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Pocket screws are designed to be used in situations where basically what
they hold together does not undergo daily movement and stress. i know
they were used in the old days for holding rail on tables, and even supporting the m/t joints made on these old factory made items,
but the stresses in opening and closing a drawer and the overall hanging
stresses make them long term not the correct engineering solution to a
woodworking joint.

modern materials allow us to consider different kinds of fixings, but the specifics of joining a drawer are simple.

at the front, you need the sides to wrap the front in one way or another to overcome the desire to spread, hence dovetails or the mitre lock
router system, or even the rebated front, so that the pulling on the front handle transfers the load down the sides, rather than tending to spring the front. in the seventies many kitchens were factory made with corner
fixings of a kind of plastic, but the stresses were placed in such a way
that the fronts popped off after quite a short time, because there was no
way of holding the sides in with the front. i believe that pocket screws
have the same problem, no matter how successful they seem in the short
term. this may seem a criticism, but it is more importantly an engineering
fact.

at the rear the back can be fixed in many way, as the stresses are
aimed in different ways, and can be compensated by fixing the
bottom to the rear cross member. in addition, using undermount
drawer slides allows for some interesting variations.

it is certainly easier to make the drawers with a false front, since it ensures that the drawers can be set up properly inside the carcase, and
the front overhang can be made the same by packing and blocking, where as when you make full fronts, you have more problems with adjusting the
depth stops.

as for the finish, you should think about who is going to use the kitchen,
and then think very hard about using one or other of the kitchen floor finishes, after perhaps staining the units if you want or need to.

Johnson Kleer is water soluble and quite hard wearing, but i would prefer that on the front and sides of the units an acrylic product like diamond
glaze, was used because it provides heat and water protection.

on the tops it depends upon the surface, but if wood, then there is something to be said for vegetable oils being used. what you do need
to consider is that you need at least one or two areas where you can
put hot and or freezing plates or items, maybe those asda granite plates that were shown elsewhere on the media cabinet.

anyway you seem to be making good progess and hope it gives you what
you and swmbo want. it will have saved you some serious dosh though.

good luck

paul :wink:

Modedit Newbie_Neil
 
engineer one":1xlw9hkr said:
Pocket screws are designed to be used in situations where basically what
they hold together does not undergo daily movement and stress. i know
they were used in the old days for holding rail on tables, and even supporting the m/t joints made on these old factory made items,
but the stresses in opening and closing a drawer and the overall hanging
stresses make them long term not the correct engineering solution to a
woodworking joint.

Sean specifically mentioned Blum undermount runners. I use them as well. I don't have equipment sensitive enough to measure the opening force on one of the drawers but I would guess it to be well under 1kg, probably under 100g.

Pocket screws used in a drawer making application are inserted from the front (or back) piece into the drawer sides. This means the opening stress is at right angles to the screw, and for the screw to fail it would need to be sheared. I don't have equipment top measure how much force would be needed to break (3) pocket screws in shear, but I should imagine that it would be a lot.

John

Modedit Newbie_Neil
 
sean_in_limerick":1d76uk46 said:
Thanks for all the comments and recommendations. I have put a lot of time and effort into the design of the kitchen, but for some reason neglected the drawer cases - i am now veering towards pine, dovetailed at the front, and rebated at the back. It's really not that many drawers to do and i will be doing them in stages anyway. I think the mitre-lock approach is too finicky to get right and i am not sure as to how strong it is. My preference is to avoid butt-joints at the front of the case, which counts out pocket-holes and biscuits.

Any further thoughts on a finish?

Sean
Hi Sean

I think the front dovetails should work well and give you that extra "quality" look when you open the drawers. I agree that it's probably less important at the back but how were you intending to fix the back into the rebate? Pins or screws? The housed back used in traditional drawers has a definite strength advantage but may be a little fussy to use with the Blum runners.

I believe that traditionally pine kitchen drawers were left unfinished. I've seen this in very old kitchen dressers but I don't really think it's practical in a modern kitchen. I'm unhappy with oils because some can leave an overpowering smell. Varnishes will crack with age, so I'd prefer to use something like a thin coat of water-based acrylic (Dulux Diamond Glaze), but I'd like to hear if anyone has had success with waxes at all.

Scrit
 
Gentlemen

This thread will not be allowed to degenerate into a series of personal attacks.

I have amended and/or deleted posts.

PLEASE STOP NOW.

Thanks
Neil in Moderator Mode
 
Scrit - i would probably glue and pin the back - into a routed 'dado' (as our American friends call them.) I don't think i have to worry about this joint coming apart,as all the stress is in the front to back direction.

I have never really had much success with brush-on finishes and this is why i have considered using Danish Oil as it is foolproof to get on without smears or runs - but i would welcome feedback on this.

Another question popped into my head over the weekend while i was sanding up the drawer fonts. These are (like the doors) a raised panel design with the raised panel floating. My concern is if i attach the drawer box to the panel (probably unavoidable in my design), how might i stop the the drawer front moving over time (as i have left a bit of expansion room all around the panel)? Is this a bad design for drawer fronts? Is it ok to use a bit of glue, just to hold the panel in place?

Thanks as always,

Sean
 
sean_in_limerick":132wyd9x said:
Another question popped into my head over the weekend while i was sanding up the drawer fonts. These are (like the doors) a raised panel design with the raised panel floating. My concern is if i attach the drawer box to the panel (probably unavoidable in my design), how might i stop the the drawer front moving over time (as i have left a bit of expansion room all around the panel)? Is this a bad design for drawer fronts? Is it ok to use a bit of glue, just to hold the panel in place?
One solution from across the pond are Space Balls (nothing like the Mel Brooks movie) I have not used them but am thinking of trying to get some. I have heard of making an equivalent by using a bead of silicon sealer and cutting it into 1/4" lengths.
 
The other stuff readily available is the "beads" of sticky polyurethane sold by motor factors, etc for use in attaching car trim panels. Even though I'cve used this stuff (Mine came from Wurth) I'm still not sure how long it will last.

Scrit
 
Hi Sean--looks good!

You would insert the path to the picture and enclose it with the img tags by highlighting the path to the picture itself and not the photo album, and once it is highlighted, click the Img button above the edit box when compsing your message.

The resultant code would look like this:

Code:
[img]http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/temp/october_2006_049.jpg[/img]

And the result is your image:

october_2006_049.jpg


Note that your pictures are 2k pixels wide, so you need to have a smaller version in your album to link to so people do not need to scroll to read the message.

This is one of your images which I downloaded the 640 pixel wide version and placed on my web site to demonstrate. I'll leave it there as long as you would like or take it down if you ask me to.

Take care, Mike
 
Hi Sean,
it's good to see how you are getting on. Your doors look great. As a fellow DIY kitchen builder I can certainly sympathise with how frustratingly slowly things seem to progress at times. Keep up the good work and keep posting progress shots.
 
Hi Sean...looking good so far.

re photo's....make sure that you've shrunk their size before you insert them using the image tag. i noticed that three of yours in your photobucket are huge. 30-60kb are fine. You can usually drop the resolution down on your camera if you aren't able to resize using your computer.
 
Hi Sean

Nice to see it all coming along. What does SWMBO think (apart from the usual about how long it all takes, that is)?

Scrit
 
You're getting there Sean !

Looks great. Will be so satisfying when you've got it all finished.

Keep it up, and keep posting the pics !

Cheers, Paul. :D
 
Sean,
I take my hat off to you for sticking with this and producing such a wonderful looking kitchen.

We are thinking of replacing ours but I cannot imagine I'd have the level of patience that you have shown to see it through.

Andy
 
It does indeed take patience, but we both knew it would take a while - so we were a little prepared.

SWMBO is taking it very well - of course i have now stopped buyying 'toys' and i am producing something other than sawdust!

Thanks for the kind replies.


Sean
 

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