Finished project

Re: Finished project

Way to go, Pat!!......Norm would be proud of what you've made.......that is a substantial piece and will give many years of great service to your brother......that basement reminds me of my own in Michigan.......thanks for posting......

All's well...

... that ends well. Good work. Your method was sure to work, but couldn't you have simply allowed an additional 1/16" between the verticals, i.e., change the plan dimensions to reflect the fatter slides? I wonder where Norm & Co. went wrong?

Thanks for posting!

Ellis

Re: All's well...

"but couldn't you have simply allowed an additional 1/16" between the verticals, i.e., change the plan dimensions to reflect the fatter slides? I wonder where Norm & Co. went wrong?"

Ellis - Sorry, I don't quite follow your comment about dimensions, and Norm wasn't wrong... I just had trouble on my original build of maintaining such exact dimensions on a case of this design. This is more of a built-in than a piece of furniture. With 4 plywood dividers only held together by a long plywood cleat at each corner, there is no vertical stability until this thing is fastened to a wall and no horizontal stability until fastened to the top. The dividers are fastened to the cleats with screws through plywood end grain. If the screws pull the plywood off even just a tiny bit and the drawers don't glue up just exactly to the required dimension, every little variance adds up. And in my original build, the variances didn't offset... they all seemed to compound such that the drawer slides would not work without shimming. The vertical construction technique may be kind of Rube Goldberg but it worked to eliminate dimensional errors. If this were a solid case, such as a dresser, I would hope that I could achieve the required accuracy for well fitting drawers. However, the nature of the materials and fasteners on this design made it difficult for me.

Re: All's well...

Gotcha. Well, your vertical-assembly method worked, so that's the most important thing, and the result is excellent. I was just thinking about the design of the piece as you've described it, and wondering whether it could have been figured out better, or at least differently. 

In the case of this piece, I think the designer(s) could have designed some way to assure accurate spacing of the case dividers. Dados in the cleats and smaller cutouts in the plywood could have done that, in the absence of more substantial case joinery or conventional biscuit joinery. And, a temporary back panel or diagonal brace of some sort could have kept things square until all the drawers had been hung.

This isn't a knock on Norm, who is a personal acquaintance of mine; heck, I even appeared on an episode of New Yankee Workshop back when he visited our shop to check out the router table we had designed for the magazine. He ended up simplifying it for his audience, and it became very popular. 

There are no absolute best ways to make anything; all we can do is consider all aspects of the design problem and try to figure out the most efficacious way to a successful outcome. You've done just that.

Ellis

Re: All's well...

Groucho.....was that you on the Tormek?.......or the broom?.......I wasn't able to find a clear version of the episode......but, that project became the most popular project ever on NYW.

Re: All's well...

I was pushing the broom. We had a lot of fun with Norm, including a night on the town in Chicago during the American Woodworker Show. He's quite a hoot off camera.

Re: Finished project

Good looking job.

As for problems with drawers.... I suspect that the vertical dividers were not actually parallel.  When I made mine (more like Miter bench and storage) I used sticks of the same length to separate and maintain position of the vertical dividers while I made the holes and attached with screws.   The other thing I did that made it go easier is that each drawer was measured for parts in the opening prior to construction of the drawers.   So I really used something more like a story pole type plan vs measuring (tape measure).

Re: Finished project

In hindsight, story sticks and, as Ellis suggested, dados in the cleats might have been an easier method to obtain better dimensional results. As for sequence, I still prefer to build the drawers first and then fit the carcass to the drawers. I believe it's easier to make adjustments if necessary. My vertical assembly method may have been odd, but the results were exactly what I was trying to accomplish.