Eureka Moment

[Matt Woessner]

Last night in the shop I was concentrating on cutting two places in a board which will accept a drawer. Now this probably seems simple to most of you guys, but for me having never done this was a good challenge. My first attempt was to setup up a guide board and use my router to create the openings, then follow up with chisels and a plane. Lets just say that it did not work out, and added to my BTU's.

With a new piece of stock I thought of a plunge cut on the TS. Well that worked good for the two long sides, but needed to cut the short sides. Then with a jigsaw and moving very slow I successfully cut out two "perfect" places in the board to accept the drawers. It only took me 3 hours to figure this out and complete.

However, the satisfaction of figuring out a new way and having a good outcome is awesome. I know everyone has these from time to time and they are great. So tell me your story of "wow that worked out pretty good".

[Lee Schierer]

I tried to cut openings in a single board once. Since I wasn't saving the cutouts I drilled two 3/8" holes in opposite corners of the openings and then made the cuts with a jigsaw and used a clamped on edge guide to insure a straight line cut.

A faster and equal appearance method would be to mark the sections on your board with hash marks across the cut lines for line up later. Rip off the top and bottom pieces a saw kerf wider than the final apron height. Then cross cut the middle piece for the ends and dividers to length as required. Arrange all the pieces back together like a puzzle and glue them back together. You long pieces would be continual for the entire length and your ends and dividers would appear to ave been cut in place. the missing 1/8" saw kerfs would probably not be visible in most wood.

Note: Plunge cuts on table saws are extremely dangerous unless you lower the blade below the table surface, start the saw and then raise the blade into the cut. If possible have a stop block in place behind the piece being cut and use a pad type push block to hold the wood down. Stand to one side to insure you don't get hit if a kickback occurs. NEVER EVER, lower wood onto a moving blade on a table saw.

[Matt Woessner]

Lee, thanks for the tip on table saw safety. I can see by raising the blade into the stock if clamped down would be a much safer option that lowering the board on the blade. Yet another thing I have learned from this great site! Thanks again.

[Jamie Buxton]

We're hijacking this thread, but there's an additional thing you can do to make tablesaw plunge cuts safer. You can drill and tap a hole in the table, in front of the blade. In normal use, it has no effects. But when you do a plunge cut, you can bolt a stop block down to the table. The block prevents the workpiece from kicking back at you.

[Chris Fournier]

Well you're warm and you have your drawer, not bad at all!

Another great technique for this situation requires no plunge cuts but a bit of glue and with care you get an almost perfect grain match up and a matching drawer face.

Take the apron and place a large reference mark across its width. Now rip the board on your tablesaw twice so that you have a middle piece which is the height of your drawer. Take this middle piece and cross cut your drawer face out of it and set this aside. You now have four pieces of wood that you can glue up so that the grain is perfectly matched and you leave an opening for your drawer. You can use the drawer face to get the opening sized to your liking.

Simple, safe and effective.

[Bill Huber]

Well you're warm and you have your drawer, not bad at all!

Another great technique for this situation requires no plunge cuts but a bit of glue and with care you get an almost perfect grain match up and a matching drawer face.

Take the apron and place a large reference mark across its width. Now rip the board on your tablesaw twice so that you have a middle piece which is the height of your drawer. Take this middle piece and cross cut your drawer face out of it and set this aside. You now have four pieces of wood that you can glue up so that the grain is perfectly matched and you leave an opening for your drawer. You can use the drawer face to get the opening sized to your liking.

Simple, safe and effective.

Is this not the same thing Lee said or am I missing a step or something, I just want to learn.

[Chris Fournier]

Is this not the same thing Lee said or am I missing a step or something, I just want to learn.

Yes Bill it is exactly what Lee said. I likely glossed over the thread and now look like a boob (likely) or depending on whether I'm logged in or not I sometimes don't see all the posts in a thread (less likely). I've found this with all of the vBulletin hosted sites.

Regardless I am a bit of a dope despite my heroic Sketchup effort!