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I just finished building plywood drawers that are 60 cm wide x 50 cm deep x 15 cm high.

They are made of 10 mm plywood, hanging on high quality soft close slides that are rated 45 kg per pair or per slide, I'm not sure, and this is already about 10 times the weight of the drawer and its content.

Now I'm considering using solid oak to make the drawer fronts, which will be 60 cm wide x 36 cm high, in 2 cm thick oak.

This adds up to about 3.6 kg per drawer front, which I find excessive. On the other hand, it's also nice to have that extra mass to the drawer because it helps the moving part of the slide hit the mechanism at the back and trigger the soft close.

So I'm wondering if I'm going to regret adding that extra mass to the drawer.

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    I'd think the weight of the drawer parts is only a concern if you've got light duty drawer slides and the combined weight of the drawer and contents is likely to exceed the rating of the slides. You say your slides are "rated for easily 10 times what will be store in them" - if you're storing feathers, it could become an issue for you, if you're storing your gold bullion, I think you'll be fine.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Jan 9 at 19:26
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    This basic query is fine but you went and spoiled it right at the end ;-) Only you can guess as whether you'll regret adding 20mm oak fronts to the drawers, since that's nearly entirely subjective. Looking at it from a completely different perspective though, the fronts of your drawer boxes are already 10mm thick right? That alone is sufficient for function. Adding 20mm of oak to the outside is completely unnecessary, both functionally and aesthetically — you could add merely a veneer of oak (as used to be very common) and it would make basically zero difference to the look of the piece.....
    – Graphus
    Commented Jan 10 at 8:28
  • VtC now, since the only question asked (even though there's no question mark) is a purely subjective "will I regret...".
    – FreeMan
    Commented Jan 10 at 19:27

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A solid wood front added to an existing drawer box will be absolutely fine.

If anything, it’ll be better, as it will give a solid ‘thunk’ when it closes.

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