Multi-Drawer Shop Cabinet, Part 1

In an effort to reduce the scrap wood cluttering my tiny shop and to better organize things, I decided to build a small cabinet that will fit in the existing shelving space in the shop.

The space above the toolbox will get the cabinet

The space is 25" wide, about 12" tall and 12" deep.  I'll make the cabinet to fit the height and width, but it's going to be a bit deeper an stick out about 2" from the front of the shelving unit.  After scavenging for and gluing up some pine and squaring it to the proper dimensions, I got to dovetailing the carcase.

Ganging the top and bottom to cut the tails

After cleaning up the tails, used the tails to mark and cut the pins - got a good fit (pine is so forgiving!)

The completed dovetailed outer carcase

Fitted a vertical divider using stopped dadoes

The plan is for 6 drawers on each side.  The drawer sides will have grooves that slide on runners that are housed in dadoes in the case sides and divider.

Laying out the stopped dadoes that will house the runners

Cutting these dadoes was a LOT of work!  There are 20 of them, each 3/8" wide and over 13" long.  The bottom drawers will just slide on the case bottom, so I didn't need runners for those.

The carcase with the runner dadoes complete

Here's where I did some thinking about wood movement and how best to install the runners.  I was concerned about gluing in cross-grain runners (though here in dry California I probably don't need to be too concerned), so I ended up making short pieces, gluing 6 of them in each dado and only gluing one end of each piece.

The center divider with runner pieces glued in place

I didn't take as much care as I should have when laying out these dadoes.  Because of that, each dado was not identical to it's neighboring dado and I had to fit the runner pieces carefully.  What a PITA.

The carcase with runners in place

Next time I'll write about the drawers and finishing.