Drawers for the Miter Stand, Part Two

Well, last Sunday I got some time to finish up the drawers for my Miter Saw sand.  Since it was a balmy 32F, a welcome change from the single digits we have had, I opened the garage door and let in some natural light.  Last I left off I had ripped all the drawer sides to width and ran all the dado’s and rabbets needed for the two drawer boxes.  on the back of each drawer I ripped the board just above where I made the dado as you can see in the photo below.  I glued all the rabbets and clamped the drawer boxes on my out feed table.  Once everything was clamped and square I tacked everything together with some 1” brads.

Just another shot of the dado’s coming together at the front of the drawer below.

With the boxes nailed together I took a measurement and ripped the plywood bottoms. The drawer bottoms dropped right into the dado and from the photo below you can see why I ripped the dado of the back of the drawer boxes.  The bottom will float freely in the dado, and just be attached to the back of the drawer with a couple screws.

Prior to screwing the drawer bottom to the back of the drawer, I clamp my speed square onto the back corner of the box to help keep everything square while I drive the screws home.

With the drawers done its time to mount the drawer slides.  Basically following the instructions.  I saw on a you tube video the other day a neat trick to mounting the slides and figured I would give it a try.  Basically you use a couple spacer blocks.  In my case I have two 1/4” thick pieces of masonite.  First you lay the two pieces of masonite on your frame.

The masonite will support the drawer slide 1/2” off the frame.  I found it was easier to clamp the drawer slide in place prior to screwing it to the box.  Once your first screw is in place, you can remove the clamp and add the other two screws for this slide and then repeat for the other side.

With both slides screwed in place you take and put only one piece of masonite under each drawer slide.  These will acts as 1/4” spacers keeping your drawer up off the frame.

Then you pull the drawer into the opening and pull both the drawer and slides out far enough so you can access the first set of screw holes.  I found clamping the drawer slides in place helped to keep everything from shifting as I was driving screws into the slides.  Once you put your first screw in both sides you can then remove the clamp and slide the drawer out to the next set of screw holes, and so on.  This was actually much easier than I thought it would be.

I slapped on a couple drawer pulls, which were much more classier than my miter stand, and through some particle board below on the bottom of the stand to act as a shelf for some other tools and I was on may way.  I left my options open if I want to dress it up further with some pine trim and drawer fronts, but we will need to wait and see.