That is one of the reasons I'm gutting my kitchen and not doing a refresh, inferior quality of the cabinets and drawers.

What is the builder's definition of custom? Probably something he can build as cheaply as possible and sell at a premium price!

I believe that dovetails were important when the drawer face was actually part of the drawer box and the runners were crummy wood things that you had to wax to make them work. Back then, you often exerted a HUGE amount of force on the drawer front to get it out of its hole.

Now, drawer hardware is, well, existent. No effort is needed to open a drawer with good drawer glides so dove-tailing is a silly artifact from the days when it was absolutely needed to keep your drawers from falling apart when the humidity went up.

It's often skipped on cheaper cabinets though so it can be an indicator of price range. Think about IKEA cabinets. Those drawers are inexpensive and not dovetailed but they're set into high quality drawer glides. They don't break. (We are just talking about their kitchens here, which are a different sort of animal from their furniture.)

If you're looking at cabinets without dovetailed drawers, they are probably a cheaper line. That might be fine though. Dovetailing itself is not needed.

I came across this yesterday, I was surprised to read it. Here's the link

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/are-dovetail-drawers-worth-the-extra-cost-dsvw-vd~798763

Dovetail drawers mean you won't have any problems with them down the line. With another construction method you'll have to check the material, fastening method and glue/fasteners to see if you think they'll last. Some combinations will last just as long. But it's up to you to evaluate the non dovetail options because some will not last.

Absolutely worth the cost. Dovetail drawers will hold up over the years. It's not just the undermount hardware that is important. I've seen many drawer fronts fail on cheap glued and stapled type drawers from the stress of just pulling the drawer open. If I'm going to spend the money, it had better be sturdy and well-made.

It's the weight on that front joint when you pull the drawer open that really counts on the front corner.

That said, modern glues are far stringer than old one.

luckyblueeye, great link. Thanks! Between that link and the comments above there are several factors to consider. I hadn't thought about the stress on the door fronts.

Drawers for storage of heavy dishes and pots/pans are highly recommended by kitchen savvy people these days. The weight of items in the drawers have to be considered in the decision.... I think I have answered my question!

I will have soft close in my drawers which should take most of the

stress off the drawer fronts...no slamming :)

You will still have to pull on the drawer fronts, to open the drawers. That's where most of the stress occurs. Not in pushing them closed.

Dovetail is the way to go.

I have 4 kids and believe me, it's a loud kitchen with everyone slamming the drawers and doors closed. I can't wait to have more silence, hype or not!

The public fixated on that terminology without either understanding the
mechanicals or the quality level behind that marketing term. It's all
anyone looks for these days, and they overlook any number of flaws and
red flags as long as the marketing buzz words are there.

Amen to that Sophie :)

Or let's overbuild a framed cabinet with 3/4" ply so we can SCREW it together instead of taking the time to use proper joinery or construction to keep it square or adequate glue.

When selecting brands to carry I ALWAYS go to the factory first. I really don't care about the cool machines, seen em all. I pay attention to the folks in the sanding department (almost always all women BTW), see that the folks gluing up are not rushed or being skimpy, see that the finishing room is clean and orderly, and talk to the folks on the floor to see how happy they are with what they are doing. Unfortunately consumers can't do that, they have to rely on the dealer to have done it.

I'd just add one thing about the why of dovetails-once upon a time there was no plywood. The bottom of drawers had to be made from solid wood. That was prone to splitting. To allow it to be replaced when that happened dovetails (which have a mechanical advantage as Sophie points out) were used in conjunction with a "reversible" glue-hide or fish glue. The glue could be softened with heat and the drawer taken apart to replace the bottom, then reassembled with the dovetail joint doing all the work. Using modern adhesives there is simply no way to take the joint apart short of immersion in solvent for a few days.

I'd also add that there are other joints that can be used that are better than a simple butt joint. My old kitchen had plywood drawers with rabbet joints, glued and pinned. It was a good 25 years old when I removed it with every drawer intact. 15 years later a few cabinets are in the basement for storage and drawers are still going strong.

What I gather from Sophie and Mark is that one should trust your cabinet professional to sell cabinets that are quality made and will last. I am okay with that up to a point. I do want to be educated so that I can understand what the professional explains to me and judge the professional is educating me, not just spouting marketing.

The builder we will likely choose (have not signed a contract yet) uses a local cabinet company who sells a brand that is not a nationally advertised. Their standard cabinet construction uses:

• 5/8" laminated engineered wood top and bottom panels
• 1/4" laminated MDF back panel
• end panels are 5/8" engineered wood
• Blum 6-way adjustable concealed euro hinge
• Miter-fold box with 75 lb epoxy coated, side-mount slides

The upgrade construction is:

• 5/8" UV finished birch plywood top and bottom panels for base and vanity
• 3/4" UV finished birch plywood top and bottom panels for walls
• end panels are 5/8" UV finished birch plywood
• dovetail joined drawers
• Blum 6-way adjustable concealed euro hinge
• tandem undermount slides

We plan to choose the upgrade construction in a frameless style. The feel of the finish on the cabinets is amazing, like satin. After reading the replies in this post and other referenced posts, I am comfortable with spending the extra money on the upgrade. I do need to get details on the weight the drawers can support.

nanj- We are both suggesting to think beyond the marketing buzz words.

I'm not suggesting that you should simply trust the cabinet professional, that could be a mistake with some. I do think it's a good idea to ask them if they've bothered to go to the factory and to talk to them about what they know from first hand experience. There is no substitute for due diligence on the clients part.

If the only way to get Blum tandem mount glides is the full upgrade then I'd do that. IF I could get them and at the same time get plywood shelves for the few wider wall cabinets that would need them I'd be just fine with engineered wood (particle board) for boxes on frameless. (mine at home are)

The one thing I insist on on frameless cabinets is that the boxes are doweled and not just screwed together. I also prefer that the maker is using a jig to assemble the box keeping it perfectly square.

Good points, Mark. I will ask those questions. Frameless do make me a tad nervous so your points about the box are good to know. The tandem Blum guides are not an option on the standard construction - another reason I want the upgrade.

Oh, and the upgrade includes 3/4" UV finished birch plywood shelves. I didn't include that in my previous post.

Thanks for sharing your expertise!

5/8" is not sufficient for frameless cabinet boxes. You need 3/4", and furniture board is more than fine. It's probably better. 5/8" is fine for framed. The engineering is different. Most of your specs are talking about framed, not frameless.

The #1 spec that I am interested in will always be where the plant is located. Not the assembly warehouse, which so many import cabinets try to slip past you in describing as the manufacturer's location. Where is the raw wood being turned into cabinets?

x2 on the recommendation to try to just upgrade to Blum Tandem undermount slides. They're worth every penny, plus they're a pleasure to use.

I agree that dovetails were historically much stronger, but today's sheet goods (e.g., plywood) and glues make a really strong rabbet-edged drawer. I would do rabbeted joints before simple butt joints. Also, historically the biggest stress on a cabinet was slamming it shut (the front of the drawer would hit a stop). That's no longer true with soft close, where opening the drawer is usually the strongest stress.

It depends, as usual, on materials and what you are putting in the drawers. With solid wood sides I'd use dovetails, but finger joints will also work fine. The dovetails require less fussy clamping because they are basically self-aligning and self squaring. No miracle modern wonder glue will make a strong bond to end grain, at least not for long. Hence the need for a joint that allows you to glue long grain to long grain, at last to some extent. With modern CNC routers and such the incremental cost of doing dovetails is pretty trivial, so there's really no good reason not to use them.

With plywood drawers the concerns are different, as in the different plys the grain runs in both directions and a stronger glue joint is possible. A butt joint in plywood still has very little strength because the effective glue area is relatively small-- too much end grain exposed in each side of the joint. Dovetails aren't very good because half the grain is running the wrong direction, weakening the fingers. This is the joint I like to use for assembling plywood drawers:

(Note, I think it is actually a poor choice for solid wood as shown, as there is little strength in the short grain on the side). It provides lots of glue area in plywood, some mechanical strength, and a clean appearance with almost no exposed endgrain. It's fast and easy to make. There are fancier lock miter joints that you can make with a special router bit, but setup is more difficult without much of a return on investment.

I use Baltic birch ply, or Appleply, a US/Canadian version of the same for drawers. I'm not sure what the plywood used in the Chinese RTA cabinets is. It's very soft and weak, such that mechanical reinforcement of the corners with a steel bracket might be prudent.

Sophie is right. There are plenty of other means to fasten a drawer that will be plenty strong. I'm an beginner woodworker and the dovetails on my in laws drawers make me cringe. They have gaps you could put a credit card in. Dovetails only work if the gap is tight. They used to be a mark of quality when they were hand cut but since then the process has been mechanized and tolerances loosened to aid in production rate. All so customers can think they are getting high quality when they might not be.

I don't know how cabinets are made nowadays, but in my 1950's tract house the cabinets were built on-site. The drawers are cheaply made - simple butt joints with the sides nailed to the fronts. Don't know if glue was also used; there's none that oozed out anywhere. Sixty years and the drawers are all tight; nothing falling apart or loose. Don't know why they've held together so well, as they are built 'cheap'. The neighbors I've spoken with who still have original kitchens also said their cabinets and drawers are holding up fine.

On the other hand, a friend built a custom home in an upscale neighborhood with a deluxe kitchen. After 20 years, some drawers were falling apart because his kids (when they were small) would use them as steps to get to the upper cabinets. Don't know if they were dovetailed or not.

wishiwereintheup, my drawers were also built just like that. My cabinets were also built in place, like yours. But my cabinets are very nice...very sturdy, straight, and tight. No issues at all. The cabinet maker was a local guy that has an excellent reputation and is still in business, very successfully. So for all the hoopla on "dovetail", I don't think it makes a huge difference if the workmanship is otherwise good, AND the drawers are only used for light loads. My drawers have all held up very well, but they are all the smaller top-of-base-cabinet drawers - not much weight in them. I imagine that does make a difference.

I've had the misfortune of two kitchens made with butt jointed and nailed cabinet drawers. The small drawers with light stuff in them were fine, but I've had to remake and replace every drawer used for heavier stuff like cast iron pans and glass baking dishes. In each cast the issue was joint failure--the corner comes apart and then the bottom falls out.

It's only an extra couple of minutes per drawer to make a stronger joint if your shop is set up with the right jigs and tools. The cost difference should be minimal. I just built 28 drawers for my shop, the total time to machine all the joints for all the drawers using the interlocking joint I showed above was well under an hour. Machine cut dovetails would have taken perhaps three hours for 112 pieces. If I value my time at $100/hr that's a cost difference of ~$4 per drawer. With industrial machinery it should be much faster. (No, you can't stick a credit card in my dovetail joints whether hand or machine cut-- there's just no excuse for that. I don't even know how some factory woodworking is done so badly.)