Kitchen Drawers

The Ikea Cabinets we purchased are pretty good, but there were two upper cabinet areas that became a storage nightmare. It pretty much had to be emptied out every time you wanted to do some baking because you were sure what you wanted was at the back of the cabinet.

I decided that adding drawers to these cabinets would help and be a good introduction to my new CNC machine. I started by designing the project in a program called Fusion 360, which was a very painful process.

Then I converted the design into instructions for the CNC machine so it new where and how deep the cuts should be.

I wasn’t 100% sure of my programming, so I didn’t let it cut out the sides. That turned out to be a good thing because I realized that I accidentally told the machine that I was using an 1/8″ bit when I was really using a 1/4″ bit, which meant every cut was 1/8″ off.

Then I cut out the parts with a circular track saw and rounded the edges on a router table.

Then it was assembly time. It’s been a long time since I glued anything up and it was a HUGE mess!

Then it was time for finishing. Lina chose a blonde shellac.

I had always heard that baltic birch was the bomb, but there were some annoying patches, some voids, and discolorations. I’ve finished a lot of plywood and it was by far the worst because it was like sandpaper to the finishing rag. I have never had that problem before. This will probably be the last time I use it.

Then it was time to install. They look pretty good, but the proportions are all wrong. The rails are also too high to be installed in high cabinets. Next time I’ll spend more time in the design process.