options for cutting the drawer bottom groove?

[Steven Lee, NC]

I took a class on cutting dovetails and I think we used something like a stanley 45 to cut the groove. In the cosman videos he uses a wood plane that he sells for around $150 bucks.

I could setup my router table to do it pretty quickly but would like to find a much cheaper neanderthal alternative. I don't know much about hand tools so don't know what other options there may be.

Thanks

[Sean Hughto]

Several user grade vintage planes would fit the bill. A Stanley 248, Record 43, Record 50, etc.

Ebay or old tool purveyors like Patrick Leach could hook you up for far below Cosman prices.

Something like eBay item 2a1a4bc696

Here's my 248A:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3241/3096320087_746d1911b8_z.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3239/3097160830_2423421e86_z.jpg?zz=1

[Don Dorn]

If your goal is to do it with hand tools, I agree with Sean. If you don't mind sticking with power (since you spoke about the router table), you can simply set the fence of your tablesaw at about a half inch from the blade and run the front and side pieces through. Re-set the fence to the thickness of your drawer bottome material and run them through again and test it. Once it fits, set those pieces aside, raise the blade and push the back piece through.

At that point, you have three sides with a groove and a back that sits flush with the top and bottom will sit on the top side of your drawer bottom. Personally, I use a Record 044, but I used the above method until moving to hand tools. It's the Frank Klausz method and it never let me down.

[Jim Koepke]

A plow plane is a very easy way to cut a groove. Most of mine are Stanley 45s. Any of the similar plow planes would do a good job.

Someone here once mentioned of having the groove cut through the tail and then make the tail not be the full thickness of the wood to hide the groove.

Another way to hide the groove is to use half blind dovetails.

jtk

[William Adams]

I picked up an Alumo weatherstripping plane and added an auxiliary fence to put the groove where I needed it.

Meaning to make a pair of these:

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/19894/shop-made-grooving-planes

but I'm still making the stopped grooves w/ a marking knife, drill to establish the ends, veneer saw w/ clamped on depth stop for the sides and chiseling out the waste w/ a 1/8" chisel. I've got a shop made widow's tooth, but need to grind a narrower iron.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

I would like to make a pair of grooving planes too. What would be a good source of irons? I think LN sells some but they are only 1/8th and I prefer a 1/4". I know you can buy O1 tool steel and harden it but that is beyond my experience.
Salem

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

. . . Someone here once mentioned of having the groove cut through the tail and then make the tail not be the full thickness of the wood to hide the groove. . . .



I've been doing half-thickness tails across the whole board to hide the groove/grooves. I tried just making that one tail be half thickness to hide the groove, and it gets finicky if you're not careful with layout, to get both the half thickness tail and the other full thickness ones to bottom out at the same time. Of course, I was rushing, screwed it up that one time, and never bothered to have another go at it.

I like doing the mitred edge dovetails, like was shown on the "Jefferson Bookcases" a while back in Popular Woodworking magazine to hide a groove.

[James Taglienti]

At $150 you could take your pick of a dozen different planes both new and old that will cut a drawer groove and more. A beech groove plane that has lost its tongue cutting partner costs about $10 and is basically the same plane as Cosman's.

[Jim Koepke]

What would be a good source of irons?

I have been thinking of using old blades from a Stanley 45 or similar plane. They can usually be had on ebay for $10 or less.

jtk

[Roy Griggs]

I made the matched pair from the FWW article; 1/4" groove, 1/4" deep. 1/4" in from the edge. Made blades from a #4 Stanley blade, by cutting the outside edge off each side with a Dremmel and a cut-off wheel. They are plenty thick(the blades) for this purpose a 1/4" thick blade would be overkill for these planes IMHO. They work a treat and took very little time to make. I'll never have to use any other tool for this particular job again! Total cost was a used Stanley blade @$2. I can also make any other configuration for a 1/4" groove (distance from edge or depth of groove) and use the same blades.
Each time I make a tool for a specific purpose, I rediscover why woodworking gives me so much pleasure! Planes made by the glue-up method are so simple and easy to make. Heat treating is very simple for 01....heat it, quench it. Ron Hock "has" to be precise but it isn't all that nescessary in the home shop. If it's to soft, do it over, if it's to hard, do it over, hard enough is a pretty liberal description.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

Roy I can't imagine how long it would take to cut a plane iron with a Dremel!!

But this is roughly where I was headed. I have an old plane iron I can use. And I didn't mean 1/4 thick, I meant 1/4 wide :). LN has some 1/8" wide ones that are not wide enough for the dado IMHO.

Thanks again!
Salem

[Steven Lee, NC]

thanks for the tips, it helps to know what kind of terms to google for now.

I also have a lead on a stanley 45 with just the 1/4" iron for 60 bucks. I might have to take some time off from work to check it out next week :cool: If it doesn't work out I also checked out the FWW one that will be my 2nd option, 17 bucks for the each blade and scrap wood.

180 hrs of vacation time saved up :D

[William Adams]

One thing I've been surprised at is that there isn't a design for such planes which allow one to use a chisel for an iron.

[Roy Griggs]

Another overlooked option is a Stanley #50. I paid $35 for mine with both sets of blades (grooving and beading) and I prefer it by leaps and bounds over a #45. Not a real popular plane as compared to #45's and #55's they can usually be found cheap.

[Russell Sansom]

It's not that hard to attach a chisel to the front of a wooden block that has a sloped nose, like a chisel plane but with a much more upright angle. As a starving artist many years ago it was my solution to cutting grooves. I sawed and chopped a channel down the middle of the sloped front which was just wide enough to jam in a 1/4" chisel, bevel down. A screwed-on cleat running from side to side of the slope clamps the chisel in place. Tear-out is a a problem, but if the front slope is upright enough it's a cross between a cutter and a scraper. If I remember right, mine are set at about 45-degrees. It's a bit of a riddle to keep a tapered chisel body from creeping upward, but not a big deal.

For occasional use, a fence/guide can be screwed or nailed to the bottom of the "plane" body. For more extended production, a conventional plow is much more convenient. If I can find one of my old blocks I can post a quick photo.

[Joshua Clark]

There are dedicated drawer bottom planes available- these are essentially small plow planes with an adjustable fence and a couple of irons. They are almost always British and made by the big names- Marples, Mathieson, Preston, etc. They aren't terribly common, but they aren't expensive either. Guys like Tony Murland or Patrick Leach might have these available.

By far the least expensive way to go is to use the grooving plane from a tongue and groove plane pair. These planes are available in a variety of sizes and generally cut a groove the perfect distance from the edge of a board for a drawer bottom. If you find a single plane without its mate the cost is very low. If you find the matched pair even better! Then you can cut T&G joints with style and plow those drawer bottom groves with ease. These are also really common and easy to tune.

(yay hand tools!)

Josh

[Matthew Kenney]

I wrote that article in FWW. The blades I used for the original planes were made from a pair of 1/4 in. wide molding plane blanks I bought from LN. I ground them down and heat treated them. They know sell them ready to go (at 1/8 in. wide), but can still buy blanks and make your own blades. I just bought some 1/4 in. wide irons to make grooving planes for a 1/4 in. wide groove. Because they're annealed, it's easy to grind the bevel. With a MAPP gas touch you can harden them in just a few minutes. After quenching them in oil, put them in then oven for about 1/2 hour (pre-heated to 460) to temper them. If you're interested, I can share more details about the heat treating.

[Jim Matthews]

I wrote that article in FWW.

I love this site.
Thanks, MK it was an eye opener.
Do you have an independent blog?

jim
wpt, ma

[Gary Curtis]

Strangely out of place, on the Festool Owner's Group website, under the category of 'How=To' an English gentleman posted a video tour of his shop. But instead of unleashing all of that Teutonic horsepower, he demonstrated the ease of cutting a trench for drawer bottoms. He used Lie Nielsen plow plane. And, in methodical fashion started a large time clock.

It took him about a minute to cut the drawer bottom Dado. The speed of this all took my breath away. And on a power tool website.

[Justin Green]

Lie Nielsen has a plow plane?

[Chris Griggs]

Lie Nielsen has a plow plane?

My question too? I assume he meant Lee Valley, but rumor has it that an LN is in the works so maybe someone has a early test unit. How do we find the video?????

[Greg Fletcher]

Gary thank you for the heads up!

I was curious to see if it was a LN or LV (it's a LV), so I searched for the thread on the Festool Owner's Group (FOG).

Here is the thread:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/festool-how-to/routing-groove-for-drawer-sides/

Here is the direct YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZHPg22TYS4

[Matthew Kenney]

Jim,

Glad you liked the article (I think that's what you meant). I do write blogs, but its for the magazine. I'm one of the editors. Here's the "index (http://www.finewoodworking.com/profile/MKenney)" of my blogs. It's really just a list of the ones I've written, in reverse chronological order (newest first).

[Jim Matthews]

Jim,
Glad you liked the article (I think that's what you meant).

It is - I thought that article one of the more succinct written recently.
Your stuff is pitched right in my strike zone - and this article focused on a basic problem many face, regularly.

PS - I mentioned to Mike Pekovich that FWW articles should have a "this should take xxx minutes to complete" proviso.
I find some of the projects untenable due to limited shop time. These little planes should be manageable over a couple of weekends.

Thanks for the index.

jim
wpt, ma

[Matthew Kenney]

Jim,

Thanks for the kind words. Your idea about giving time estimates in articles is interesting. I feel the time crunch, too. I'm always trying to figure out how best to use my time in the shop. One potential problem, however, is that not all of us work at the same speed. Some of our authors have been making furniture full time for several decades. They are efficient woodworkers, with both hand and power tools. So, what might take one of them 40 hours to make could take you or me 80+ hours. I'm not sure it would be easy or reliable to translate their hours to ours. I'd hate to tell you that it should take 40 (Chris Becksvoort or Garrett Hack) hours to build a cabinet and have you find out that it takes many more hours for me or you to make it.

[Steven Lee, NC]

I am leaning more to making the FWW one by Matthew Kenney and got to wondering why would I need 2 planes? As long as the outside face stays outside I could just rotate the board 180 and cut the groove in the direction with the grain? The pdf has all the measurements and angles and plenty of pics that I think even a nub like me should be able to manage it :)


When I finally found the article on Finewoodworking.com it was filed under Skills And Techniques (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesHome.aspx) > FUNDAMENTALS > Power Tool Skills (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesDirectory.aspx?dir=Power+Tool+S kills) :eek:

[Matthew Kenney]

Steven,

That's embarrassing! I've already spoke to our web folks to have them correct it. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions. You can ask them here or email me directly (you can do that through my member profile page). As for why I made two, it's so that I can always plane with the grain. With drawer sides, you could get away with one plane, because you can always orient the drawer so that one plane is planing with the grain (I'm right handed, so I'd make a right handed plane). However, with drawer fronts it gets a bit trickier. When it comes to drawer fronts, I care about appearance first. That typically means that the fronts are all cut from a single board. And if I need to orient the fronts in such a way that I'd need a left hand plane to plane with the grain, I want one. It's better than forcing it with the right hand plane and getting tearout.

I hope that makes sense.

[Steven Lee, NC]

Ah yeah, that makes sense. In class we didn't care what the front looked like so flipping it wasn't a big deal.

I found someone who can make some heat treated blades but wasn't quite sure how thick they should be. I think he said he had some 3/16" stuff that he normally uses for #45 replacement blades. Think thats thick enough?

[Matthew Kenney]

The blades I used were made from the LN tapered modling plane blade blanks. They're 1/8 in. thick at their thickest and taper down to about 1/16 in. thick. So, 3/16 in. should be fine. It would be better if they were tapered (helps lock in the wedge), but you should still be fine with a blade that is a consistent thickness.