I want to build slide out drawers behind some cabinet doors. The cabinet is 30" wide with a stile in the middle. Ideally, I would like to cut the stile out so I have can have wide drawers. Will cutting this stile out affect the structure of the cabinet? I really don't want there to be any sag in it if I did so. Please see the picture below.

You'd be fine unless you intend to put an engine block on top of it.

You should be fine. It it probably assembled with pocket holes so you should be able to simply remove it.

Before you get started modifying the cabinet for pull out shelves put the doors on the cabinet and make sure the pull out shelf will clear the door. Many times especially on doors with European hinges the doors don't open far enough for the pull out shelf to be made the size of the opening. You may have to make the pull out as much as 2" smaller than the opening.

When you cut the center stile out if you are careful to make a clean cut you can attach the stile to one of the doors so it has the same appearance when closed.

Why would you assume pocket holes? I have seen very little commercial work with pocket holes.

Geoirge

I do not think your picture provides enough detail to know if removing the center stile would cause a sag or not.

What would you normally be placing on the top?

George

He needs to check for pocket holes anyway because the screws will ruin his saw. We do need more info about the top.

The cabinet is a base for an office desk. Here is a better picture showing what's on top. It will not see any significant weight.



Here is another picture of when I was refurbishing the cabinets. These were taller kitchen cabinets so I cut them shorter to work for a desk. I added a 1x4 skirt around the top for extra support.



And FWIW, this is the look I am going for with the drawers inside.

This is where one of those little Japanese saws will work really good.

If he's lucky enough to have pocket holes on the face frame, he can unscrew the center style. Bada boom bada bam.

Nola,
You can remove the center style from the cabinet.
You may want to shim out from each side 3/4" with a plywood strip and mount your drawer slides to the plywood strips instead of the cabinet sides. This will give more clearance for the drawers and will offer more strength if your drawer sides are thin.
Show us a picture when finished.
Good luck.
Jim

Finished the cabinet doors. Still haven't removed the stile or built the drawers. Not sure when I will get to those. Not bad for my first go at building shaker doors.

It looks good, but if I was planning on removing the centre stile, I would have made the doors wider. If you remove the centre stile now, you will have what looks to be a 3/4" gap between the doors when closed. There are ways to remedy that, but it is an extra step.

Simon

Nice job on doors.
Looks like just make the slide mounting strip flush with face frame and you're good to go.

Just as an aside, just about all my cabs are frameless so a 3/4" strip is needed to clear the doors.
I set the strips right on the shelf pins and secure with a screw at the back (except for bottom).
That way I can actually have an adjustable sliding shelf.

Any ideas on how to do this? These are old cabinets so the sides are not made of 3/4" plywood. It is pretty thin, so I can't drill directly into it without penetrating to the outside. Also, there is 1-3/4" from the inside of the cabinet to clear the door hinges. When I built the doors, I didn't take into account the hinges. So, I had to use a shim on the hinges to make sure the doors sat in the proper place. I would need a 2x to create enough clearance from the drawers. How would you go about installing this if I cant drill directly into the sides?

I was thinking about using some pocket screws to drill into the face frame and back of the cabinet and applying lots of glue to make sure I get a strong hold. Any other ideas?

Looks like the insides are finished, right? My first choice would be is the re a way to glue to the side, maybe with epoxy?

If that's not an option since they are painted you could screw through the front face frame, countersink, fill and paint over.

Or maybe screw at an angle through the edge where the door wI'll cover it.

At the back you could screw through the side, c/s fill and paint. I don't know how thick the sides are but even if you couldn't t c/s it wouldn't be noticeable.

If none of these are options you could line the insides with a piece of 3/4 ply and attach with glue/screws/glue blocks. Mount slide spacers to 3/4.

There are rear mount brackets available for drawer slides. If the back is too thin, you could attaché a strip of 3/4 ply as just describes and screw through edge of face frame as described before.

Hope this helps.