Accuracy

1/20/04, 11:06 AM #1

andy Parsons
Guest

Accuracy

andy Parsons

>The 7 drawers for my tool cabinet are nearly all complete, just the bases to fit, final sand & finish & knobs to attach. At my speed this should take about 2 weeks (or 8 hours actual shop time).

My question is how accurate (square) do you guys expect your hand crafted drawers to be?

Mine are approx 16" wide x 14" deep and between 3" & 5" high. When measured across the diagonals some are spot on (less than a 1/64th" while others are as much as 1/8th" out. This has not affected the movement of the drawers in an out of the carcass and the drawer fronts are all flush with the framework. Checking the inside angles with a square gives some surprising results eg 1 drawer has the corners on one side square but on the opposite side fractionally out - this does not seem possible.

All drawers made with 1/2" birch ply.

AndyP

Re: Accuracy

1/20/04, 7:45 PM #2

Bill Houghton
Master Craftsman
Offline
8,480 posts

Registered: 1/1/70

Length

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>I will leave it to others with more drawer-building experience to respond to your core question, but I can answer one question hidden in there with confidence, because I've been doing it successfully for years. It's easily possible to have corners square on one side and not the other even though the drawers measure equally (within tolerances) across the diagonals, if you're careful to make related parts - say, the two drawer sides - different lengths.

Re: Accuracy

1/20/04, 11:12 PM #3

Barry Va Beach
Guest

Re: Square

Barry Va Beach

>Andy, I haven't done any scientific study but I try to shoot for the diagonals to be as close as possible - but if one diagonal is say 15 and 1/8 and the other is 15 then by my math, you are only off 1/16 inch per side and I wouldn't think that would present much of a problem in a decent sized drawer. As you approach 1/4, I would suspect you would have difficulty in sliding the drawer and when closed, one end would be 1/8 inch further out than the other. As Bill notes, your second observation can occur when the sides are cut to different lengths or even if cut to the same length, when you hand cut dovetails you can get the same error if one set is cut deeper than the others.

Accuracy

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