Doweling

[Mark Kristan]

I have never used this type of joint so I have a newbie question. I am making drawers for a tool cabinet I made a while back, I have the fronts (oak) and sides (Baltic Birch) cut to size and am thinking about the backs, I was going to use more BB and connect the sides to the backs with dowels. It seems that the typical dowel jig is meant to be used on the edge of a board, I am wondering if they are designed to make the holes in the face of a mating piece as well, but I will probably figure that part out once I buy the jig; What I really want opinions about is whether it makes sense to try to drill perfectly round holes in the edge of plywood. I mean, will the expanding dowel pin push the plies apart, weakening the joint? I wonder whether I should look for solid wood I have lying around to use for the drawer backs rather than using Baltic Birch plywood.

[Mike Henderson]

You can use dowels just fine. Another approach is to buy some of those shish kabob bamboo skewers and use those as dowels. Just clamp your drawer together as you want it finished and drill holes the size of the skewers. Use glue and drive the skewers in, leaving some protruding above the surface. Cut off with a chisel or one of those special saws that are only set on one side (forget what they're called).

Those skewers will stand a lot of shear stress, and the back has little stress on it compared to the front.

Think about how you're going to put the bottom in before you do all of that. Usually, people cut a groove for the bottom. The back can have a groove cut in it, or it can be "shorter" so the bottom can be slipped in after you put the sides together. I prefer to have grooves all around.

There are other ways of joining plywood for drawers and I'm sure someone will post some suggestions. The commercial people use BB for kitchen drawers all the time.

Mike

[Loren Woirhaye]

Most dowel jigs are for frame joints, not carcase joints. The Jessem and Dowelmax are the only carcase joint dowel jigs I know of. They do highly accurate flush corner joint. For drawers it's generally overkill. Nailed and glued rabbets are fine if using ball-bearing slides.

That said, you can drill the ends and use dowel centers to mark the face joints. Dowels have many delightful applications in fine furniture work. For drawers however they are not used much.

He's referring to "through doweling" above. There's a recent innovation in that called a "Miller dowel" which I keep intending to invest in because of the chairmaking problems it could solve. It's not expensive, I just haven't bought it yet.

[Rick Potter]

I always thought contrasting Miller Dowels would be an attractive way to make simple drawers. Never tried it yet. I have some, and have made a few things with them. They are pretty easy to use, too.

Rick P

[Lee Schierer]

This is a perfect application for pocket hole screws, which will probably be as strong as the doweled joints.

You can fill the pocket holes with 3/8" dowels and a flush cut saw or buy the pre-made plugs.