Lipped drawer fronts

Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd
(?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the
more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken
off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't anticipate
the drawer being removed frequently however..

Cheers!

I'll second that.. Many shaker drawer fronts were made that way..

"Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "[email protected]" wrote:
>
>> Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd
>> (?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the
>> more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken
>> off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't anticipate
>> the drawer being removed frequently however..
>
> Last project I built had rabbit around top and sides with flat bottom for
> drawer fronts.
>
> Looks just fine for my purposes since bottom of drawer is almost hidden
> from view.
>
> Lew
>
>

On Apr 14, 10:17 am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> I am ready to make some drawers for the lower half of a hutch. I am
> interested in what I have seen called "lipped" drawer fronts or
> rabbeted drawer fronts as my Leigh DT jig manual calls them. It's
> unclear to me, though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a
> roundover edge) on all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2
> sides and the top, with no edge treatment on the bottom.
>
> If there is an edge treatment on all 4 sides, then it would appear
> that the bottom of the drawer front does not have a rabbet? So that
> the 2 sides and top overlap the drawer opening (acting as a stop
> also), and the bottom one would be directly in line with it? Wouldn't
> this look kind of weird? I can't picture it very well. Any pointers
> to images or other references welcomed..

You can have a rabbet all the way around. On my Akeda jig the side
stops are built in a way to allow the inside of the rabbet to index on
them so you don't have to do anything special. On the Leigh you may
have to make a block of wood equal to the width of the rabbet to
offset the sides, I'm not sure.

That being said, I prefer to use a false front instead. Make the
dovetails through dovetails and just add a front after.

-Kevin

"[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd
> (?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the
> more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken
> off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't anticipate
> the drawer being removed frequently however..
>
> Cheers!


Traditional huh? Strange. Seems you would not add a design element that
would look asymmetrical so that you could add a layer of protection when the
drawer was not in its normal location. I wonder what technique would be
advised to keep you from stepping on the drawer and crushing it.

Basically you would end up with a drawer that looks "different" 99.999% of
the time to protect it against a situation that it may be exposed to .001%
of the time.

I could be wrong.

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:17:31 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

> It's unclear to me,
> though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a roundover edge) on
> all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2 sides and the top, with
> no edge treatment on the bottom.

I prefer a roundover, or whatever, on just the sides. The tops and
bottoms overlap such that they touch their neighbor, with allowance for
expansion. Looks really nice if you can match the grain.

I've got a tool stand in the workshop that has 10 graduated drawers in
pairs. On it I only did a roundover on the outside edges so the the
front looks solid. I found wood wide enough that I could make the 4
largest drawer fronts from a single piece. Likewise the 6 smaller ones.
Came out pretty nice. Of course, I'm not unbiased on the subject :-).

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

"[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:f2095226-527a-4bac-8d6b-f693ac92a1d5@s20g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
>I am ready to make some drawers for the lower half of a hutch. I am
> interested in what I have seen called "lipped" drawer fronts or
> rabbeted drawer fronts as my Leigh DT jig manual calls them. It's
> unclear to me, though, whether there is an edge treatment (like a
> roundover edge) on all 4 sides of the drawer front, or just the 2
> sides and the top, with no edge treatment on the bottom.
>
> If there is an edge treatment on all 4 sides, then it would appear
> that the bottom of the drawer front does not have a rabbet? So that
> the 2 sides and top overlap the drawer opening (acting as a stop
> also), and the bottom one would be directly in line with it? Wouldn't
> this look kind of weird? I can't picture it very well. Any pointers
> to images or other references welcomed..
>
> Cheers

For best appearances the rabbet should be all the way around the drawer
front, bottom included. This will hide, as intended, all gaps around the
drawer.

"[email protected]" wrote:

> Ok, that is what I thought. I came across an article by Lonnie Byrd
> (?) that said having it on 3 sides, and flat on the bottom was the
> more traditional way, since the bottom lip was prone to being broken
> off when the drawer was removed and set somewhere. I don't
> anticipate
> the drawer being removed frequently however..

Last project I built had rabbit around top and sides with flat bottom
for drawer fronts.

Looks just fine for my purposes since bottom of drawer is almost
hidden from view.

Lew