Rockler's catalog

[Ed62]

I was browsing through the catalog this morning. I always see things that make me question why they're there. They are offering pre-made drawer sides. They are nothing but a 4' piece of birch ply, with a dado for drawer bottoms. Do they actually sell these things to people interested in woodworking?

Ed

[kevincan]

Ed,

I have seen these in their store and also wondered the same thing. Why would someone building drawers not have the tools to do this for less money?

Kevin

[jonmulzer]

I also have wondered the same thing. If you are building drawers for anything you should at least have a router with an edge guide, at minimum. I would glue and staple the bottom on before I paid those kinds of prices. I do just that for shop cabinets and it is plenty strong.

[eccentrictinkerer]

I buy this product in 8' sticks. Saves time when I'm building cabinets for customers.

It's very cost-effective.

[Tom Slick]

Is it prefinished? think in terms of production time savings vs. "free" hobby time in the shop.

[LinuxRandal]

Besides the time verses money, I could also see this for a project that the kids want to help out on. If they see how you do it yourself, kids can try to use the tools (that should be locked up and powered off) when your not around to supervise. I have a couple of nieces who are too young to do shop stuff, yet they enjoy things like the bird houses that they do at the borg, and it keeps them off of video games all the time.

[eccentrictinkerer]

This is stuff I buy from Jaekle Distributors here in St.Paul. It's pre-finished and not much more cost than premium plywood.

[Thalermade]

It took m,e awhile to track this article down, but because of it, I was not surprised at all that Rockler sells the drawer pieces. We live in the age of specialists, right?

http://www.woodworking.com/article_a...5&article=2194

originally from: From Woodworker's Journal eZine Issue 167


Russ

[radhak]

tinkerer, those seem to be extraordinary prices - is that $7.98 for one strip of 2 3/4 x 96"? or does CTN stand for 'carton' which contains 20 of these strips?

[jackellis]

The 6x96 strips work out to a little more than $3.25 per square foot. I can buy 1/2 inch Arauco plywood for shop drawer slides for a but under $1/square foot, but then I have to cut it to size, machine the groove and finish it. I've seen BB ply prices around $1.50/square foot.

This doesn't sound unreasonable if you're a production shop where time is money.

[Ed62]

This doesn't sound unreasonable if you're a production shop where time is money.

I think that's key.

Ed

[eccentrictinkerer]

tinkerer, those seem to be extraordinary prices - is that $7.98 for one strip of 2 3/4 x 96"? or does CTN stand for 'carton' which contains 20 of these strips?

It's the customer's time and money. Gotta git'er done at reasonable cost.

If I were doing a job for myself, I'd probably start from scratch.