Hello Scott, There are many ways of making drawers. As you say, by far the strongest and best is dove tailing the sides into the front but this is not necessary for most of our needs.
The simplest way is to just build a box with rabeted bottom to receive the bottom panel where you nail or screw the sides to the front and back then tack in the bottom and place a false front over the front of the box screwing it into place from behind through the front of the drawer box. The main weakness in this design is that the bottom wants to fit into the rabets on the bottom of the sides and front and rear of the box to hold it all square and, the bottom will tend to come away with loading in the drawer. Some add triangular cross section glue blocks and tacks to help this. A good feature is that by adding a false front, usually one that closes over the surrounding cabinet or face frame you can correct for any faults in the box or the drawer fitting. There isn't much good gluing surface in this sort of box drawer and they can work loose. One improvement is to dado out thin grooves around the bottom of the box into which the bottom is fitted. The bottom should be just a little small but these days if using plywood or particle board for the box that isn't so important because those laminated woods don't expand or contract enough to force joints apart. Usually a quarter inch straight cutting router bit to about half the depth of the thickness of the walls of the drawer is about right. Half inch thick walls should be adequate. An improvement yet again is to set the rear of the box into the sides. If you will be using a false front I recommend you do similar to the front of the drawer box. You can cut a similar dado vertically, still a quarter inch wide but for the rear of the side wall move it forward about 3/4ths of an inch so there is still plenty of meat behind to sustain the rear and cut a rabbet similar depth at each end of the rear wall of the drawer so that you are leaving a tongue to fit into the side wall of the drawer. Usually the best arrangement is to remove the rabbet material from the back of the drawer wall so that the inside of the drawer is that bit bigger. Gluing this up gives a much larger surface area for glue and it also provides a mechanical connection. You can do a similar joint at the front only you will have to make the dado much closer to the front of the side wall and this will strengthen the drawer substantially. Glue and pin the walls to the rear and front of the box taking care to slip the bottom into place before attaching the last side. Again, the false front will cover the unattractive end grain and can be made of a superior finish material. You can improve again on this, particularly if the drawer front is the finished front by cutting a stopped dado near each end of the drawer front. This front wants to be three quarters of an inch thick and the dado should be a little deeper maybe 3/8ths deep. It can be the width of the thickness of the side members which will slide into it but you can also remove a little from each face of the side wall to slip it into a narrower dado. This has the advantage of hiding any small imperfections in your dado cut. A stopped dado in this case means that you stop cutting the groove some little way short of it showing through the top edge of the front of the drawer. You could go right through but generally even if the side wall of the drawer is to be at the same height of the top edge of the front of the drawer you are better to cut the top edge of the side wall down to form what is called a haunch. it just looks better. You then glue and insert the tongue or the full end of the side wall of the drawer into the dado and you can put a couple of pins in on an angle from the point where the side wall meets the front so they pin through the tongue and into the front without passsing out to be seen.This is a pretty strong joint and the basis of a slightly more sophisticated and yet stronger sliding dovetail. The sliding dovetail uses a dovetail keyway instead of the dado in the drawer front and a dovetail type tongue in the end of the drawer wall. Usually this will be slightly tapered so they slide together a little better. When glued and slid together this forms an indestructible mechanical joint and loads of glue surface. They are a little tricky to cut and these sorts of joints take some pretty careful measuring and calculating to get a good square drawer and nothing but a good square drawer will satisfy. There is still another pretty good method where you cut a rather deep rabet at each end of the drawer front about half the thickness then fit the front edge of the drawer side into it and nail that into place. You can make this an overlap by cutting a similar rabet in the top edge and even the bottom edge so the front of the drawer overlaps the cabinet or the face frame. There is also, as you noted, the blind dovetail pins and tails of really high quality joinery. They can be cut by hand but I think it very difficult and slow for a blind person to do or they can be cut with a fairly expensive dovetail jig. These run from maybe 70 bucks to over four hundred bucks. I have made many such drawers since acquiring a cheaper dovetail jig but it is usually unnecessary. You want to use solid wood, not particle or composite board or even plywook, the router tends to tear it all up destroying the esthetic of the traditional dovetail drawer. The rather more expensive jigs allow variable spaced dovetails and other sorts of joints, extensive manuals and etchings on the tool to aid in set-up, I don't know if they are practical for a blind person to use and at three or four hundred bucks I am a little reluctant to buy one. If ever I get a chance to get up close and personal with one at a trade show or something I will surely have a good grovel and if ever I get one I will let the list know what I can. If I can make it work then probably nearly anyone can. Now cutting a counter top, I assume you are talking about mitering a 45 degree on each end of laminate to bring them together in a corner is that correct? Doing this on a table saw is going to be tricky and not done with a miter gauge. If you do it at all with a table saw you will need to fabricate a rather good sled to carry it through. Does this have a rear splash edge and a front rolled drip edge? If there is a rear splash reil then I doubt you will have enough depth of cut on the saw. You will most likely have to cut it with a hand/held circular saw or maybe a long bladed very carefully guided jigsaw. Hope these remarks are helpful. ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Howell To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 8:23 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] making a drawer Hey folks, I am finally relocating in the house to gain additional space. I've got a plan for a desk/work surface, but I was trying to figure out how I could make a good solid drawer. I guess I could figure some of this out like making a groove in the sides to fit the bottom into and if I did this, what router bit would be best suited for making that type of groove and I imagine I'd have to find one that is the same thickness as the board I want to fit all the sides on too. Now as far as getting all the sides connected. I guess I could just run some screws into the ends and that would work, but is there a better way or a way that might not necessarily be better, but might make for a stronger drawer? I did a little reading on dovetail joints, but I suspect this is way out of my skill level at this point. I believe those joints are like fingers that interlock at a 90 degree angle and are I imagine either glued or just pressure fitted. In any event, any thoughts appreciated. If anyone is interested, I'm going to take two counter tops and use a piece of melamine (however that's spelled) and use that to make the corner piece of the l which will keep me from having to rip the edge of the counter top partially off or trying to rip a 90 degree angle on both halves. That is how it looks like they did the counter tops in our kitchen. They cut the two tops at a 90 degree angle and slapped them together. Nothing wrong with this but gee I got this nice scrap lying here, might as well try to put it to good use. Well actually this does bring up one other question. If I wanted to cut the top at a 90 degree angle, how would I use the miter cross cut tool on my table saw? I know that might seem like a silly question, but I haven't used the gage yet so not sure exactly how I would use that while pushing the wood through. tnx Scott Howell [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.5.1/1560 - Release Date: 7/18/2008 6:47 AM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
