Dovetail box grooves

MikeIke | Posted in General Discussion on July 2, 2020 10:29am

Two part question. I am making a dovetailed cremation container. I want to place both the top and bottom in grooves in the four sides. What is the best way to situate the position of the grooves? Should I consider half blind instead of through dovetails?

Replies

_mj_ | Jul 02, 2020 11:17am | #1
Three ways to go:
1- normal DTs (you need to make stopped grooves at the router table)
2- half-blind DTs (allows through-cut grooves at tablesaw or router table)
3- hybrid DTs (also allows for through-cut grooves, see photo)

I've always thought half-blinds look odd on a free-standing box but I like the ease of plowing grooves on the table saw. I work around it by making most of the box with through DTs and my last DT a half-blind. As a bonus I think it looks pretty sweet also.
FWW Editor

ben_strano | Jul 02, 2020 11:52am | #2
Love those hybrids!
john_c2 | Jul 02, 2020 12:02pm | #3
If you want through dovetails, and don't want the grooves to show, you need stopped grooves. There are a bunch of ways to do that. The easiest is on a router table. Lee Valley makes a box grooving router bit thatdoesthe job. Assemble the finished box, run it on the router table, and youve got a stopped groove.

Lee Valley is the only place I have seen such a bit.