How to Build a Dovetail Drawer Box

Routed Half-Blind Dovetail Drawers: Function one

This is a ii-office story. The focus is on drawers with mechanical slides. In this installment I volition explain how a one-half-blind dovetail router jig works, computing drawer parts sizes, and where to locate drawer bottoms for drawers with side-mount slides or undermount slides. Part ii volition be about using a dovetail router jig, and assembling dovetailed drawers.

For the longest time I resisted making dovetail drawers. I was nether the misconception that making them took a lot of time and was a lot of work. Today I can't imagine using any other blazon of drawer joinery. Dovetailed drawers look great, they scream out quality, and they are super strong. The dovetail joint is interlocking and well suited for drawers since information technology volition non permit the drawer front to be pulled away from the sides. Routing one-half-blind dovetail joints is fairly piece of cake if you know the tricks. I'll show y'all what I have learned over my many years of making dovetail drawers.

Having a really proficient jig is essential. I utilise a Woodhaven 7600 jig (see Sources). It's rock solid, elementary to apply, fast, and produces consistently perfect half-blind dovetails. Information technology comes with a bearing piloted dovetail bit and so there's no need to use a template bushing with your router. This eliminates all concentricity issues related to a misaligned router base of operations.

Drawer Construction Details. I make my drawer sides, fronts, and backs one/two″ thick. The widths of my drawer sides, fronts, and backs are based on the dovetail tail spacing my jig cuts, and so I become a half dovetail pin at the height and bottom of the drawer front (run across Half-blind dovetail anatomy beneath). I forego having a half-pin at the lesser if I'm using undermount drawer slides (see the photo Undermount drawer slides below). I make false "drawer faces" that I attach to my drawer fronts with screws, and I slide my drawer bottoms in from the dorsum and screw them to the lesser border of the drawer back.

Drawer faces are attached with screws. Drawers mounted with mechanical slides require false fronts to hide the slides. I call these false fronts "drawer faces". Attach them to the drawer fronts with low profile washer head screws through 5/16″ dia. holes. The oversized holes allow for minor adjustments of the drawer face.

Half-blind dovetail anatomy. Absolutely, half-blind dovetail terminology is disruptive. My solution for keeping the parts straight is to look for the board confront with the "fish tails" at the ends. That'southward the tailboard! Drawers with a one-half-pin at the acme and lesser look best. The articulation is called half-blind considering when assembled the ends of the tails are hidden within the joint, and only half of the joint is visible.

Equally spaced one-half-blind dovetails are routed in the jig with a single laissez passer. A dovetail router bit is used to cut the joints. The tailboard (drawer side) and pinboard (drawer front or back) are clamped to the jig with their inside faces out. The jig'southward stop is factory fix to beginning the parts the proper altitude and so both tails and sockets are cut with one pass of the router. When the joint is assembled the top and bottom edges of the boards are aligned flush to each other.

Adjusting the fit of a half-blind dovetail that's cut with a single pass is achieved by raising or lowering the dovetail bit in your router. You'll need to brand test cuts to go the fit right. If the joint is loose, heighten the fleck. If the joint is tight, lower the bit.

Here are some wood species that make adept drawers. All are closed-grain and so they tear out less when routed, and they are all relatively inexpensive. I utilise white birch most often. It makes very nice drawers.

Optimal drawer heights are based on placing a one-half-pin at the peak and bottom of the drawer front. My jig cuts dovetails spaced 7/viii″ on center, and so I brand my drawers heights some multiple of 7/eight″. I used the jig to cut dovetail sockets in a broad board, and I apply that board as a guide to choose the drawer tiptop that best fits my cabinet'south drawer opening.

Drawer backs are cutting full width to offset. Think, I slide my drawer bottom in from the back afterwards the drawer is assembled. The dovetails are cut on full widths drawer backs, and so the backs are cut to their finished width after when the drawer bottom grooves are cut in the sides and front. Doing this has many advantages, which become apparent when you start routing parts in the jig.

The drawer lesser grooves are cut so they are buried in the lesser tail and socket connection. This is done so the grooves are hidden from the outside when the drawers are assembled.

Undermount drawer slides require a 1/2″ infinite nether the drawer. The way I deal with this is I add together 3/16″ of tiptop to these drawers, I change the setup of my dovetail jig (next photograph), and I forego having a half-pin at the bottom of the drawer.

Dovetailing drawers that use undermount slides requires both stops be repositioned outward three/16″ more than than their half-pin setting. The drawer parts are oriented bottom edges out and confronting the stops. Both sides of the jig are used (in that location will exist more than about this in Role 2). As you can encounter by the setup, the bottom pin is 3/xvi″ wider than the standard setup. That makes room and then the lesser tin can be set up 1/2″ up, and the bottom's groove can yet be hidden in the lesser tail/socket connection.

The overall length of a drawer should exist equal to the length of the drawer slide you use. This is true for both side-mountain and undermount slides.

The bodily length of a drawer side is the drawer'due south overall length minus ii times the remaining wood at the bottom of the routed pinboard sockets.

The initial length of drawer fronts and backs is the actual length plus 1/32″. You'll need to setup your dovetail jig so when the articulation is assembled 1/64″ of pinboard endgrain protrudes past the tailboard. This overhang is sanded away after the drawers are assembled. That finishes the endgrain for a nice wait.

Function 1 wrap-up. Now you know how the drawer parts demand to be sized, and how the jig makes the dovetail joints. Next time I'll show you the steps to cut the joints, and assemble and terminate the drawers.

Photos By Author

Sources:

Woodhaven 7600 Dovetail Jig

Woodhaven

(800) 344-6657

Related Video:Dovetail Ownership Communication

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Source: https://www.wwgoa.com/article/routed-half-blind-dovetail-drawers-part-1/