I have large, heavy, deep drawers in my shop 26" deep with 100 lb full extension slides. The drawers are butt jointed with pocket screws and glue. They are loaded down and have been in use for the last 6 years. No sign of wear or tear or any kind of breakdown.
Just bought the joinery book a couple weeks ago + a Shirt and some stickers. It all got delivered to Germany very quickly and I even got a refund on some of the shopping cost. Great Service, thank you
A comment on router bits. I put O-Rings on my router bits, so I don't try to tighten the collet on the fillet transition area. I but packs of 1/4" and 1/2" ID O-rings. Cheap insurance.
I think dovetails look the nicest, although the metal dowels are pretty cool. Dovetails are from an age where glue wasn’t as good and reliable so provided mechanical strength to the joint in the direction of force being applied. With modern glue and fastener options pretty sure dovetails are mostly aesthetic nowadays (and very nice aesthetic IMO)
I have all three of my table saws at 35” off the floor. My bandsaw and my infeed table are also 35” off the floor. This makes things easier in my universe. And I am 5’-8”
I can understand this method for keeping the off-cuts. I tend to keep them all on my outfeed table, moving them aside anytime they'll be in the way...but then I don't always know which part each scrap came off of to get perfect matches.
Yes, most any joint works on drawers. I've made shop drawers with nails only and filled with 50+ pounds of stuff--still holding together after years. The reason for dovetails?--They look really nice
I was involved in selling a house from my mother's estate. The kitchen cabinets were plywood, and not the good stuff. The faces were splintered pretty badly and the joinery was a mess in various places. Held together with rabbets and nails. I probably should have just made new drawers but I took on repairing the existing ones for practice. I chose to rebuild the rabbets where needed and then doweled them. I think these should last another 80 years. For the plywood faces I sliced off the damaged area with a handsaw, planed the area flat, and glued on some solid wood scraps which I then sawed, chiseled, hand planed smooth. And then all the drawers got dowels. They got painted and they looked great. As for the faces, I wonder how well they will last. I haven't heard anything from the new owners with questions and I think they should be good. But really, I wouldn't use softwood plywood for kitchen cabinet faces again. And if I would not rely on rabbets and nails if I wanted them to last. Dowels are plenty strong.i favor them over pocket screws.
sure would love some advice for hinges for small boxes. I'm going to make 300 boxes soon, so I need hinges that look good, but can install them quickly and easily. boxes will be approximately 6x6x4 (inches) with either 1/2 or 3/8 thick stock.
The first time I've seen your office set, very nice and a great mic! I'm 6'4" and also have the Saw Stop PCS on that mobile base. I almost didn't buy the base with it, since I have the Grizzly base from my old saw, but was sure glad I did, once I set it up. The best mobile base I've ever used. I too originally thought my PCS a bit low when I began using it, but now think it is just great and gives better control when working with tall pieces. I hadn't considered the 'twig and berries' aspect though...
All good advice! On smaller boxes I like using mitered carcass construction, but struggle with how to reinforce the long miters when the material is 1/2 inch thick.....4mm Dominos can work, but difficult to keep the machine exactly aligned on the thin mitered wall. Would appreciate your thoughts! Thanks!
I have yet to do a dovetail in 10yrs of woodworking. 🤣 Someday. Someday. My Sawstop on the mobile base is the perfect size for me, 5’1”. It’s 3” lower than my old Craftsman and I don’t feel like I’m dangerously reaching over to push stock through.
I worked summer construction during college, and like most tablesaws back then it had neither guard nor riving knife. Had a case-hardened 2x4 I was ripping, and it launched back at me, and I'm 6'5" And there is NO compassion from a construction crew when you're writhing on your side on the ground; only side-splitting laughter.
High quality custom cabinets are often built with pocket hole joinery and will last 2 lifetimes. But don't do it if you're worried about your woodworking buddies giving you a hard time. Hide the holes behind the face and on the back side of the drawer and only you and the people you tell will know.
Am I the only one who had their Siri activated when Marc said the word necessary around the 1:12 mark? I tried to replicate it but it didn’t work again. 😂
The best answer for the scrap and offcut question is: "You keep them regardless of size, species, etc., forever... because you never know." This is the way.
I built 3 "boxes" out of mdf and divided each with 1/4 mdf horizontal and vertical dividers that fit into rabbeted slots. The deepest is abt 36" and sits on the floor. The next 2 stack on top and are abt 24" and 12" deep. I try to keep hardwoods compartmentalized according to species and length by storing in the appropriate "cabinet" in either the left/right or top/bottom section. Some of that stuff has been in there for years. I also have a wall rack for long off cuts as well as guitar woods.