Free drawer box cutting calculator

What a drawer box cutting calculator does

Sizing a drawer box by hand means juggling the cabinet opening, the slide clearance, the groove that holds the bottom and the thickness of your material, all at once. A drawer box cutting calculator does that arithmetic for you. You tell it the opening and the drawers you want, and it derives every part: the two sides, the front and back that run between them, and the bottom panel, plus the drawer front itself. From there it lays all those parts out on full sheets so you buy as little material as possible. cutlistlab does this entirely in your browser, with nothing to install and no account needed.

How to use it

1. Enter the opening. Give the width, height and depth of the cabinet opening the drawer runs into, plus how many drawers you want.
2. Set the slide clearance. Enter the clearance your slides need per side (about 1/2 in for ball-bearing side-mount slides). The calculator subtracts it so the box clears the cabinet.
3. Pick the material and groove. Choose the panel thickness for the box and the bottom, and set the groove for the bottom so it seats correctly. Set the kerf for your saw blade.
4. Read the plan. The calculator derives the sides, front, back and bottom, packs every part onto the fewest sheets, shows the layout as a drawing, lists the cuts in order, and tells you how many sheets you need and what is left over.

Drawer slide clearances

The slide clearance is the single number that decides whether your drawer fits, so it is worth getting right. Most ball-bearing side-mount slides ask for about 1/2 in on each side, which makes the finished box roughly 1 in narrower than the opening. Undermount slides and other styles use different figures, and the height of the box matters too because the slide has to clear the bottom of the drawer. A few points to keep in mind:

• Check the spec sheet. Your slide manufacturer prints the exact clearance. Enter that value rather than guessing, and the box comes out to fit on the first try.
• Front overlay or inset. The drawer front is separate from the box. Size it to overlay the cabinet face or sit inset, and the calculator keeps it as its own part so it does not get confused with the box sides.
• Kerf and offcuts. The blade width and any offcuts you already own are part of the plan, so what you read on screen matches what you cut at the bench.

A worked example

Here is a typical set of drawer boxes so you can see the cut list before you start. As an example, a 500 mm wide, 450 mm deep, 150 mm high drawer box in 18 mm board needs two sides, a front and a back, and a bottom; for a chest of three identical drawers you simply multiply by three. The cabinet designer (kast-helper) builds this part list automatically from a few measurements: drawer width, depth, height and the number of boxes. You set the kerf so the saw width is counted in, and grain direction where it shows.

With these parts (three boxes) the optimizer packs onto about one sheet of 18 mm, roughly 30% offcut in this example, and gives you a numbered cutting order to follow at the saw. You can switch the goal between least waste, fewest cuts and lowest cost, drag a part by hand, and send any usable leftover to your offcut stock for the next set. Edge banding allowance, labels, CSV export and mm or inch units are all there.

Frequently asked questions