Building Dovetail Drawers

In this article we take you step by step through the process of building dovetail drawers.

Building dovetail drawers.

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. One way to identify a woodworker s skill level is to check and see how well they build the dovetail drawers in their projects. Building dovetail drawers is one of my favorite things to do in the shop. 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.

With one table saw setup and a dado stack you can build drawers all day long. This drawer method is so simple it should be illegal. That way when the. 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.

On the interior surface of the drawer front scribe a line about 1 32 less than the thickness of the drawer side. Once you understand. In wood magazine torture tests this drawer joint proved stronger than even dovetails. Use plywood ideally i m using 1 4 mdf i had laying around.

Use a miter gauge to guide the cut. A well built dovetail drawer is not only incredibly strong and long lasting but is aesthetically beautiful. Discover the secrets to making strong drawers by cutting locking rabbet joints on the tablesaw as taught by wood magazine design editor jeff mertz. Learn all about mdf here.

Stopped by a fiends shop to see what was going on. While they do take some planning and careful setup they are achievable for the average home woodworker. The sides and the front will have a 1 4 groove cut near the bottom inside edge of each piece. How to build dovetail drawers with a floating base.

For years i thought the joints were for only the best woodworkers and would be difficult if not impossible to master. Grabbed my ever present camera and took some shots. The base on this drawer is 1 4 sheet material.