Popular Woodworking 2005-12 № 152, страница 54

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12 Steps to Perfect Dovetailed Drawers

Lumber should be rough-cut to length and width to make sure you're not preparing more lumber than necessary. Even though you may have found a wonderful 8"-wide board, if you've only got a 6" jointer, it's not going to fit. Luckily our drawer is 4" tall (calling for 4"-wide lumber), so our 6" jointer is fine. But we need to rough-cut the lumber to slightly over 4" wide first.

Remember, when you're buying lumber for a project, allow a certain amount of extra so that you can pick the best grain pattern and avoid any defects in the lumber. We like to allow about 20 percent extra when buying lumber.

i pieces for the drawer are fairly short in this case (all around 12" long) and that's about the minimum you want to run through a planer, so leave them longer for now. To square and straighten the lumber, we head to the jointer first.

The first step is to make one face (the broad side of the board) flat. When you run the board over the jointer, make sure that you're not forcing the board flat to the jointer table. The idea is to make the board flat, so if you push the curve out of the wood during this step you just end up with a thinner curved board. Let the knives trim away the high spots on the board. Usually a V64" or V32" cut is deep enough.

Once you have one of the faces flat, it's time to get one of the edges straight. By putting the recently straightened face against the fence you not only get a straight edge, but one that's square to the face as well. Use the same "trimming" action to straighten one of the edges. You may think that you can skip this part if it's not going to be a glue joint, but when you go to rip the board to its final thickness, it's necessary to have a straight, square edge.

With all your pieces straight and square, it's time to head to the planer to get them all to their final thickness. For our sample drawer we're looking for V2"-thick sides and back, while the front will finish out at ³/4". Run all of your pieces with the flattened face against the table. Light cuts are the best way to start until most of the opposite surface is flat. Check the thickness of the piece to see how much further you need to go.

Start alternating cuts on both sides of the board to balance out any internal tension and internal moisture in the wood. Alternate one side to the next with each pass until you've reached your final thickness.

While you know the final length of the front and back pieces (a hair shy of 12", the exact size of the opening) the depth of the drawer space gets us only half way. Make a test run using your half-blind dovetail to determine how far back the dovetail will start. The standard set-back is about one-third the thickness of the drawer front. Once you get the dovetail working perfectly in the jig, that dimension may be V16" off in either direction. Subtract that dimension from the overall depth of the drawer space, then add another V16" to the size for fitting.

Crosscut the boards to their final lengths on the table saw using a miter gauge with a stop.

6 When using a dovetail jig there are three important settings to prepare: the position of the wood in the jig, the depth of cut for the bit and how to guide the bit over the template. For the first set of dovetails we need a dovetail bit and a ³/4"-diameter template guide attached to the router base. The collar on the guide fits snugly in the spaces of the jig to accurately guide the router.

With the Porter-Cable Jig we're using, the same template guide collar fits into a built-in bit depth-setting guide mounted on the template. As you fine-tune the joint, you can adjust the guide up or down so you can "remember" the proper depth setting. If you're having trouble remembering all the details, there are even simple instructions printed on the side of the jig to refresh your memory.

A half-blind dovetail cuts partway into the drawer front, exposing the joint only from the side of the drawer. The fun part with this jig is that both the drawer front and drawer side can be run at the same time! The front is mounted in the jig horizontally at the top, while the side is mounted vertically at the front. The two pieces are offset slightly and the drawer side is centered on the jig template to make sure the tail spacing is even.

As you start to make your cut, first make a light, climbing cut (from right to left) over the face of the board to define the edge. This way, as the router is backed out of each guide space, the risk of tear-out is minimized. Always run a test piece and check the fit. It's time (and material) well spent. When everything is set correctly, your finished joint will look like this in the jig.

For our drawer we're following the traditional dovetail drawer pattern of using a through dovetail joint at the rear of the drawer. To make this joint you need to use two separate setups on the dovetail jig: one to cut the tails (which we'll do first) and one to cut the matching pins. When cutting through dovetails, you can't run both pieces of the joint at the same time as we did with the half-blind joint. Both the sides and drawer back will be mounted vertically in the jig.

To cut the tails you use the same ³/4" template guide and dovetail bit as used in the half-blind step. An additional template is used in place of the template used for the half-blind dovetails. Set up the template with the side marked for the tails facing you. Once again, use the jig's router depth guide to set up the bit depth (to approximately the thickness of the drawer back). A scrap piece is placed in the horizontal position of the jig directly behind the drawer side. This scrap piece eliminates tear-out on the back face of the side during the cut.

The next step is cutting the pins on the back board. This requires a change of template, as well as a change of router bit and template guide. Simply turn the template around to direct the angled tines to the front of the jig.

The drawer back is mounted at the front of the jig, just as the sides were. The waste board can be turned to present a fresh, uncut edge, but it's a good idea to align the scrap board to fit directly behind the side piece. If you don't, there's a chance of tear-out on the last pin as shown in the photo above. You also need to switch to a straight bit and the ⁵/s" template guide for this step. As before, the template offers an adjustable bit-depth guide for this step. Adjust the depth of the bit and get ready to cut.

Because the bit is removing more material in this step, start at the left of the jig and walk the router into the first space allowing the template guide to ride along the left side of the space on the push in, and along the ride side of the space as you exit the space. Repeat this process along the template.

! used two rip cuts on the table saw to form the V4" grooves for the bottom. Test your bottom material to adjust the groove for a snug fit. Run the front and sides, but don't run the groove in the back. The drawer could be built to trap the bottom in grooves between the sides, front and back, but this makes finishing the drawer more difficult. Instead, the bottom is designed to slide in and out of the grooves. To do this, the width of the back is reduced to allow the bottom edge to stop at the top of the grooves on the sides. Adjust your rip fence, raise the blade and make that cut on the back piece.

There's one extra step we like to take in making a drawer, which is to round over the top edge of the sides to give the drawer a more hand-friendly feel when it's opened. We make the cut in one pass with a V2" beading bit in the router table. Set the fences on the router table to make a cut leaving just the slightest part of the edge uncut. This allows the edge to ride evenly on the fences and avoids snipe at the end of the cut.

Before you assemble the drawer, sand the interior surfaces through 120 grit (it's much easier to sand the interior before assembly). Then add glue to the interior surfaces of the pins and tails and use a non-marring mallet to tap the drawer together. The fit should be snug, but you shouldn't have to force the pieces together. Clamp across the sides of the drawer placing the jaws of the clamps directly behind the joint to allow the sides to fit fully into the joint.

Funding for this special pull-out poster provided by

t, measure for the drawer bottom between the inside of the grooves and to the back edge of the drawer back, then cut the bottom to size.

Now check the drawer's fit against the drawer opening. Sand or plane the sides and bottom edges of the drawer to allow the drawer to slip in without any force. Push the drawer all the way into the case and measure the recess at the front. Cut and glue a slightly larger block to the back of the drawer and plane the block to a perfect flush fit. To allow the same gap around all four edges of the drawer front, take a block place and slightly bevel the bottom front edge of the drawer front to leave a slight shadow line matching the gap at the top and sides.

Finish-sand the drawer and wipe or brush on the finish of your choice. Then slide the bottom into place. Check the drawer for square one last time, and then nail the bottom in place into the drawer's back piece.

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