Concerned about table racking ?s

[mleichtle]

I'm buildng the asian coffee table from popular woodworking a few years ago, see link, with one modification. I'd like the drawers to open from both sides. I don't have a biscut cutter, so I thought I use rabbit joinery for the case. Since there's no back to the case, what will keep this thing square when the kids push it across the carpet. The legs look like they would add alot more leverage to either bind up the drawers or worse tear it apart.

Am I over reacting? Whats your take?

Also, any one ever see slides for 2-way or pass through drawers?

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/pr.../?planid=11104

[mleichtle]

Whoops, wrong forum. Could someone please move me to the project related discussions forum.

[Jeffrey Schronce]

I didn't study the plan too closely but aren't you creating dados for the drawer case to sit into the legs? Or are you just screwing the drawer box into the legs? Either way this would seem to provide plenty of gluing surface (say 12" length x 1.5" of width of leg). This along with the minimal support against racking from the figure 8 attachments on top should be fine.

[JR]

I think a good rabbet/dado setup would work just fine. It looks like the box is screwed to the legs, so kid-induced racking won't be big deal either, IMO.

I don't think you can do drawer slides for two-way drawers, can you? The drawer fronts whould hit the hardware as they move through the cardasse. I think you're going to have to make the drawers the same size as the opening. Make the sides the and the fronts the same height, then put a cleat in the carcasse above bothe sides of the drawer to keep it from tilting as it comes out of the opening.

JR

[LCHIEN]

Mleichtle, I see exactly what you mean and I agree with you that leaving a back off the drawer chassis will decrease the strength of the table a lot esp. with regard to racking from pushing it sideways from the ends.

Only thing keeping it square will be the glue in the rabbet joints. along the tops and bottoms of the ends of the cabinet.

Normally the table would have an apron which would give it anti-racking rigidity but in this design an apron would be, ah, inappropriate.

An apron under the cabinet part might help but I think that would also be counter to the desing effect. Can you just give up the front and back drawer access idea? Seems like it would be hard to keep the drawer fronts lined up properly when closed, anyway with no way to "stop" them.

Maybe make one drawer open to one side and the other to the other side.
Or one drawer open to both sides and the other drawer open to the end.

Doesn't even take kids - at our house we are in the habit of putting our stocking feet on the table, sometimes pushing it in or out to get a better position and that is real hard on the joints.

[cabinetman]

There is a way to keep the looks of the design the same, have the drawers open from both sides, have them line up when closed, and keep the racking problem to a minimum. I've had to do similar modifications.

First, this may seem a little labor intensive, but to maintain the design on some furniture you have to be a little sneaky. If you make a two part leg, that is each leg would be a two piece glue up, at the top of both pieces, relieve each side, or one side to have a metal angle bracket fit flush, that can be screwed into the leg. The top of the leg would have to have a groove to allow the leg to sit against the underside of the top, and have one leg of the angle sticking out to sit into a groove under the top, or just screwed to the top. IOW, each leg would have a metal angle brace inside of it, and recessed and screwed into the underside of the top.

For the drawers, they would be wood to wood sliding, with no drawer slides. The fronts would be full inset, so they pass through. To line them up, a small spring loaded detent like this set dead center of the whole drawer, or on each drawer front. These would provide a "lock in position" stop, that is bypassed by slight pressure.

[LCHIEN]

Cabinetman proposed two solutions that sound like they should work, for the problems I described.


I had to read it twice but now understand using an steel angle iron, so that one leg is embedded in the table leg (by using two pieces grooved then laminated together to hide the iron), and then fastening the other leg of the iron to the bottom of the table. Cool!

And using the bullet catch to center the drawer "home" position - Clever!