Anyone make drawers & slides from scratch?

I've done it. Depends on what you are looking for, euro slides aren't that expensive. Ball bearing slides are better and don't cost that much more. I don't know how many drawers you have. If you have a 1/2 inch router you can get a bit that will cut drawer ends: Drawer bits. These really need a router table tho I suppose you could free hand it. Expect more ruined wood that way. The drawer bit is solid and allows you to use the thicker 3/4 inch wood for the sides and back. You need to rout a slot for the bottom piece in all four sides. That can be luann plywood or that new 1/4 inch hardwood plywood that is showing up in the big box hardware stores now. That is better.

You can turn these out pretty fast once you are set up. Need table saw and router with table. Seal the drawer sides and bottom with a couple of coats of polyurethane varnish. That somewhat water proofs them. I'm sure there are YouTube videos on doing this.

rambleonrose wrote:
Gearing up to piece the gutted old RV back together, and as expected, we're WAY past budget.

One of the big cabinetry problems we had from the water damage is that the old drawers had gotten repeatedly wet, and the wood sides expanded and has mostly fallen apart. The single metal slide piece got smashed up over the years from previous owners, so they weren't salvageable, either.

We're rebuilding almost all the cabinets now as economically as possible, but the drawer situation has me a bit worried. I priced out buying slides (which I've done before in my kitchen) and just for a few drawers in there, it's a couple hundred extra bucks.

What I'm asking is if anyone has built wood on wood drawers and the slides, and how well they work. We're fairly handy with tools, but we're also on a timeline (and a budget, obviously!)

Is this worth trying? Anyone?

I've built many drawer boxes over the years being a builder that I am. They can be very easy to build. I would keep it simple and build it out of 1/2" baltic birch ply and simply butt joint it with glue and with a brad nailer with 1.25" brads. Have your sides overlap the front and back pieces. Typical side mount full extension guides need 1" so make your drawers obviously 1" narrower than your opening. Dado in a 1/4" piece of ply for your bottom and you are all set.

Dan

My trailer came with nice pantry cabinets but no drawers, so I made my own inside one of the cabinets. I'm no carpenter so I ordered from Barker Door. You can order any size you want and they are very easy to assemble and well made.

I used ball bearing slides as referenced above.

I've made many drawers as well. The above is good advice and I would add to buy your full extension slides all at the same time and buy them online. If you go to a big box store and buy one set today, another set next week etc., you'll spend twice as much money in the end. Determine how many sets you need and shop around online. I've bought them from cabinet wholesale places and amazon. It all depends on where I found the best price.

Personally would use a drawers slide like a Knape and Vogt KV8400. These are RV specific full extension 100# rated stay closed drawer slides.

For drawer boxes - if you don't have the equipment to precision cut/machine plywood sheets -look at pre machined drawer side material. These are available at many lumber yards and woodworking stores

KV 8400 at Woodworkers Hardware

KV 8400 at Woodworker Supply
Drawer Box sides

Also, with a little searching - you can find flat packed pre-cut drawer packs for a decent price - I have used Valen for these before.
Valen Drawers

I've made drawers for two TTs we've had. Providing you have at least a table saw, it's pretty easy to do (other than time-consuming).

A router might help for making the drawer fronts but not a must-have. A biscuit joiner might also help for making drawer fronts, depending on how you make them. A chop saw would be nice but you could use the table saw. There's various ways to make the drawer fronts - buy OEM standard sizes for your make of RV from a dealer, use solid 3/4" hardwood or make Shaker style with an inset panel (more involved). Or if money no object, get a cabinet shop to make custom ones.

You'll want cabinet-grade 1/2" plywood for the box sides as it has more plies per inch thickness and the edges look nicer. The Knape & Vogt "stay-close" RV drawer slides are VERY nice but they're not inexpensive. There's two ways to install slides - one is to the sides of a cabinet and the other by using brackets that mount to the ends of slides. The brackets are the easier way and is what RV manufacturers typically use. If you don't use these slides, I'd avoid the standard flimsy roller catches. I've used Southco Grabber catches instead and they come in different strengths.

Below is a drawer I made for beside the bed. It's almost 24" long and has a factory drawer front. The other photos are drawers for the under-bed storage. Because of the odd size of the drawers there, I made drawer fronts from scratch.

Tip: don't buy cheap cabinet-grade plywood. I bought a full sheet and cut it all to the sizes I needed and put it aside for a few months. Went to build the drawer boxes and found the plywood was all warped like crazy. Took it back and exchanged it for the good stuff. It was apparently low-cost off-shore plywood from you-know-where...

dup. :(

I've built lots of drawers in wood cabinets without metal slides. Plywood-sided drawers, preferably baltic birch or other quality plywood. Leave approx 1/8" clearance on the sides. I use solid maple for the drawer supports, for easy sliding without wear. Rub some paraffin wax where the drawer's plywood edge rubs on the maple support. The downsides are lack of full (supported) extension, and need for a mechanism to hold them closed in transit.

Thanks for all the responses!

I checked out Barker Door, looks like good stuff, until.... shipping. Ouch.

I think for the box and front it shouldn't be too hard to construct - I will have lots of pieces of nice 1x4 that will be great for the sides, and for the bottom I think a piece of the wall panel we're using will work. Maybe some sort of simple bracing across the middle for extra support, since one will be for pots/pans.

Still undecided on the pulls - I reckon it depends on how much time there is to dedicate - we have to wait for 50+ weather to seal the **** out of the roof before we can do pretty much any construction on the inside, so it will be go-time after that, and smaller cost savers like that might not be worth it.

Gotta get the old girl up and running before the Dead tour in June!!

Completely agree with using KV 8400 RV slides. Make sure they have the RV notation and the Stay Close feature. They are different than their regular KV 8400 slides.