Ever seen 1,736 box joints?

[Todd Burch]

I'm cutting the parts of drawers for Dad's house. This is most of the drawers. I've already make 4, and there are ~11 more to make in addition to this stack.
(Drawer fronts are under the drawer sides)

228447 228446

My back hurts! That's a lot of bending over and stretching the back of the knees.

I remember when I had my Craftsman saw (prior to Nov '97), leaning over the saw like this wasn't so bad, but the PM66 pushes you back away from the blade another 3"-4". For a while, I would stand on one leg while bending my other leg up towards by rear.

My jig isn't anything special. I gave it a new maple index pin at the start of this project. The cherry pin had worn too much to give accurate cuts over any distance.

228445

Todd

[ray hampton]

that is a lot of box joints, way higher than I can count without removing my shoes 17 times

[frank shic]

have fun! ;)

[Bill Huber]

So what are you going to do after lunch, I would say you back hurts....

Now that you are done I will tell you what a friend of mine did when he did all the cabinet in his kitchen. Made all the drawer parts for one draw, did the box joints on the table saw just like you did but for one drawer. Then after cutting out all the parts he stacked all of one part together, clamped them up and used a router and straight edged to cut all of them at the same time using his first one as a template.

[Shawn Pixley]

Man! That looks painful. I think I would be brain dead before I got halfway through. I admire your sticktoiteveness!

[Bob Lloyd]

Todd, no wonder your back hurts!

[Van Huskey]

At some point in that I would be seriously think glue, butt joints and brads...

[Sid Matheny]

Holy Cow that is a bunch of box joints! I'm tired just thinking about it.

Sid

[fRED mCnEILL]

What a coincidence. Just this morning I cut 1600 box joints(I am building brush boxes for the horse indusrty). But my jig allows me to cut up to 15 one half inch thick pieces at one time so it only took an hour or so.

[frank shic]

now that's efficiency!

[Larry Edgerton]

I do mine with a system that evolved to something that is simular to Freds. I can cut all the different heights and widths at the same time.

I like box joints better than dovetails for tough duty. I know a lot of people will disagree but I feel it is just a better joint. Not as impressive, but tougher.

Very nice Todd. Its very satisfying to have a completed stack of parts done.

Larry

[Mike Heidrick]

Larry, What makes it tougher? I have never read that before.

Looks great Todd.

[Todd Burch]

What a coincidence. Just this morning I cut 1600 box joints(I am building brush boxes for the horse indusrty). But my jig allows me to cut up to 15 one half inch thick pieces at one time so it only took an hour or so.

OK, Fred! Tell me more / show me more, about this jig you have. Looks pretty beefy. I can see from the size of things that it's pretty adequate in the "carrying" aspect. Do you still have to unclamp, move all pieces on an index pin, and (essentially, like a deck of cards) reshuffle all pieces down flat and square, re-clamp, and then push through the dado again?

Do you cut parts of different widths / heights at once? Do you use a backer board always? How do you index 1 pin for the mating halves?

As I was cutting all my joints, I was envisioning / building-in-my-head, a mostly-metal automatic jig, where I would mount a board (or boards) vertically, pneumatics clamps would hold them up against the rear fence, I would then push a button and the machine would carry (via stepper motor) the boards through the blade (instead of me pushing the sled), another stepper motor would shift the stock over the proper amount, the jig/carrier would then move back through the blade (a climb cut this time), shift over again, cut, shift, back again, etc. It would be VERY fast.

I was actually looking at haunchers a few weeks ago, but they are pretty high $$. $14K for a model that could do 8" wide stick.

[Todd Burch]

Larry, What makes it tougher? I have never read that before.

Looks great Todd.

Mike, the amount of glue surface area makes it stronger than a dovetail.

Todd

[Brian Brightwell]

I use key stock for my pin. I made three jigs. 1/2, 3/8, and 1/4.

[Carl Civitella]

Mike, the amount of glue surface area makes it stronger than a dovetail.

Todd
They don`t call em box joints for nutten. However with today's modern glues a mechanical joint is of less importance, but i still do them for insurance, b/c you never know. Carl

[Todd Burch]

I was wrong. I cut 1880, not 1736. I forgot to count 2 drawers. (23 in total).

Last night I got the sides bottom-grooved, nice and tight, via 2 passes w/ a regular blade. Next step - rummage through all my 1/4 ply shorts for bottoms before I cut into the big sheets.

[fRED mCnEILL]

Todd, I don't want to post a picture of the "mechanism" of the jig because my neighbor "invented" it (and may have further plans to sell, offer plans, develope etc.) but I can tell you how it works. First of all there is no one single pin. As you know with a single pin, and moving the board to cut the joints there is the possibility, or likelyhood, of introducing error so once you have cut 10-15 joints the fit isn't very good. On this jig you clamp the board or multiple boards in the jig and move one section of the jig to cut the joints. There are a "series" of so-called fingers that ensure that there can NEVER be any error. The jig pictured is for cutting 1/4 joints but I also have one for 3/8ths and 1/2 inch joints. They are bigger jigs on the assumption that probably you would cut bigger joints on larger boards. In my case I almost always cut 1/4 inch joints on all sizes of boards because I personally prefer the look of the smaller joints. Also when cutting finger joints on drawers I can cut both the male and female joints (for want of a better description)at the same time. The procedure is to clamp all the boards with male joints together and the female ones together and cut them at the same time.. I then flip the boards end for end and cut the joints in the other end. For drawers using 1/2 boards I can cut 6 sets of drawers at the same time. Probably the manxumum width of a board on the bigger jig would be 24 inches.

[Todd Burch]

Thanks Fred.

Sounds like it is designed (based on having fingers) with the assumption that the dado blade is dead on in its width (1/4, 3/8, 1/2). I used to design my jigs this way, and now I design them (adjust and tweak them) based on the actual width of the cut.

I still like my "auto-sensing" device I conjured up the other night. It would be idiot (for me) proof!

I've been able to tweak my jig to still fit across 36" of joints. That was a litmus test (successful!) in my tune up.

[Larry Edgerton]

Larry, What makes it tougher? I have never read that before.

Looks great Todd.

In every dovetail joint one side has short grain, and this is often where the failures start. Two, there is not an ideal glue surface. You have no long grain to long grain contact as you do in a box joint.

Ya, Ya, everyone want dovetails. But why? Go look at antique furniture and you will see more failed dovetail joints in a Saturday afternoon that you care to count.

In my shop where I know that my drawers are going to be abused and overloaded, I used box joints. For customers, I use dovetail joints as that is what they have been trained to look for.

Now I have to say I have never seen a failed pin and cresent joint, so I guess that would be my favorite. Of course they are rare and on expensive pieces, so not a fair comparison, but still, I like'em!

Hey, its just my opinion, and chances are I am wrong..........

Larry

[fRED mCnEILL]

You are right about the dado blades. On the 1/4 incher I use the two dado blades back to back.

Fred.

[Ben Hatcher]

Now I have to say I have never seen a failed pin and cresent joint, so I guess that would be my favorite. Of course they are rare and on expensive pieces, so not a fair comparison, but still, I like'em!
Larry

Wow. I have an antique dry sink that my grandparents left me with those joints on the drawers. I never knew what they were until now. Thanks, Larry! I have an even greater appreciation of that piece now and a better idea of its age, 112-141 years!

[Todd Burch]

I forgot to make 6 drawers! (A complete bank of cabinets... duh.)

Running total is now up to 29* drawers with 2,168 box joints. I cut out, machined and sanded the interior bits for the 6 drawers last night and early this morning I got them glued up.

I'll take a picture of me standing in the middle of them when I get them all sanded and sprayed.

Next action this evening: remove glue squeeze out from these last 6 drawers, and then machine the 19 kitchen drawers for under-mount hardware. After that, on to final sanding of all drawers, then spray. Sanding is taking a while. This batch of baltic birch (BB) is a bit wavy on its outer veneer. I sent the first batch of BB my supplier delivered back - it was REALLY bad. On some panels, I am starting with 100 grit ROS. This is even the ~$32/sheet better stuff.

Todd

* 19 for the kitchen, 2 for master vanity** and 8 for the master closet.

** we weren't certain if the master vanity sinks would allow for a top drawer, but they did, so these are bonus drawers!