade height is 1/4 in. Set the blades to the 1/4 in. mark on your square.
Sneak up on the perfect fit. Using a scrap piece of 1/2-in. plywood, make a rabbet cut as shown, adjusting the rip fence and blade height until you get a perfect fit with one of the drawer sides you already cut. Note the square piece used to control the narrow workpieces. Keep the two pieces in contact with each other and the fence as you push.
Rabbet the real workpieces. Now you can cut rabbets on the fronts and backs of all the drawers. Note that they are cut on the side opposite the drawer-bottom grooves.
Step 6: Fit the bottoms and glue up the drawer boxes
Measure for the drawer bottoms. Dry-fit a drawer and measure in both directions. Then subtract about 9/16 in. from each dimension to size the drawer bottoms for a good fit—just short of the bot-toms of the grooves. Cut the bottoms and do one more dry-fit to make sure everything comes to-gether well before spreading glue.
Glue the grooves and dadoes, not the rabbets. Drip Titebond III (that glue type gives you extra working time) into all the grooves and dadoes, and spread it with a small brush.
Order of assembly. Insert a front or back into one of the sides, slide in the bottom as shown, and then add the other two sides.
Clamp and wait. Draw everything together with clamps. Two parallel jaw clamps work very well but four F-style bar clamps will also work.
Step 7: Install the drawer slides
The challenge with drawer slides is to get each pair installed level and at the same height. The problem is easily solved with the simple spacer shown below. Start by disassembling the slides and installing the cabinet half of each one.
Mark the inset. As you’ll see in the plans, I inset the cabinet halves of the slides 1-1/16 in. from the front edge of the cabinet. Mark that line now.
Make a spacer for the uppermost slides. The sizes of these spacers are listed in the plans. Sit the slide on the spacer, pull it forward to the inset mark, and use a pencil to mark four or five of the attachment holes.
Drill pilot holes. Drill at the center of the holes you marked, using a 1/16- or 3/32-in. bit. Just go in a little bit, not all the way through the cabinet! For extra security, attach a tape flag to the bit.
Install the slides. Put the slide back on the spacer, line it up with the inset mark, and use the screws provided to attach it permanently. Repeat the process on the opposite side of the cabinet, using the same spacer.
Trim the spacer and go. Now just trim the same spacer to the heights indicated in the plans to locate and secure the other slides, working from the top down.
Mark the drawers for the other half of each slide. The drawer side of each slide is centered on the height of each drawer box, and set back 3/16 in. from the front edge.
Mark the screw holes. Center the slide on the layout line, line it up with the inset mark, and mark the screw holes.
Attach the slides. Predrill as before, and then screw down the slides solidly without overdriving the screws.
Slide in your drawers. If the gap on each side is exactly 1/2 in., or just a hair more, the drawers will slide in nicely. They’ll be a little tough to push all the way back at first, but then they will slide easily back and forth. (If the gaps are too tight for smooth operation, you might need to sand the drawer sides and reinstall the slides. If the gaps are too big, try shimming the slides with paper, business cards, or wood veneer.)
Step 8: Fit and drill the drawer fronts
The actual drawer fronts are attached separately, which makes them far easier to fit to the cabinet. They are held on with extra-long screws that go into the drawer pulls. This approach works very well.
The fit trick. To create nice even gaps all around, rip some 1/16-in.-thick shims and use them to space and fit the drawer fronts. Start with two shims at the bottom, and trim the lower drawer front to length until you can just slip in a single snug shim at each end. Add single shims above that drawer front, trim the next drawer front for the same gaps at the ends, and so on.
Work your way up to the top. You should rip each drawer front to about 1/8 in. or so shorter than its stated height in the plans, to account for the 1/16-in. gaps. When you get to the top, measure for the last drawer front, to ensure the same gap above and below.
Find the right drill bit. For the next steps to work well, your drill bit should match the diameter of the screws. A 5/32-in. bit is an exact match for these #8-32 machine screws.
Lay out and drill holes for the pulls. Mark the locations very carefully and dimple each one with an awl or screw tip before drilling. Make sure you know which edge of the drawer front will face upward, and be absolutely sure the holes are exactly 6 in. apart. It’s best to drill the holes on a drill press. If you use a handheld drill, place a square near the bit to help you keep it plumb.
Sand everything now. Use a random-orbit sander on big flat surfaces, and sandpaper backed with a block everywhere else. Start with 120- or 150-grit paper, and finish up with 220. Use the block to break the edges of the drawer fronts and drawer boxes cleanly, and hold a folded sand-ing disk in your hand to polish the rounded edges of the cabinet.
Simple oil finish does the trick. Vacuum away all the dust, and then flood the fronts of the drawers (not the backs of those pieces though) and the exterior of the cabinet with a simple oil finish like Watco natural. Let it soak in for 15 minutes, wet the wood again, and then wipe off the excess firmly with clean cotton rags.
Step 9: Attach the fronts
To ensure the exact same placement of the drawer fronts, with even gaps all around, all you have to do is stick them back in place and use the pull holes you just drilled as a guide for drilling matching holes in the drawer boxes.
The tape trick. Put strips of double-stick tape on all of the drawer boxes, and press the drawer fronts back in place, using the same shims and starting from the bottom as before.
Transfer the holes. Use the same 5/32-in. drill to transfer the pull holes to the drawer boxes, drill-ing all the way through.
Add the pulls and presto. Leave the fronts right where they are and use screws and washers to attach the pulls, which attaches the fronts at the same time. It’s easiest to leave the tape in place—no one will be the wiser.
Step 10: Casters bolt on easily
The overhanging bottom makes the casters easy to attach. Orient the rectangular brackets side-ways, and center the outside bolts on the overhang.
Mark and drill. Mark lines inset 13/16 in. from each edge, and then use the bracket to mark the centers of the bolt holes. To drill clean holes, drill through with a small bit first, use the full-size bit to dimple the bottom of the hole, and then drill down through with the same bit.
Draw the carriage bolts into the wood. To give the casters the clearance they need, we had to go with 1-in.-long (by 5/16 in. dia.) carriage bolts. To get enough threads to emerge to attach the casters, first attach normal nuts and draw the bolt heads into the wood below.
Add washers and lock nuts. You’ll need even more clearance above the locking casters, so skip the washers on those. Also, to help the front inside carriage bolts clear the bottom of the lowest drawer front, crank them deep into the wood until they are less than 1/8 in. high.
Step 11: Add the back and you’re done
For a clean look on all sides, there is no rabbet for the cabinet back. It is simply trimmed to fit the space, slid into place, and pocket-screwed. Here’s how to do it.
Drill for the pocket screws. After trimming the back for a snug fit and finishing its outside face, drill screw pockets on the inside. Their locations don’t really matter.
Clearance for the caster bolts. Fit the back into place to see where you need clearance for the caster bolts. Mark those locations and clamp on a scrap piece as shown to use a 1-in.-dia. Forstner bit to create small notches. You can also cut these notches with a sharp chisel.
Pocket-screw helper. This little fence, with one side sticking out 1/4 in., gets clamped onto the cabinet wherever you are driving pocket screws, to keep the panel from shifting backward.
Drive with confidence. Reposition and re-clamp the little jig to back up each pair of pocket screws as you drive them. That will keep the back from shifting, and keep the inset the same 1/4 in. all around. Note how the little notches clear the back caster bolts.
Drawer liners are a nice touch. I used a non-slip industrial liner from my local home center.
Step 1: Size it to fit your needs, and get started
All your accessories in one spot. This compact cabinet will stow a surprising amount of gear. And you can build it with your tablesaw. The version of the cabinet shown here is sized to fill the space under a SawStop Professional Cabinet Saw with a 36-in. fence system, and also works well under an Industrial Cabinet Saw with a 52-in. system, due to the extra space taken up by the motor door on the right side of the ICS’s cabinet. That said, this versatile design can be easily resized fit under the extension wing of almost any cabinet saw. The drawer heights can be varied just as easily, to suit almost any cargo.
Looks good, works good. The edges of the Baltic birch plywood look great when sanded and finished, and the drawer fronts have a nice 1/4-in. inset. The pulls are handsome and practical, and the big casters roll smoothly and help the cabinet clear most mobile bases.
Full-extension slides. Heavy-duty slides from Accuride give you access to the entire drawer.
Divide and conquer. There’s enough room to store blades and push sticks in one drawer, dado supplies in another, and router-table gear in yet another.
Extra space above. This lets the cabinet clear the router installed in this saw, but it also creates easy-access storage space for the router-table fence or a shopmade crosscut sled, for example.
Step 2: Cut the cabinet parts
Ask your lumber dealer to crosscut your 4×8 sheet of 3/4-in. plywood at the 50-in. mark, and that half will yield what you need for the bottom, top, and sides of the cabinet. It will also make the plywood far easier to transport home and handle on your tablesaw.
How to make big rips safely. Make sure you have a large outfeed table or workbench positioned behind your saw, and pay attention to two things throughout the cut: keeping the edge of the panel against the rip fence and your hands clear of the blade.
The factory edge is your friend. If you can find two factory edges that form a perfectly square corner, you can simply run one of those edges against the rip fence to crosscut the parts. If no corners are square, you’ll need to square one edge using a crosscut sled or a circular saw, guided by a fence of some kind.
Crosscutting with the rip fence. When crosscutting a longish piece like this one, using the rip fence, be extra careful to keep the end against the fence the whole time to prevent twisting and potential kickback. Anything longer or narrower than this piece should be crosscut another way.
Trim away the factory edges. If you cut your workpieces 1/2 in. extra wide, you can now flip them and trim away the factory edges, leaving clean edges on every side.
Step 3: Join the cabinet parts with pocket screws
Here’s how to use a $40 pocket-screw kit from Kreg to make strong, accurate cabinet joints.
Set up the bit. Fit the bit into the case, and set the stop collar at the mark for 3/4-in. material.
Set up the jig. Set the little fences on the sides of the jig to the 3/4-in. mark also.
Clamp and go. Kreg also offers a self-adjusting vise-lock clamp that holds the jig in place quickly and securely. But almost any woodworking clamp will work. I drilled for five pairs of screws along the top and bottom edges of the cabinet sides. These do not have to be spaced precisely.
Make a magic spacer strip. Rip a 1-5/8-in.-wide strip. On cabinets like this one, this simple strip will do three important things.
The spacer solves three problems. When you clamp it flush with the edge of the bottom panel, the spacer strip lets you clamp one cabinet part square to the other for pocket screwing, positions it accurately at the same time, and also prevents the pocket screws from shifting it sideways, as they tend to do when tightened.
Attach the sides to the bottom. You’ll be using 1-1/4-in.-long pocket screws with coarse threads, designed for plywood and softwoods. Use the long square-drive bit included in the kit to drive them home firmly, but don’t overdrive them.
Add the top. Use your spacer strip to position these parts accurately too.
Quick roundover. Take a few minutes to round over the edges and corners of the cabinet with a 3/16-in.-radius router bit. For less of a rounded look, chamfer the edges with 120-grit sandpaper, backed with a flat block.
Step 4: Cut accurate drawer parts
One important note on cutting the front and backs of the drawer boxes to length: the metal drawer slides need a precise gap on each side of the drawer box (exactly 1/2 in. or just a whisker more, but never less) to work smoothly. So measure the actual width of your cabinet interior and factor that into the lengths of the parts. See the plans for more details.
Rip strips for the sides. Make the first one extra wide so you can flip it and rip off the factory edge. Check the plan for the drawer heights. These are narrow strips, so use a push stick to finish the cut safely, and as always, an outfeed table for all rip cuts.
Add a fence to your miter gauge. This does a few key things: It helps support long workpieces, it gives you a place to clamp on a stop block, and it creates a zero-clearance slot that prevents tearout at the back of the cut.
Add a stop block. After cutting a clean end on all of your strips, use the slot in the fence to measure and mark the length of the drawer parts. Clamp on a square stop block at that mark.
Cut the drawer-box parts to length. Bump a clean end against the stop block and hold the workpiece against the fence as you cut. The sides are all the same length, and all fronts and back match also.
Step 5: Dado-and-rabbet joint makes quick, strong drawers
Using two blades of a stack dado set, you can make this simple but sturdy drawer joint entirely on your tablesaw. To size and fit the parts of the joint, I recommend a dial caliper. These are indisipensable for precision work, and you can get an inexpensive one online for under $30. By the way, a rabbet is a notch in the end of a piece, a groove goes along the grain, and a dado is just a groove oriented across the grain.
Measure the thickness of the MDF. You’ll be using 1/4-in. MDF for the drawer bottoms, which is usually just under 0.250 in.
Set up your dado set. Install the dado cartridge in your SawStop, and the two outer dado blades from your set. Try different shims between the blades (with the arbor nut snug each time) until the measurement across the tips of the blades is about 0.005 in. more than the MDF thickness. You’ll also need an extra throat plate with a wider slot. I made this one with a wide stack of dado blades when cutting a larger joint.
Check the fit. Cut a test groove in scrap to check the fit of the MDF. There should be just the slightest amount of wiggle. Too tight and the joint will get stuck as you add glue and assemble the drawer boxes.
Set the height to 1/4 in. Be sure you are measuring the teeth at the top of their arc.
Measure the width of the drawer material. This “1/2-in.” material is about 0.015 in. thinner than its stated dimension. Lock the calipers at this dimension.
Set the distance to the fence. The caliper has a depth gauge on the end. Use that to set the dis-tance from the outside of the dado blades to the rip fence to match the thickness of the plywood.
Make a test cut. Make a cut in scrap as shown below, and verify that the outside of the dado is exactly the same height as the drawer material. If it isn’t, you need to adjust the rip fence.
Dado all the drawer sides. The sides get a dado like this on each end. Guide the workpieces by using the miter gauge and rip fence in tandem, as shown.
Make grooves for the drawer bottoms with the same setting. Without changing the blade or fence settings, plow a groove in all of the drawer parts (sides, fronts, and backs), using a push stick at the back of the workpiece to keep your fingers safe.
Set up an auxiliary fence. You’ll need a tall fence to cut the second part of this interlocking joint. It’s nothing more than a piece of plywood clamped to the rip fence at the front and back. To bury the dado blades in the tall fence for the next step, retract them below the table, move the rip fence so part of the plywood is over the blades (but not the rip fence itself!), turn on the saw, and bring the spinning blades up into the plywood.
Blade height is 1/4 in. Set the blades to the 1/4 in. mark on your square.
Sneak up on the perfect fit. Using a scrap piece of 1/2-in. plywood, make a rabbet cut as shown, adjusting the rip fence and blade height until you get a perfect fit with one of the drawer sides you already cut. Note the square piece used to control the narrow workpieces. Keep the two pieces in contact with each other and the fence as you push.
Rabbet the real workpieces. Now you can cut rabbets on the fronts and backs of all the drawers. Note that they are cut on the side opposite the drawer-bottom grooves.
Step 6: Fit the bottoms and glue up the drawer boxes
Measure for the drawer bottoms. Dry-fit a drawer and measure in both directions. Then subtract about 9/16 in. from each dimension to size the drawer bottoms for a good fit—just short of the bot-toms of the grooves. Cut the bottoms and do one more dry-fit to make sure everything comes to-gether well before spreading glue.
Glue the grooves and dadoes, not the rabbets. Drip Titebond III (that glue type gives you extra working time) into all the grooves and dadoes, and spread it with a small brush.
Order of assembly. Insert a front or back into one of the sides, slide in the bottom as shown, and then add the other two sides.
Clamp and wait. Draw everything together with clamps. Two parallel jaw clamps work very well but four F-style bar clamps will also work.
Step 7: Install the drawer slides
The challenge with drawer slides is to get each pair installed level and at the same height. The problem is easily solved with the simple spacer shown below. Start by disassembling the slides and installing the cabinet half of each one.
Mark the inset. As you’ll see in the plans, I inset the cabinet halves of the slides 1-1/16 in. from the front edge of the cabinet. Mark that line now.
Make a spacer for the uppermost slides. The sizes of these spacers are listed in the plans. Sit the slide on the spacer, pull it forward to the inset mark, and use a pencil to mark four or five of the attachment holes.
Drill pilot holes. Drill at the center of the holes you marked, using a 1/16- or 3/32-in. bit. Just go in a little bit, not all the way through the cabinet! For extra security, attach a tape flag to the bit.
Install the slides. Put the slide back on the spacer, line it up with the inset mark, and use the screws provided to attach it permanently. Repeat the process on the opposite side of the cabinet, using the same spacer.
Trim the spacer and go. Now just trim the same spacer to the heights indicated in the plans to locate and secure the other slides, working from the top down.
Mark the drawers for the other half of each slide. The drawer side of each slide is centered on the height of each drawer box, and set back 3/16 in. from the front edge.
Mark the screw holes. Center the slide on the layout line, line it up with the inset mark, and mark the screw holes.
Attach the slides. Predrill as before, and then screw down the slides solidly without overdriving the screws.
Slide in your drawers. If the gap on each side is exactly 1/2 in., or just a hair more, the drawers will slide in nicely. They’ll be a little tough to push all the way back at first, but then they will slide easily back and forth. (If the gaps are too tight for smooth operation, you might need to sand the drawer sides and reinstall the slides. If the gaps are too big, try shimming the slides with paper, business cards, or wood veneer.)
Step 8: Fit and drill the drawer fronts
The actual drawer fronts are attached separately, which makes them far easier to fit to the cabinet. They are held on with extra-long screws that go into the drawer pulls. This approach works very well.
The fit trick. To create nice even gaps all around, rip some 1/16-in.-thick shims and use them to space and fit the drawer fronts. Start with two shims at the bottom, and trim the lower drawer front to length until you can just slip in a single snug shim at each end. Add single shims above that drawer front, trim the next drawer front for the same gaps at the ends, and so on.
Work your way up to the top. You should rip each drawer front to about 1/8 in. or so shorter than its stated height in the plans, to account for the 1/16-in. gaps. When you get to the top, measure for the last drawer front, to ensure the same gap above and below.
Find the right drill bit. For the next steps to work well, your drill bit should match the diameter of the screws. A 5/32-in. bit is an exact match for these #8-32 machine screws.
Lay out and drill holes for the pulls. Mark the locations very carefully and dimple each one with an awl or screw tip before drilling. Make sure you know which edge of the drawer front will face upward, and be absolutely sure the holes are exactly 6 in. apart. It’s best to drill the holes on a drill press. If you use a handheld drill, place a square near the bit to help you keep it plumb.
Sand everything now. Use a random-orbit sander on big flat surfaces, and sandpaper backed with a block everywhere else. Start with 120- or 150-grit paper, and finish up with 220. Use the block to break the edges of the drawer fronts and drawer boxes cleanly, and hold a folded sand-ing disk in your hand to polish the rounded edges of the cabinet.
Simple oil finish does the trick. Vacuum away all the dust, and then flood the fronts of the drawers (not the backs of those pieces though) and the exterior of the cabinet with a simple oil finish like Watco natural. Let it soak in for 15 minutes, wet the wood again, and then wipe off the excess firmly with clean cotton rags.
Step 9: Attach the fronts
To ensure the exact same placement of the drawer fronts, with even gaps all around, all you have to do is stick them back in place and use the pull holes you just drilled as a guide for drilling matching holes in the drawer boxes.
The tape trick. Put strips of double-stick tape on all of the drawer boxes, and press the drawer fronts back in place, using the same shims and starting from the bottom as before.
Transfer the holes. Use the same 5/32-in. drill to transfer the pull holes to the drawer boxes, drill-ing all the way through.
Add the pulls and presto. Leave the fronts right where they are and use screws and washers to attach the pulls, which attaches the fronts at the same time. It’s easiest to leave the tape in place—no one will be the wiser.
Step 10: Casters bolt on easily
The overhanging bottom makes the casters easy to attach. Orient the rectangular brackets side-ways, and center the outside bolts on the overhang.
Mark and drill. Mark lines inset 13/16 in. from each edge, and then use the bracket to mark the centers of the bolt holes. To drill clean holes, drill through with a small bit first, use the full-size bit to dimple the bottom of the hole, and then drill down through with the same bit.
Draw the carriage bolts into the wood. To give the casters the clearance they need, we had to go with 1-in.-long (by 5/16 in. dia.) carriage bolts. To get enough threads to emerge to attach the casters, first attach normal nuts and draw the bolt heads into the wood below.
Add washers and lock nuts. You’ll need even more clearance above the locking casters, so skip the washers on those. Also, to help the front inside carriage bolts clear the bottom of the lowest drawer front, crank them deep into the wood until they are less than 1/8 in. high.
Step 11: Add the back and you’re done
For a clean look on all sides, there is no rabbet for the cabinet back. It is simply trimmed to fit the space, slid into place, and pocket-screwed. Here’s how to do it.
Drill for the pocket screws. After trimming the back for a snug fit and finishing its outside face, drill screw pockets on the inside. Their locations don’t really matter.
Clearance for the caster bolts. Fit the back into place to see where you need clearance for the caster bolts. Mark those locations and clamp on a scrap piece as shown to use a 1-in.-dia. Forstner bit to create small notches. You can also cut these notches with a sharp chisel.
Pocket-screw helper. This little fence, with one side sticking out 1/4 in., gets clamped onto the cabinet wherever you are driving pocket screws, to keep the panel from shifting backward.
Drive with confidence. Reposition and re-clamp the little jig to back up each pair of pocket screws as you drive them. That will keep the back from shifting, and keep the inset the same 1/4 in. all around. Note how the little notches clear the back caster bolts.
Drawer liners are a nice touch. I used a non-slip industrial liner from my local home center.
Supplies
- 1 – 4×8 sheet of 3/4-in. Baltic or Russian plywood
- 1 – 5×5 sheet of 1/2-in. Baltic or Russian plywood or (2) 2×4 sheets
- 2 – 2×4 sheets of 1/4-in. MDF
- 2 – Locking casters 4 in. Polyurethane caster, total-lock, swivel, Rockler P/N 23030
- 2 – Non-locking casters 4 in. Polyurethane caster, swivel, Rockler P/N 22410
- 16 – Carriage bolts 5/16 in. by 1 in. long
- 16 – Locking hex nuts 5/16 in.
- 16 – Flat washers 5/16 in.
- 4 – Drawer slide, pairs 22 in., Accuride series 3832, Rockler P/N 32516
- 4 – Drawer pulls Stainless steel wire pull, 6 in., Rockler P/N 1014258
- 8 – Machine screws Truss head, #8 by 2 in. long, for pulls
- 1 – Box Kreg pocket screws 1-1/4 in. long for plywood
- 1 – Roll 24-in.-wide soft drawer liner of your choice
- 1 – Quart Watco Danish Oil, natural tone
CONTRIBUTER
Asa Christiana is the former editor of Fine Woodworking magazine, now living in Portland, Oregon, where he writes, builds, and shoots photos for a wide variety of magazines, including Fine Woodworking, Fine Homebuilding, Woodcraft, and Popular Woodworking. He is also the author of two recent books from the Taunton Press, “Build Stuff with Wood,” a guide for new woodworkers entering the craft, and “Handmade,” which offers projects in all sorts of materials, by makers around the country. Follow Asa on Instagram @BuildStuffWithAsa.