Building Dovetail Drawers

Use a miter gauge to guide the cut.

Building dovetail drawers.

Once you understand. 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. Grabbed my ever present camera and took some shots. On the interior surface of the drawer front scribe a line about 1 32 less than the thickness of the drawer side.

In wood magazine torture tests this drawer joint proved stronger than even dovetails. In this article we take you step by step through the process of building dovetail drawers. 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. A well built dovetail drawer is not only incredibly strong and long lasting but is aesthetically beautiful.

Stopped by a fiends shop to see what was going on. This drawer method is so simple it should be illegal. 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. Use plywood ideally i m using 1 4 mdf i had laying around.

The sides and the front will have a 1 4 groove cut near the bottom inside edge of each piece. For years i thought the joints were for only the best woodworkers and would be difficult if not impossible to master. While they do take some planning and careful setup they are achievable for the average home woodworker. In this video wood magazine s bob.

With one table saw setup and a dado stack you can build drawers all day long. Discover the secrets to making strong drawers by cutting locking rabbet joints on the tablesaw as taught by wood magazine design editor jeff mertz. That way when the. Through dovetail joints are as beautiful as they are strong and work great for all kinds of casework including drawers.

Learn all about mdf here. Building dovetail drawers is one of my favorite things to do in the shop. The base on this drawer is 1 4 sheet material.