We’ve all seen the episode of that sitcom where the main character ruins Thanksgiving dinner preparations by accidentally pulling a panel straight off a drawer, destroying their beautiful white shaker kitchen cabinets. It’s hilarious when it happens on television, but it’s not quite as funny when it happens in real life. In most homes, a kitchen drawer might be opened 7 to 10 times a day. That comes out to 3,500 times a year! If you want your kitchen drawers to stand up to that kind of wear, you need quality joints on them.
There’s a surprising number of different types of joints used in drawer boxes, including stapled joints, screwed joints, and rabbet joints. They each have their merits, but none of these types of joints are as sturdy or attractive as a good dovetail joint.
The dovetail joint is made by making interlocking wedge-shaped cuts on the ends of the drawer box sides, so that the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
These wedge-shaped cuts, called tails and pins, provide the maximum amount of surface contact in the joint, making dovetail joints extremely durable. This type of joint also requires real, solid wood; you won’t find any flimsy materials in a dovetail kitchen cabinet drawer.
There’s also a level of craftsman to a dovetail drawer that’s not present in other types of drawers. Each wedge must be crafted with utmost precision, to ensure that they interlock tightly. There are no haphazardly placed staples or screws. This high quality design creates a striking pattern, adding a level of visual flair that other types of drawers just can’t match.
If you’d like to plan for the future of your kitchen, give Summit Cabinets a call and ask about getting dovetail drawers installed in your kitchen!