Day 12 - Tight Fitting Drawers

I think my wood jokes are wearing a bit thin now so I'm changing my headings and blogs to be completely serious from now on.

Today I created the drawer to house the keyboard/mouse. Essentially the wood for the drawer front was previously cut from the 660mm wood so the width/height are exact.

Now, you may be wondering what that erection coming out of the back of the drawers is, well the wood is about 8 inches long and slots through the hole you can see (the wife reckons it's more like 6 inches, but what do women know about measuring wood), and sticks out the back by about 3 inches.


The height is 130mm so I cut out three lengths of 90mm MDF to form the sides/back, one for the base and simply screwed/glued them together, then dowelled/glued the door. The reason for the 90mm height and not 130mm is because the batons joining the case together are showing so they form a natural stop for the drawer front, which you can probably see. The drawer is about three-quarters the depth of the cabinet, leaving a gap at the back for cables, etc.

The runners were simply the batons screwed to the side 90mm apart to fit the draw fit snugly. The idea is to not have to buy extra stuff and make everything out of the batons and MDF.

The reason behind the daft looking baton and ugly hole at the back of my cabinet is that I tinkered with grooves on the front for opening the drawer but the effect I really wanted was to be concealed. So what happens is that the cabinet will be against a wall and so to open the drawer you push the cabinet back slightly (it's on wheels) and the baton forces the draw open a little. The keyboard/mouse won't be used that much after it's all configured so it's a little pain for a better look.

Another reason is that it means the cabinet is a couple of inches from the wall, allowing the heat/air out (the fans will be at the back).