Hi All-
I’m a professional cabinet and furnituremaker. I’ve been doing custom cabinetry for years, and have mostly used bixcuits to join my drawer sides to faces and backs. Maybe this is somewhat heretical, because I’m not using dovetails. This is using half inch plywood, either apple ply or prefinished maple plywood. I’m beginning to wonder if there is a better way to build my drawers using some sort of router bit set up. I was looking at the miter lock bits today, wondering how those would be. The one advantage would be there would not be the plywood from the sides peaking out past the fronts. That would eliminate laminating over the drawer front with veneer in those instances when I’m building a roll out shelf and not using a drawer front over it.
Does anyone have experience with this type of joinery on their drawer boxes?
Thanks-
Ralf
Replies
ralf
If you don't want to go the route of the dovetail joint then I would at least do some kind of lock joint with a router bit.
You don't have to get that one that is a 45 degree, the other simpler one will do an adequate job.
You could always buy out your drawers, hell some of these places that make them can do it cheaper than you can buy the material.
The cabinet shop that I work at hasn't made a drawer in a long time. We cant do it as cheap as we can buy them.
Just something to think about.
Doug
For all my non-dovetailed drawers I use a locked rabbet. It's very strong, the sides are clear, and they are easy to make. Works well with either Baltic birch or solid lumber stock.
In my case I use the TS with a dado; I use a couple of guage blocks for set up, and built a jig that slides over my fence for the rabbets (for the fronts and backs).
You could just as easily use a router table setup.
The key for fast efficient production is to come up with some sort of system that makes for a quick setup.
I use the same technique for all my cabinet carcases.
I have used a lock mitre bit for other stuff, but never for drawers. As you probably know, they are kind of pain to adjust. If you do a lot of drawers, I think this would work fine -- particularly if you can leave the system set up permanently.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled