Never give Wood a chance to mess with ya
Hi All,
Since I’m new to this, I’ve got a question that someone older than I (58) might have the answer to.
I was playing around with some 3/4″ plywood to make a drawer for my bench/cabinet and came up with a strange corner joint that got me to wondering about its strength, durability, and ease of fabrication. It was fairly easy to make but not so easy to get right. Please see the text example below.
_______ inside of drawer
|
_____ |
| | | Side of Drawer
| |____|
|
|____________________ outside
_________________ Face or back
|
|__________
|
_____|
| Front and rear pieces
|_________________ Inside
On small pieces of plywood, it can all be done with a table saw dado set to 1/4″
When I do it right (I do occationally do it right), the joint is so square and so tight that it appears all the glue is pushed out and I can’t make it un-square (fudged to 88-degrees for a wider front than rear). That was many years ago and it was plywood.
I remembered how tight and square the joint was and have a project in mind. But, the joint will be 4′ wide; too wide to hold the wood on edge. Now, I want to do it right all the time because this time I will be using solid pieces of 3/4″ teak. The wood is hard and expensive. I am considering using a router table and 1/4″ straight bit so that I can take a little off each pass, maybe 6 to 8 passes. Like everyone else out there, each time I make a cut I offer the wood a chance to dispute my best effort to make a good square cut. I would prefer that it cooperates. Is there any suggestion, besides sacrificing and praying to the wood gods, that would help? Blades and bits are sharp and square and the table surfaces have been waxed slick.
William
Replies
Go for it! you just invented a new narly joint. If it works for you do it
I have used that joint before. Believe it or not, but it was one of the first joints I ever made in vocational school. Our first project was to make a small box with a butt joint, miter joint, rabbet joint and that joint. If I was a better student, I'd remember the official name of that joint. Your right, it is hard to make, but it provides good glue surface area, making it a very strong joint.
Tim
If I understand the drawing, I've always called this joint a "lock joint". It's used on a lot of prodution drawers instead of DTs.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Lock joint.
Can be made with router table
Steinmetz.
surfer,
While this joint does make for a square corner, it is not the strongest for drawer construction. The finger on the drawer side is short grain, and will be the part that gives way if the drawer is heavy, or jams, and gets yanked.
That being said, it occurs to me that aside from the commercial cutters for shaper and router that cut this joint, it might be easier for your large panels to cut with a router and a 1/4" slotting bit, and/or straight bit of the same diameter, instead of manhandling the pieces across the saw table. Use scraps the same thickness to set up.
Regards,
Ray Pine
Yes. I understand why it isn't a good choice for the teak but worked well for the plywood. The plywood had only one layer of short grain and the teak would not have 2 other layers for strength. Wood glue would not penetrate the teak as well as the plywood, too.
William
It's a lock joint and it's been around...
The big disadvantage is the short-grained hook(at the leading edge of your side piece) which is quite susceptible to breakage, and if it does break the joint is irreparably damaged.
DR
I use a drawer lock bit for this joint (here's a page by John at Woodshop Demos), but it common to be made with a table saw. Here's a photo of a variation on that theme, an old funky desk I use as a computer table (you'll notice the router-bit joint has a slight angle to the tongues; the TS joint in this picture is all square):
View Image
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
FWIW -
I have always liked Lock Joints, but I'm just a novice.
My local custom kitchen shop did the Acton kitchen for This Old House - i.e., he's NOT a novice. While I was checking his drawer construction details, I asked the owner/master about building a strong carcass. His advice was to use a Lock Joint (he said they do a lot of dove-tail joints because customer requests).
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