This for a drawer that will hold 75 CDs (arranged in 3 rows of 25).
The drawer bottom would be about 16" x 16". 5 CDs = 1 lb. What is the
thinnest board which could hold this weight (15lbs, .06 lb per in^2)?
Is plywood the preffered choice?
Drawer slides are going to be side mount. I'm planning on using 1x6's
for the sides and back
How should the bottom be attached? Nails? Sitting in a notch?
thanks
Sathyan
Sathyan Sundaram wrote:
>
> This for a drawer that will hold 75 CDs (arranged in 3 rows of 25).
> The drawer bottom would be about 16" x 16". 5 CDs = 1 lb. What is the
> thinnest board which could hold this weight (15lbs, .06 lb per in^2)?
> Is plywood the preffered choice?
>
> Drawer slides are going to be side mount. I'm planning on using 1x6's
> for the sides and back
>
> How should the bottom be attached? Nails? Sitting in a notch?
>
> thanks
> Sathyan
If you are going to use 1x6 for the sides (actually 5-1/2" deep) there
is no reason to worry about the thickness of the bottom. You've got
some doozy answers apparently by people who never built a drawer. 15
pounds in a 16" x 16" drawer is practically nothing. Cardboard could
support that weight, for a while. Actually 1/8 inch pressboard or
masonite would work well with little sag. But I would use 3/16
plywood. By standard wall panneling which is cheap but make sure it
is the kind with a plywood structure and you get the added benefit
that the bottom would be finished. For maximum depth in the drawer,
put a 3/16" rabbit up from the bottom 3/16" to hold the bottom on the
sides, back and front. That will give you an interior depth of 5-1/8"
and you could use 1 x6s for the front also. If you want simpler and
more depth within the drawer, then use glue and nail the bottom on.
But then you couldn't use 1x6s for the front. Good luck. Bytheway,
the 3/16 panneling would easily support 40 or more pounds.
Sathyan Sundaram wrote:
> This for a drawer that will hold 75 CDs (arranged in 3 rows of 25).
> The drawer bottom would be about 16" x 16". 5 CDs = 1 lb. What is the
> thinnest board which could hold this weight (15lbs, .06 lb per in^2)?
> Is plywood the preffered choice?
>
> Drawer slides are going to be side mount. I'm planning on using 1x6's
> for the sides and back
>
> How should the bottom be attached? Nails? Sitting in a notch?
Sathyan...
1/4" plywood should work well. Try arranging four pieces of 1x?
stock in a 14-15" square, set a 16" square piece of plywood on
them, and top this construction with your 75 CDs - it's an easy
experiment.
An alternative might be to incorporate partitioning into the
drawer frame, and go with a three-piece drawer bottom, with each
of the three pieces held in a dado (groove) on all four sides
(you could probably store rocks in such a drawer!).
The drawer bottom should sit in a dado cut into the drawer frame
members. Nailing the bottom would almost certainly produce
problems over time.
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto, Iowa USA
On 5-Jul-2004, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Michael Daly wrote:
>
> > On 5-Jul-2004, [email protected] (Greg) wrote:
> >
> >> Try these guys
> >
> > Wrong span type. A shelf is supported on two ends while a
> > drawer bottom is supported on four sides. No comparison.
>
> Personally unless I needed to shave every possible gram of weight or every
> possible cent of cost out of something I wouldn't worry about it--using the
> shelf calculation will give you a conservative number, which is usually
> goodness in stress calculations.
It will overestimate deflections, true. My point is that the answer isn't to
be relied upon if someone thinks it will be something like correct. If you
know that it's an upper bound, then go with that.
People blindly plugging numbers in to equations (or calculators) can result
in interesting, if unexpected, results.
Mike
Michael Daly wrote:
> On 5-Jul-2004, [email protected] (Greg) wrote:
>
>> Try these guys
>
> Wrong span type. A shelf is supported on two ends while a
> drawer bottom is supported on four sides. No comparison.
Personally unless I needed to shave every possible gram of weight or every
possible cent of cost out of something I wouldn't worry about it--using the
shelf calculation will give you a conservative number, which is usually
goodness in stress calculations.
>
> Mike
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
"Sathyan Sundaram" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> This for a drawer that will hold 75 CDs (arranged in 3 rows of 25).
> The drawer bottom would be about 16" x 16". 5 CDs = 1 lb. What is the
> thinnest board which could hold this weight (15lbs, .06 lb per in^2)?
> Is plywood the preffered choice?
If it's supported on all four sides spread out over that area of
approximately 1.5 sq. feet, then even 1/16" plywood/veneer core will
probably hold fine, but my recommendation is to use 1/8" thick material. As
well as being entirely sufficient for your 15 lbs of CDs, it lends itself to
fitting the kerfs made by most standard carbide tablesaw blades.
On 5-Jul-2004, [email protected] (Greg) wrote:
> Try these guys
Wrong span type. A shelf is supported on two ends while a
drawer bottom is supported on four sides. No comparison.
Mike
[email protected] (Sathyan Sundaram) wrote:
> This for a drawer that will hold 75 CDs (arranged in 3 rows of 25).
> The drawer bottom would be about 16" x 16". 5 CDs = 1 lb.
I just grabbed some CD's (in jewel cases) and threw them onto my kitchen
scale. I get almost exactly 4 to a pound.
> What is the
> thinnest board which could hold this weight (15lbs, .06 lb per in^2)?
Depends on what you mean by "hold this weight". There's a difference
between being strong enough not to fail, and being stiff enough not to
sag visibly. You probably mean the latter.
Check out the sagulator (http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator.htm)
Using your numbers (5 to a pound), I get a sag of 0.03 inches (about
1/32") using 1/4" fir plywood. And that's for a shelf supported only at
its ends. If your drawer bottom is supported on all 4 sides, it will be
even stiffer. But my CD's are heavier than yours. Birch plywood is
probably stiffer than fir. Pick whatever assumptions make sense for
you, plug in the numbers, and see what it says.
Personally, I'd go for a 1/16" thick laminated panel with carbon fiber
skins over aluminum honeycomb core :-)