Drawer bottom material

[Lardman]

Im fitting out an alcove with a wardrobe and drawers, nothing flash as its for me and probably doesn't have a long life expectancy so think utility rather than thing of beauty.

For simplicity / cost Im thinking of 4 drawers the width of the alcove roughly 1000mm , 450mm deep with bottom runners. I was looking at 18mm MDF for the drawer boxes but Im a little worried about the rigidity of the drawer bases. Would a span like that be ok or should I use ply / chipboard for the base ?

 

[woodbloke]

I've done something like this and used 3mm oil-tempered hardboard for drawer bases but that was with a central muntin down the middle...easy enough to do by just screwing it onto the underside of the drawer back, jointing here is with a half-lap at the back and loose tongue into the front groove. If you don't want to go to the faff of a muntin, 6mm ply would be more than adequate - Rob

 

[Lardman]

I wasn't even going as far as rebating the the drawer bottoms into the sides. Just glue & screw butt jointed bottom / side and then screw the runners on. :roll:

I've dropped the bottom on too many drawers to risk hardboard so it looks like doing it properly with 6mm ply - probably work out cheaper too.

Ta muchly