27 drawer width tip

In this video, I want to show you how to determine the exact width of drawer to fit a given opening

So, we have a drawer opening here. It's defined on the top and the bottom by rails

and on the sides by the styles. These dotted lines you see here represent the plywood gables

that are on either side of the drawer opening. And this here is the drawer slide spacer

So, that's a thickness of wood that's the right size to be flush with the inside edge of the styles

So, how do you get a drawer that's the right width in an opening like this

to match the mechanical drawer slides you're using? Well, here's how you do it. Each drawer slide typically requires half an inch of clearance

to the edge of the drawer, and that's the same on both sides

Now, that's easy enough to remember, but how do you get the drawer constructed accurately

Because if you're off a sixteenth of an inch in that drawer width

then the mechanical drawer slides probably aren't going to work as well as they should

So, step one is to create a solid wood spacer that is exactly one-half inch plus one-half inch

And so, a one-inch spacer, assuming your drawer slides require this sort of spacing

So, this is a chunk of solid wood. It doesn't have to be anything particular, but it's one inch wide

That takes care of the clearance required for your drawer slides. Next, if you remember right, our drawers, looking at the front

our drawers have some side pieces here that cap the front and the back of the drawer

So, when we're calculating the width of the drawer, we now need to consider the thickness of the two sides

Now, if you're using half-inch plywood, that's half-inch plus half-inch. So, now you've got another one-inch of space to occupy

So, you can cut a couple of scraps of plywood. That's probably the safest, rather than measuring and planing something

Or, you can use the drawer sides themselves, stuck here in the opening

So, we've got the opening. We've got this one-inch spacer on one side

And then we've got another spacer that accommodates the thickness of the sides

that cap the front and the back of the drawer. So, the magic number is this distance here

From here, all the way over to the other side. This distance here, X, is the length that you need to make the front and back of the drawer boxes

And if you make those parts this distance, then everything else will work out properly once you've assembled the drawer

and you go to install your mechanical slides on the inside of the cabinet