Drawer Slips

[Jack Plane]

I concur; from the early eighteenth century, drawer sides had shallow rebates (rabbets to you) in the lower internal edges to accommodate the drawer bottoms and drawer runners which were glued into the rebate. The front edges of the drawer bottoms were let into a groove ploughed into the inside bottom face of the drawer fronts and the back of the drawer bottoms were nailed to the under side of the drawer back.

Incidentally, I have also seen the drawer runners made up with short (presumably scrap) pieces of wood.

Drawer slips didn't appear until the early nineteenth century.

 

[Chuck Bender]

The short blocks is the usual way I see this type of drawer construction. The photos I posted were, in my opinion, odd construction using only a single block up each side. Sometimes the front was rabbeted as well and the drawer bottom blocked as it is along the sides.