Double-wide chest of drawers


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I believe I have finally convinced my wife that we need a chest of drawers...so I am starting to get things in order to build along (albeit a bit late starting).

The catch here is that she really wants a slightly lower cabinet that is double wide. This will be a big hall table/chest for things like hats and gloves and so on.

I'm starting to draw up what I plan to build using the chest of drawers as the base, reusing all of the construction techniques/etc. This brings me to my first issue.

Given that this will be double the width, I'm debating how to handle the case structure in the center (between the drawers).

1 - one option is to just build a center frame that mimicks the side frames and treat the left and right halves of the chest as two cabinets.

2 - another option would be to reinforce the webframes and make them twice as wide, but I'm not sure that it won't end up sagging in the middle without some extra support (ie, a middle foot of some kind).

Option 1 is probably the easiest approach...but option 2 would allow me to have a nice continuous chest front that looks like a single chest rather than two.

Anyone have thoughts on how best to handle this?

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If you put a vertical board across the bottom, say 3" in height, it would support center. It really doesn't matter how thick the board is, the 4" in height is what gives the strength.

I'd cut a curve in it if you are doing a Marc style, or a scroll pattern if you are doing Charles style.

I'd run across the front, and maybe one across the back or the center.

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I've just built a double chest of drawers. I built it in two halves as the whole could not be manoeuvred into position inside the house. The halves are mirror images of each other. I used 25mm ply for the sides - the outer most sides framed with 40mm timber and the inner sides framed in 30mm timber. The two halves are butted against each other and held together with 4 nuts and bolts ( recessed into the 25mm ply sides. After joining the carcasses the centre leg is 60mm wide.

Paul

post-1245-005860400 1283266425_thumb.jpg

post-1245-066221800 1283266443_thumb.jpg

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Thanks for the input guys, nice chest(s) Paul...cool idea to bolt them together.

I've been thinking more about the structure and reviewing the sketchup plans for the COD.

If I build webframes the full 'double' width, they end up being about 5' wide. To support that I'd likely build in three vertical back rails with four back panels. So, I'll follow the bouncing ball to see where things are going to sag/break.

The weight in the middle of the chest will pull the back rails down, so they might benefit from a dovetail into the back top horizontal rail.

If that fails, it will be because the bottom back horizontal rail sagged.

The same logic applies to the front except that the dividers between the drawers could be a weak point as well.

So, if I want to avoid a leg in the middle, how thick/high do the bottom rails need to be to prevent the potential 'sag' across a 5' span?

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My gut says 4" top to bottom, and thick enough that it won't twist. 1/2" should be fine. I know I said 3" before, but then I started thinking about how much weight all those drawers could hold.

You can try an experiment: take a 5' 2x4 and support it at both ends. Put your weight on it and see how much it bends. I'd guess that at 1.5" it will bend a lot, but at 3.5" it will be OK.<br><br>You could also run diagonals from the center top to the bottom corners.&nbsp; Essentially make the hole thing a truss.&nbsp; The center weight would then hang on the center vertical, which would be held up by the diagonals, which sit on the feet.&nbsp; The diagonals would be held to together by the front and back rails.&nbsp; The problem there is that the front would be unsupported.<br>

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  • 3 years later...

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