Exposed Dovetails with concealed runners - possible?

[sixbysixx]

Hi all,
this is my first post as I recently started to get into serious woodworking and am a little stuck - hope somebody with experience can help :roll:
I'm building a built-in solid oak wardrobe (sidewalls oak faced ply) and really wanted to have the drawers without a face board, so I can see the through dovetails as a nice design feature (see screenshot)
But I'd like to have the comfort of using ball bearing runners - is this possible at all without have a huge gap left and right? Are there any runners that could be recessed a little into the side walls?
The drawers are going to be about 90cm deep (or less, depending on what's possible), so I need something quite substantial. There are Accuride 1029 runners which are undermount rails - something like this could maybe work, but they only come at a maximum length of 65cm and seem a bit flimsy.

Thanks a lot for any pointers!

Christoph

C-:

 

[custard]

Is it just the cabinet carcass that's in oak faced ply, or is it also the drawer sides/drawer front?

Plywood and dovetails are like oil and water...they really don't mix well, the tear out and chipping that's almost inevitable with cutting tails in ply means the finished job will look terrible. If you're determined to try then I'd strongly advise a test piece first, I think that'll be enough to persuade you to abandon the plan.

Sold wood drawer sides and drawer front with exposed, through dovetails is a different matter, that is entirely viable. The problem then though is dimensional stability, especially on a whopping big drawer like in your plan. If you're fairly new to woodworking I'd suggest sticking to man made boards and postponing the through dovetail idea until later in your woodworking career.

Good luck.

 

[rdesign]

blum-draw-runners-t98530.html

See the link above a member is selling 4 drawer runners, they are under mount so you need to leave the bottom of the drawer a little higher but the sides then, don't have any ugly cap or metal drawer hardware.

Regards Richard

 

[nev]

http://www.blum.com/ca/en/01/40/10/

 

[sixbysixx]

@custard: thanks for the advice - yeah, I'm aware of the issue with dovetails in plywood - it's only the carcass that's ply, the drawer is solid (apart from the bottom). and on the side I'm gonna put some solid lipping, so the sliding dovetail you can see in the side is only into the lipping, not into the ply.

About the large size of the drawers - yeah, I am slightly concerned about the movement of the wood as well - that's why I decided to go with ball bearing runners as I figured they would be a bit more forgiving if the wood moves.
But the downsides being that I need some very solid runners and the aforementioned issue of struggling to find a solution for not having a face.

@nev & @rdesign: thanks, but both links are L-shaped runners that still mount onto the side of the carcass, not the bottom. I would still be struggling with me needing a minimal gap left and right, or am I missing something?

Thanks a lot everybody - Christoph

C-:

 

[rdesign]

@nev & @rdesign: thanks, but both links are L-shaped runners that still mount onto the side of the carcass, not the bottom. I would still be struggling with me needing a minimal gap left and right, or am I missing something?

Thanks a lot everybody - Christoph

C-:

You are missing something ! look at the link nev posted and is on the for sale page on uk workshop I linked for you.
those runners are under mounted. so not on the side. no gap will be needed instead you raise the base of the drawer up I think its 20mm and in that space underneath is where the runners go. leaving your dovetails to be displayed whenever the drawer is pulled out. They are expensive but the solution you are looking for.

regards Richard

 

[petermillard]

Happy to be proven wrong, but IME you'll struggle to find a double extension undermount drawer runner that's 900mm.

 

[Roughcut]

The dimensions in the attached drawing seem very unusual.
What's with all the decimals?

 

[MattRoberts]

Are you sure you want a drawer that's nearly 30cm high and a meter deep? You could probably fit inside it yourself!

Extending a drawer 65cm out on runners exposes 2/3 of the depth, and only leaves 1/3 of the depth covered. That's probably going to be ok.

 

[nev]

@nev & @rdesign: thanks, but both links are L-shaped runners that still mount onto the side of the carcass, not the bottom. I would still be struggling with me needing a minimal gap left and right, or am I missing something?

Thanks a lot everybody - Christoph

C-:

You are correct, the runners do fix to the cabinet sides. I suppose you could recess them into the side the mm or two thickness they are? They do sit back from the front edge about 5mm IIRC so they would not be seen from the front.

Have you looked here.. http://www.eurofitdirect.co.uk/drawer-s ... er-slides/ ?

 

[Roughcut]

900mm+ for the wardrobe depth is overly generous as well in my opinion.
Unless of course that is to accommodate the entrance door to Narnia?

 

[Beau]

Hi all,
this is my first post as I recently started to get into serious woodworking and am a little stuck - hope somebody with experience can help :roll:
I'm building a built-in solid oak wardrobe (sidewalls oak faced ply) and really wanted to have the drawers without a face board, so I can see the through dovetails as a nice design feature (see screenshot)
But I'd like to have the comfort of using ball bearing runners - is this possible at all without have a huge gap left and right? Are there any runners that could be recessed a little into the side walls?

Yes it's quite doable with under mount runners. You usually need a 3mm gap each side to allow for the body of the runners but you can recess it into the cabinet side to leave a hairline gap between drawer sides and cabinet side. Only tiny shallow draws on this but almost no gap to the sides but hard to see in the picture.


Edit. Missed the bit about the depth or your draws so may be difficult to find suitable runners in that size.

 

[sixbysixx]

Hey Y'all,

thanks a ton for the numerous replies.
Yeah, I agree a few measurements are a bit odd here - just to explain:
the wardrobe goes into the corner of our bedroom and to the right of it is an old chimney, making the wardrobe a lot more shallow, so the left part where the drawers are then happens to be more than 90cm deep - the drawers don't have to be that deep, but I have the space, so would like to use as much as possible - at the back of the drawers will be the space for all those christmas jumpers...

The decimals are weird, I know - I made the design in Sketchup and after dividing up the space and subtracting the thickness of the plywood for the carcass I ended up with some rather odd numbers. I'm gonna set everything out on a rod and print 1:1, so the measurements shouldn't really matter too much anymore...

@Beau: that looks very neat - thanks for that. So you basically routed a recess into the carcass side? Did you do that before assembling the carcass? I could imagine its fairly tricky to do after assembling it?

@ nev: Blum Movento come at a maximum 75cm length with a 60kg rating, so that seems to be my best bet - I'll lose 15cm, but that's cool.
Theoretically I should also be able to route a slight recess into the bottom side of the drawer itself, right? Won't look as neat though, but probably a lot easier than having to route into the carcass?
If I understand this drawing from Blum correctly, I need to recess the mounts 4mm each in order to get a 1mm gap? Or is a 1mm gap a bit too ambitious for a solid oak drawer of this size?

Thanks!! C-:

 

[sixbysixx]

@MattRoberts: so do you think I can mount the 75cm Blum Moventos on a 90cm drawer that would then extend only 75cm? Somehow I figured the runners need to be the full length of the drawer, but maybe not if I understand your comment correctly?

Cheers!

C-:

 

[MattRoberts]

@MattRoberts: so do you think I can mount the 75cm Blum Moventos on a 90cm drawer that would then extend only 75cm? Somehow I figured the runners need to be the full length of the drawer, but maybe not if I understand your comment correctly?

Cheers!

C-:

Yes - the slides should allow for their full extension regardless of the length of the drawer.

I'm not intimately familiar with the Blum drawer slides though, but other chaps in here should be able to confirm for definite.

 

[nev]

The drawer will need to be the same depth as the runner. The only fixing to the drawer is the clip mech at the front and a 5mm hole in the rear face of the drawer for a 'hook' on the end of the runner to sit in.

You can see how here...
http://d1.blum.com/BEC003/tan008-seiten ... 0p_$v1.mp4

and details in the catalogue...
http://publications.blum.com/2015/catalogue/en/#424

I have just noticed there is a bottom mount runner from blum that may be more suitable. Not sure of the depth sizes but it may be an option.

http://d1.blum.com/BEC003/tdmbmn569r_ma ... of_$v1.pdf

 

[sixbysixx]

OK, brilliant - thanks a lot @nev - I think those undercounted ones are too short, but I'm gonna settle with the 75cm Blum Movento and recess them into the side carcass a bit.

Do you know which accessories I need? Side stabilisation sounds smart for such a big drawer?
Depth adjustment - I thought that is built in by default?
Same with the Locking device?

Thanks again everybody!!!

C-:

 

[nev]

Go to the Blum Movento page
http://www.blum.com/gb/en/01/40/10/

and choose Eservices, check in as a guest and navigate to runners, there you can choose your sizes etc and it will create a shopping list with all part numbers etc. for example..

 

[sixbysixx]

That's brilliant - thanks so much for your help @nev !!

C-: