1/2" or 3/4" ply for my shop drawer boxes?

Hey Sailor
I have used 1/2” for shop drawers many times with out problems The thing that I would also be concerned about would be the drawer bottoms and how there installed. As far as drawer fronts you can make your whole drawer and add a drawer front afterwards. If you make larger drawers you might consider 3/4”.

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon

I plan on cutting a dado into the bottoms of the drawer boxes for a 3/8” ply bottom (good enough?). If I use 1/2” stock then my dado would be 1/4” deep, 1/4” from the bottom. If I used 3/4” stock I would make my dado 3/8” deep, 3/8” from the bottom.

When you say with larger drawers I may want to consider 3/4” do you mean just for the face or for the drawer as a whole? How large would you say?

-- Check out my woodworking blog! http://woodworkingtrip.blogspot.com/

Norm’s plans uses 1/2” ply and I have found it to work just fine. All of the Drawers in the Miter Bench and Storage project have 1/2” ply bottoms also…

-- //FC - Round Rock, TX - "Experience is what you get just after you need it"

I think for drawers 3/4” will add nothing but excess weight… 1/2” should be more than enough to handle the load of your powertools and everything in between.

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Half inch plywood is normally sufficient.

The only other thing to consider is how much weight you are going to load in each one. If the drawers are to be large and loaded, and you;re going to beef up the drawer slides, consider 3/4” sides so that you can use 5/8” screws to attach the slides so that the screw points don’t pop through the sides.

Often times, shop drawers get slammed and otherwise abused. The 3/8” screws that are most often used with the slides really aren’t long enough.

But if this won’t be an issue, then stick with the 1/2” and save yourself some money and material.

Good luck!

-- Dave; Lansing, Kansas