Kitchen Cabinet Drawer Repair
One of the most popular kitchen cabinet drawers is the pantry full extension drawer. The purpose is to provide a storage area for canned and other non-perishable grocery items. The full extension lets the drawer be pulled out to allow the items in the back of the drawer to be easily accessed.
The biggest problem with these types of drawers is that they can be easily overloaded. An overloaded drawer means functional breakdown where the drawer sides separate from the bottom.
Cabinet drawer repair
The picture here shows a drawer where the sides and back are made of MDF and the bottom is fiberboard. The front is hickory. All sides of the drawer have a groove cut along their length which the bottom fiberboard fits into. The drawer was held together with a few staples and glue, lots of glue. However during manufacturing the glue does not always get deep into the groove to hold the pieces together.
When this drawer is continuously overloaded, the weight pushes down on the sides and breaks the MDF at the bottom of the groove which allows the bottom to separate from the sides. Also the back is separated from one side on the back corner. The drawer could be re-built with new sides and back, plywood could also be used. However this would be a much larger task. Our goal here is to fix the drawer to make it as strong and functional as when new.
The fix
An easy fix here is to keep the drawer construction the same, just re-assemble and add some re-enforcing strips to the bottom of the drawer.
- Remove any broken edges, sides, back and/or bottom that are loose.
- Remove any of the staples that are not currently holding anything.
- Remove as much of the old glue in and around the joints.
- Do a test fit to make sure all the pieces can be re-assembled with a tight fit.
- Spread apart the pieces without causing more damage and apply wood glue to all joints.
Re-assemble drawer.- If reasonable, add a couple screws to help pull the sides and back together at the corners.
- Use several pieces of pine strips to re-enforce the bottom. Here I used ¼” thick and 1 ½” wide and cut the length to make a tight fit. Butt the strips up against the sides and bottom of the drawer using wood glue.
- Clamp the pieces together and let the glue dry.
This procedure may vary depending upon the actual construction of the drawer and material used. However this quick fix should give you an idea on exactly how to proceed in fixing your drawer.
Now that the drawer is again operational, try not to overload the drawer again. Good job!
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