Anyone make drawers & slides from scratch?
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 repea...
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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...
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...
