Building Dovetail Drawers

The base on this drawer is 1 4 sheet material.

Building dovetail drawers.

One way to identify a woodworker s skill level is to check and see how well they build the dovetail drawers in their projects. Best of all this technique allows you to cut all parts of the joint with just a dado blade and a single setup on the tablesaw. In wood magazine torture tests this drawer joint proved stronger than even dovetails. Discover the secrets to making strong drawers by cutting locking rabbet joints on the tablesaw as taught by wood magazine design editor jeff mertz.

Stopped by a fiends shop to see what was going on. That way when the. Grabbed my ever present camera and took some shots. After marking the tails on the drawer sides scribe the dovetail baseline onto the ends of the drawer front about 1 4 from the face.

The sides and the front will have a 1 4 groove cut near the bottom inside edge of each piece. Use a miter gauge to guide the cut. Through dovetail joints are as beautiful as they are strong and work great for all kinds of casework including drawers. In this video wood magazine s bob.

How to build dovetail drawers with a floating base. If you were making an overlay drawer the front would need to be rabbeted for the necessary offset and the fence reset to run the drawer fronts. This amount makes for a good appearance and a strong joint. Learn all about mdf here.

While they do take some planning and careful setup they are achievable for the average home woodworker. This drawer method is so simple it should be illegal. In this article we take you step by step through the process of building dovetail drawers. Use plywood ideally i m using 1 4 mdf i had laying around.

Once you understand. With one table saw setup and a dado stack you can build drawers all day long. For years i thought the joints were for only the best woodworkers and would be difficult if not impossible to master.