Desk drawer - Design?

Re: Desk drawer - Design?

John in NM

Fair warning, these two may not apply to your situation, but I hope they might stimulate some ideas.

I've usually made drawers like this:

The bottom rail is both visually appealing to me and also structural. It's wider than a typical rail, and has a pair of parallel tenons that are only 5/8" tall or so.

On this one I didn't use the bottom rail... I think on such a small table it doesn't matter, but it might at the scale you're thinking of:

I don't have a photo of one of the first pieces of furniture I made, a modern style desk that had a keyboard tray pierced into the front rail. I actually liked that a lot. It was made by making an oversized rail and then ripping off the top and bottom 3/4" and then crosscutting the drawer face from the middle and reassembling the rail. Virtually as strong as the solid rail I would say, and it looks good too.

Re: Desk drawer - Design?

Clint Searl

The approach I used was to hang the drawer between 2 attached angle irons riding from a track suspended from the underside of the top

Re: Desk drawer - Design?

Clint Searl

Re: Desk drawer - Design?

Henry (Raleigh NC)

thanks John - your pics help.

I was thinking of the opposite case of your last pic - eliminating the top rail and keeping the bottom rail.

Henry

Re: Desk drawer - Design?

Henry (Raleigh NC)

Thanks Clint.

I had considered that sort of approach, but wanted to keep to a more traditional all wood structure (and had not thought about L-brackets). Again good clear description and pic.

Henry

Re: Desk drawer - Design?

John in NM

Bottom rail is more useful structurally. I used the top rail in that table more for screwing the top down and a place for that rotating bit that keeps the drawer from being pulled all the way out.

Re: Desk drawer - Design?

William Duffield

Clint's design is traditional, specifically Greene and Greene. They built theirs completely from wood (except for hidden screws), but the runners at the top were often ebony, which is a bit difficult and expensive to find now.

..and I thought I invented it. Shucks!

Thanks

Comments on 28" wide x 17" deep drawer?

Re: Comments on 28" wide x 17" deep drawer?

JL

28" W x 17" D?

That's the exterior dimensions?

Figure interior dimensions are going to be 26.5" x 15.5" (or less).

What sort of things are going to be stored in said drawer? How thin is the drawer going to be?

From what I have read so far - maybe 2" thick at maximum? Or what? Figure if you

use 1/4" plywood for the bottom, that would give you 1.75" of storage area.

Re: ..and I thought I invented it. Shucks!

William Duffield

When I saw the finger joints joining the front of your drawer to the side, I figured you were familiar with other Greene and Greene details. Here are two pics of details of drawers. One is of the original entry table in the Gamble House and the other is from a reproduction of the same table. The runner and the cock bead across the front of the drawers are ebony, and what look like brass pins holding down the ebony are really brass flat head wood screws that have been filed off and polished after installation. Note the dovetail in the original that was left off the reproduction.

Re: ..and I thought I invented it. Shucks!

Clint Searl

I've copied the proud, pegged, and pillowed fingered joints on several projects...on dovetails, too.

Couple things

Ellis Walentine

Lots of possible advice here. My first notion is to make the skirt higher. Assuming a desk height of 29", a top thickness of 1" (you didn't say), and a standard height desk chair, you should be able to easily get away with a 4" high skirt and still have ample knee clearance.

You also didn't say what this drawer is intended to hold. When I was a product manager in the office furniture industry, we offered pencil drawers that were only 1 3/4" high, with an interior depth of 1 1/8".

As for the top rail/bottom rail situation, the engineering should be governed by the stresses the desk is likely to sustain in the worst case. As long as you have enough rack resistance built in at the back rail, you should be able to get away with one bottom rail. I would suggest using dowels to attach the legs to the top, to keep the width of the drawer opening constant.

Ellis

Re: Comments on 28" wide x 17" deep drawer?

Henry (Raleigh NC)

JL

This is to be a desk drawer, so I'd anticipate common office use things such as some paper, pens, ruler, tape, stapler, paperclips, envelopes, some USB cables, some chocolate etc. I am more concerned about how the drawer would slide and hold than I am about capacity.

With the top completed, I can't make the drawer deeper (front to back). I can make it narrower (left to right), but I like the (idea of) the clean look of a single drawer front. I could make the drawer much narrower based on advice, if I thought it would help achieve a smooth functioning drawer.

Henry

Re: Couple things - yes pencil drawer

Henry (Raleigh NC)

Thanks Ellis.

Yes to most of your assumptions - this is intended as a pencil drawer and top is 4/4 material. We have an office chair with arms that interferes with a tall(er) skirt, so that and my available material is determining the skirt height.

Now my key question is does is there a rule of thumb about width/depth ratio for a smooth functioning (non-racking) drawer. I only really consider this because I recall Derek Cohen making some comment in his recent posts about making a coffee table with drawers for his niece (I think) about drawer aspect ratio.

Henry

Re: Couple things - yes pencil drawer

Henry (Raleigh NC)

Thanks Ellis.

Yes to most of your assumptions - this is intended as a pencil drawer and top is 4/4 material. We have an office chair with arms that interferes with a tall(er) skirt, so that and my available material is determining the skirt height.

Now my key question is does is there a rule of thumb about width/depth ratio for a smooth functioning (non-racking) drawer. I only really consider this because I recall Derek Cohen making some comment in his recent posts about making a coffee table with drawers for his niece (I think) about drawer aspect ratio.

Henry

Re: Desk drawer - Design?

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

1. The width of the skirt is 28 inches, and depth 17" (table/desk top is 44 wide and 23 deep). With that geometry, is a full 28" width desk drawer advisable? Note that I will not be using commercial drawer slides.

Henry, if you plan to sit this drawer inside a drawer case, and it is planned to run on wood, then the dimensioned are guaranteed to cause the drawer to rack.

Rule: make the width of the drawer narrower than the depth.

Solution: use two drawers, and not one.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks - that rule of thumb is what I needed

Henry (Raleigh NC)

Derek

I was hoping you'd chime in here. I recalled that in one of your posts describing the build of a table/drawer, you mentioned something something like that, but I had difficulty finding it again within the 17-part posts. I do love to read the details.

I will modify the design for either 2 drawers or one narrower one.

Henry