Drawer Pull Positioning Calculator

Drawer Pull Positioning Calculator for slab and Shaker drawer fronts. Enter the front size and the pull's hole spacing to get drill marks from the edge, pull size and screw length.

Hole Marks From the Drawer Pull Positioning Calculator

The Drawer Pull Positioning Calculator turns a drawer front size and a pull's hole spacing into drill marks you can measure straight from the edge. It also sizes the pull, sets the screw length and counts the screws for a whole bank of drawers.

Measure the finished drawer front itself, not the cabinet opening or the box behind it. The calculator works in inches or millimeters and suits anyone fitting new hardware, from a single vanity drawer to a kitchen with twenty fronts.

Measure In From the Edge, Not Out From the Center

Most people mark the center of the front and measure half the hole spacing each way. Matthias Wandel points out on Woodgears that this is awkward, and it leaves a pencil mark in the middle that the pull will not cover.

His fix is to work out the distance from the edge to the first hole.

$$S=\frac{W-C}{2}$$

W is the front width and C is the pull's center-to-center spacing. A 24 in front with a 6 in pull gives (24 - 6) / 2 = 9 in, so the holes land at 9 in and 15 in from the left edge, and both marks end up under the pull.

Hole spacing is measured from hole to hole, not across the whole pull, as Amerock's installation guide notes. Entering the overall length is the classic slip, and on Amerock's 128 mm Composite pull, which is 144 mm long overall, it would push each hole 8 mm too far out.

Drilling from inside the drawer flips everything left to right. The Back Face option mirrors the marks, so the 9 in hole on the show face reads 15 in from the left when you look at the back.

Picking a Hole Line for a Bank of Drawers

The KraftMaid hardware placement guide gives two ways to set the height on drawers. You can center the hardware top to bottom on every drawer, or center it side to side but hold it 2 to 3 in from the top of each one.

The two choices look very different on a stack of mixed drawers. Centered pulls on a 4 in, 6 in and 10 in front sit at 2, 3 and 5 in down, while the 2-1/2 in line keeps every pull at the same distance from each top edge.

The fixed line runs out on short fronts. On a 5 in front, 2-1/2 in from the top is dead center, and on a 4 in front it drops below center, which the hole-line table shows row by row.

The upper third option puts the line one-third of the way down. That is 2 in on a 6 in front and 4 in on a 12 in front, a placement hardware sellers often suggest for deep drawers that are awkward to pull from the middle.

Pull Size From the One-Third Rule

KraftMaid suggests a drawer pull about one-third as wide as the drawer face.

$$P=\frac{W}{3}$$

A 24 in front calls for about 8 in, and the calculator rounds that to the nearest stock spacing. Its stock list runs 3 in, 96 mm (3-3/4 in), 128 mm (5-1/16 in), 6 in, 160 mm (6-5/16 in), 192 mm (7-9/16 in), 8 in, 224 mm (8-13/16 in), 10 in and 12 in.

The rule describes how wide the pull looks, which is its overall length. Pull size itself is sold by hole spacing, so a pull chosen by spacing always looks a little longer than the number on the box.

KraftMaid treats the rule as a starting point. Oversized pulls that span two-thirds or more of the drawer suit a sleek modern look, so a long bar well past the one-third mark is a style choice rather than a mistake.

The front can be 3 to 120 in wide and 1 to 48 in high, and the hole spacing has to be less than the width. If a hole would land on or past an edge, or two pulls would run into each other, the results stop until you pick a shorter pull or a wider spacing.

Screw Length Through a False Front

Amerock ships 8-32 x 1 in machine screws with most knobs and pulls because the typical front is 3/4 in thick. Its rule is a screw 1/4 in longer than the material it passes through.

$$L=t_f+t_b+t_p+0.25$$

Here t_f is the drawer front, t_b is any drawer box front behind it and t_p is a backplate. A 3/4 in applied front on a 1/2 in box needs 3/4 + 1/2 + 1/4 = 1-1/2 in, so the 1 in screws in the package will not reach the pull.

The calculator rounds up to the next 1/4 in length. D. Lawless Hardware advises against going more than 3/8 in longer than needed, because the screw may not thread far enough into the pull to draw it tight.

When the rounded size overshoots, breakaway screws solve it. W&W Hardware describes them as having snap points every 1/4 in, so one box covers fronts of any thickness.

Screws to buy is the hole count times the number of drawers. Six drawers with one two-hole pull each need 12 screws, and a knob needs one screw per drawer.

The box front thickness comes from how the drawer was built. If you sized the boxes with the Drawer Box Calculator, use the front and back thickness you entered there.

Drawer Hardware Questions

Where do pulls go on Shaker drawer fronts?

KraftMaid centers the pull on the top rail of framed drawer fronts. With a 2-1/4 in rail, that puts the hole line 1-1/8 in down from the top edge, clear of the recessed panel.

You can also center the pull on the flat panel. In that case check that both holes land inside the panel, since a hole on a rail or stile leaves the pull straddling the step between frame and panel. The calculator warns when that happens.

Should a wide drawer get one pull or two?

KraftMaid suggests two pulls when the longest pull in your hardware line is too short for the drawer, such as a 5 in pull on a 30 or 36 in front. It places them on the lines that divide the front into thirds.

On a 36 in front the thirds lines sit at 12 and 24 in. Quarter points put the pulls at 9 and 27 in, and centering each pull in an outer third puts them at 6 and 30 in, and the calculator offers all three.

What size drill bit do cabinet pulls need?

Amerock recommends a 3/16 in hole for most knobs and pulls with 8-32 screws. Pulls with studs, which are raised bosses around the screw holes on the back, need a 1/4 in hole so the studs sit in the front.

Tape over the marks before drilling to cut splintering. When you drill from the back, clamp a scrap block against the show face so the bit does not tear out as it exits.

What does center-to-center mean on a pull?

It is the distance between the two screw holes, measured from the middle of one hole to the middle of the other. It is how pulls are sold, and it is the number to enter as hole spacing.

Metric sizes are common even on US hardware. A 96 mm pull is 3-3/4 in, 128 mm is 5-1/16 in and 160 mm is 6-5/16 in, so a replacement pull only drops into the old holes if its spacing matches exactly.