Repair hardboard drawer base

[drpepe]

Hi, I just bought this vintage sideboard but the drawer bottoms are bowed and have popped out of the slots at the back. How can I fix these to ensure they don’t pop out again? I don’t think glue would be up to the job on its own?

Back and sides are some sort of white plastic with a slot all around for the base. Fronts are teak. Base is hardboard.

Many thanks

 

[Deleted member 174758]

A wide drawer like that would at one time have had a central muntin (H-profile timber piece) fitted from front to back of the drawer to carry two separate drawer bottom pieces. Once a hardboard drawer bottom has been overloaded and deformed, there is no going back.

Your biggest problem is that the drawer sides and back look like they are formed from a single piece of vinyl-wrapped chipboard with folded v-notched corners. On this tyoe of drawer the drawer the sudes and back are folded around the bottom (which is held in a groove). The ends of the drawer sides and the back of the drawer front are drilled (and the back of the drawer front is also grooved), then everything is dowelled and glued together. This process makes repairs difficult as there us no easy way to remove and replace the drawer bottom

I think that if you can find some suitable thin strips of wood it should be possible to glue this across tje bottom of the drawer at the edges and across the middle of the drawer to provide some extra support. I'll put s sketch together to show you what I mean

Ideally you'd want to remove the front and replace that drawer bottom, but trying to pull the drawer fronts off is likely to result in the drawers being destroyed...

 

[Old Salt]

Wood glue in the groove thats holding the base. A couple of thin blocks of wood up against the back edge like the one shown on your front edge. Spanish windlass in 2 places where the blocks have been added. Push the bowed bottom down into the grooves, get someone to hold the base in place whilst you tighten the windlass and glue the blocks into place. Leave it overnight before undoing the windlass.

I have used this method successfully on mfi drawers (that ages me)!

 

[big-all]

yes indeed as old salt and j&k says not a good choice off construction
i tend to pump glue in along the top above the slot the rattle the back and front off the drawer to move the glue into the slot and iff at least 10% along the length gets some glue it will greatly add to strength
now in general the glue wont tend to move into the slot unless encourage by pushing with a stick/spatula or other object towards the slot

 

[drpepe]

Thanks guys, some very useful suggestions there.

I will examine the drawers a bit more closely and see what state the bases etc are in re: re-attach or replace them

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drawer-Supports-Sagging-Mending-Furniture/dp/B08P16NSVJ