Small box floors w/ hand tools.

[Peter Daniels]

Hello and Thanks
Long time lurker, first post.
Small home and love of silence has me using only hand tools for my wood working. Cats love the shavings so that's, I suppose, a plus also.

I only like to make boxes. Hard woods, smaller than a shoe box. No lids- that's still too tough for me.
So- 5 pieces of wood cut and assembled. Should be easy right? Nope. I can't cut, chisel, plane, or sand straight yet.
I say I like to make boxes, mostly I make firewood and sawdust. Chips. Curls.
Or mostly I sharpen wonderful old tools.

I'm still having issues w/ the corners of my boxes but they are improving thanks to patience and practice.
What I'm perpetually unhappy w/ is the floor of every box.

When I used power machines I would just rout the inside lower edges of the box- the floors fit perfectly.
Now w/ handtools (and non-mitered box corners) that style doesn't work.
(Leaves that ugly exposed rabbet looking out from the corner)
I can't cut a blind rabbet, they always look terrible so I've started trying to cut/chisel/plane the edges of the floor so that it still insets a bit, leaving only the lowest edge of it exposed.

How the heck are people attaching floors to small boxes? There are endless videos/writeups about dovetails, finger joints, and other corner methods but seemingly not much on the box's bottom.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks
-Peter

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

Pictures would be nice :)

[Brian Holcombe]

A few ways to accomplish this;

Miter edge dovetails, full blind dovetails or half blind dovetails. Half blind are the easiest of this group, then hide the rabbet groove in one of the tails.

[Kees Heiden]

Nails. That is the antique method.

[Jim Koepke]

Howdy Peter and welcome to the Creek. Your profile doesn't indicate a location. I am always curious to where folks call home. You may live near another member who would be willing to work with you to solve these common woodworking puzzles.

The way to conceal the rabbets for the drawer bottoms depends on the tools you have available and the type of joinery you are using.

I think it is in Derek Cohen's Lingerie Chest build where he makes use of drawer slips. (not sure that is the correct term.)

With dovetail joinery there are a few ways to hide them besides using half blind or full blind dovetails. These include mitering the bottom part of the joint. Another method is to cut the end of the tail board down to the depth of the slot for the bottom and make the tails thinner than the full size of the stock. Some have made a pin or square tail to fit in to the slot.

There surely are many other ways to make that ugly hole disappear.

jtk

[Peter Daniels]

There will be no photos! Not yet. Too rickety to show even you dear folk who know the pain of hard won knowledge.

Nails? Do they still make those?
-PD

[David Bassett]

... Nails? Do they still make those?

Chris Schwarz even writes book chapters about them, e.g. posted in his Blog (http://blog.lostartpress.com/2015/07/11/the-bare-bones-basics-of-nail-technology/). :-)

[Stanley Covington]

When I used power machines I would just rout the inside lower edges of the box- the floors fit perfectly.
Now w/ handtools (and non-mitered box corners) that style doesn't work.
(Leaves that ugly exposed rabbet looking out from the corner)
I can't cut a blind rabbet, they always look terrible so I've started trying to cut/chisel/plane the edges of the floor so that it still insets a bit, leaving only the lowest edge of it exposed.

How the heck are people attaching floors to small boxes?
-Peter

Peter:

Allow me to rephrase your question to ensure I understand correctly, then I will make some suggestions.

(1) I am not sure how you are joining the corners, just that they are not mitred;
(2) You are cutting a groove in the bottom of the box to houses the edges of the floor panel, but the exposed open end of the groove at the corners is unsightly;
(3) And finally, you used to cut this groove with a router, but don't feel confident doing it by hand. Is this right?

These are truly ancient problems, old before the time of the Egyptians. The solutions are simple.

Point 1; Assuming you want the boxes to be durable and attractive, there are three solutions that I would suggest you consider for the corner joints. The easiest is to lap the long grain of one side over the end grain end of the other, glue the corners, clamp them until cured, drill pilot holes, and pin them with tapered wooden pins (or pin them while the glue is still wet and then clamp). Bamboo is strong and works well as pins, but any strong wood will do. Some consider contrasting colors attractive (light wood sides with dark wood pins). Some people like to make the heads of these pins square. Others make them not just square, but projecting and pillowed. This joint won't endure hard abuse.

The better corner joint is the finger joint. Easy to layout and cut, and the glue makes it quite strong. You can use the same wooden pins through the fingers to make it even stronger. There are variations of this that can be mitred.

Probably the best joint you can cut by hand is either the through (easiest) or blind dovetail (a bit harder). It sounds like that may be a bit too much for you now, but I assure you they are not difficult after some practice, and are very satisfying to make. There are variations of this that can be mitred, but they are too difficult for you to worry about now.

I strongly suggest you learn how to cut these joints by hand as it will make your efforts much more enjoyable.

Cutting the groove at the bottom to house the floor panel by hand is one we all struggle with a bit at first. First, do your layout carefully, marking the sides of the groove with a marking gage or mortice gage, and the ends (terminus) of the groove with a knife. If you have a radiused-blade azebiki saw, you can saw the sides of the groove, being careful to not cut too deep or to cut past the ends of the grooves. Azebiki saws are really handy if you cut a lot of blind grooves. Or, you can just use a chisel and pare out, or hammer and chisel out, the waste between the two lines. This goes easiest if the width of groove matches the width of your chisel, so the chisel width typically dictates the width of the groove, which in turn dictates the thickness of the floor panel's edges. Whether you use a saw or not, you will need to use a chisel to cut the last bit of the groove at the ends.

Another handy tool for cutting grooves is the router plane or old woman's tooth. The standard blades may be too wide for small boxes, but the Lee-Valley version might work.

If you find it hard to stay within the lines (either with chisel or saw), or to cut perpendicular to the board's surface, try clamping a board along the line to act as a guide and fence. With practice, you will learn to cut grooves cleanly and quickly.

Of course, you already know how to cut and fit the floor panel. I suggest you wax the corners of this panel where it fits into the corners to prevent glue from sticking to it.

Sorry to hear about the cats. Not to be trusted, are felines.

Stan

[Patrick Chase]

I can't cut a blind rabbet, they always look terrible so I've started trying to cut/chisel/plane the edges of the floor so that it still insets a bit, leaving only the lowest edge of it exposed.

How the heck are people attaching floors to small boxes? There are endless videos/writeups about dovetails, finger joints, and other corner methods but seemingly not much on the boxe's bottom.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks
-Peter

I mostly do floating bottoms in stopped grooves (I think this may be what you really meant by "blind rabbet"?).

The thing to realize is that the top and bottom edges of the groove are only cosmetic where they're visible from the bottom or the inside. You can get away with some sloppiness in the corners where the fingers/pins/tails/whatever overlap, provided that you don't blow the ends out as you describe. With that in mind I do the midsections with a plow plane or fence-guided router plane, depending on length. I do the ends with a combination of the router plane and a chisel, plus a side-rabbet plane with the front removed if necessary. I sometimes round and/or slightly bevel the corners of my bottoms to ease the fit.

EDIT: I also have a pair of ~11-deg skew chisels that I made for dovetailing a long time ago, and those can also be used in place of the skew rabbet to adjust the sides of a groove - They're skewed enough to drop into the groove with the edge vertical, while still being straight enough to register adequately to the sidewall.

EDIT 2: Obviously you can also hide problems with your grooves by rabbeting around one or both faces of the bottom.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Thinking only about drawer bottoms, the Essential Woodworker by Robert Wearing has a chapter on boxes and drawers. For bottoms, he discusses three primary methods.

Amazon has some ridiculous prices for this using second-hand sellers, so, if you want to buy it, just go here:

http://lostartpress.com/products/the-essential-woodworker

You can get a digital download for around $15. As an example, consider the following quick single image scan.

331634

The book, of course, contains lots of text that surrounds this image. Note that in A and B, those bottoms are attached to something that is nailed to the side. Well, I think that they are nailed to the sides. I think that he mentions that in general, for a drawer, the front is grooved and then the board is glued to the front face and it slides on the sides, and held in place with a screw in the back. There is an assumption there that you used dovetails so that the grove in the front can be hidden by a dovetail.

[Peter Daniels]

You folks are great. Thank you for all of your support.
I'm on the verge of a marriage. That being in about 13 hours.
This response is a break from tinkering w/ my vows.

I live in Crested Butte Colorado and, at some point, just might add a photo or three.
As it is, I'll happily continued to follow this thread but not for about a week.

Take care.
Laugh lots.
Enjoy your days.

-PD

[Michael Ray Smith]

Stan beat me to this recommendation. He has some others, but if you're struggling, I think this one is the best bet. A couple of other suggestions for cutting the groove in the sides: 1) Another option for cutting a kerf along the sides of the groove is a stair saw because it goes to the depth you want and stops. The downside to a stair saw (there are always trade-offs!) is that you can't see exactly where the blade is cutting, so you have to create a way to do it by feel. The way I do it is to mark the sides of the groove as deeply as I can with the marking gauge, then use a knife to make a cut on the inside of the mark, at about a 45 degree angle, to form a half-V trench. You can then register the stair saw against the vertical side of the half-V trench (i.e., the original mark made with the gauge) to cut a kerf along the side of the groove. All that sounds more complicated than it really is. 2) I prefer a plow plane to a router plane for cutting the grooves. A plow plane (or plough plane to our friends on the other side of the Atlantic) may seem a tad on the expensive side when you're starting out, but it's something you will use over and over. There are modern versions available from Lee Valley and Lie-Niesen. A classic vintage alternative is the Record 043, which is what I use. Rob Cosman also sells a plane he calls a drawer-bottom plane that cuts a groove 1/4" wide, 1/4" deep, and 3/8" away from the edge. It's pretty pricey and, unlike the others I mentioned, you can't make any adjustments to the width, depth, or position of the groove. But if you're going to cut a LOT of grooves that are exactly the same, it might be an option.



The easiest is to lap the long grain of one side over the end grain end of the other, glue the corners, clamp them until cured, drill pilot holes, and pin them with tapered wooden pins (or pin them while the glue is still wet and then clamp). Bamboo is strong and works well as pins, but any strong wood will do. Some consider contrasting colors attractive (light wood sides with dark wood pins). Some people like to make the heads of these pins square. Others make them not just square, but projecting and pillowed. This joint won't endure hard abuse.

Cutting the groove at the bottom to house the floor panel by hand is one we all struggle with a bit at first. First, do your layout carefully, marking the sides of the groove with a marking gage or mortice gage, and the ends (terminus) of the groove with a knife. If you have a radiused-blade azebiki saw, you can saw the sides of the groove, being careful to not cut too deep or to cut past the ends of the grooves. Azebiki saws are really handy if you cut a lot of blind grooves. Or, you can just use a chisel and pare out, or hammer and chisel out, the waste between the two lines. This goes easiest if the width of groove matches the width of your chisel, so the chisel width typically dictates the width of the groove, which in turn dictates the thickness of the floor panel's edges. Whether you use a saw or not, you will need to use a chisel to cut the last bit of the groove at the ends.

If you find it hard to stay within the lines (either with chisel or saw), or to cut perpendicular to the board's surface, try clamping a board along the line to act as a guide and fence. With practice, you will learn to cut grooves cleanly and quickly.


Stan

[Peter Daniels]

OK- w/ some more time on my hands I've been able to delve a bit more into these wonderful responses.
It's all really great info.

Jim- your ideas are goals to shoot for.
Stanley- your thoughts are the most likely within my current abilities.
Andrew- I hope to one day be able to work small bits of wood in a precision that makes those ideas possible.

Blind, half blind, perfectly not blind dovetails of every and and all varieties elude me. Despite practice, but I continue on that path.
So far, too sloppy to reach even glue up phase but I keep at it.
Each day when I stand at the bench, I'll cut one or two DTs to see how I'm progressing.

Until then- I will cut blind? Uh.... poor little blind bunny rabbets (I know, it's not rabbits) until I learn more.

Thanks everyone.
May all your days start and finish w/ all 10.

-Peter

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I created this box some years back using a design provided by someone else (I took a class), so call this "Andrew's dovetails; the early years).

The box is made from popular and uses hand-cut dovetails. I probably should have dusted it before taking pictures.

332231332232

Create the outer box shell.
I used a rabbet plane with a nicker to cut a rabbet so that the box would fit over the raised part in the center. I then used a block plane to cut a chamfer along the edge of the base.
The base is simply glued to the bottom of the box.
The top was done similarly with a rabbet on the bottom part of the top so that it fits nicely on the box. There is a large gradual chamfer on the lid.

The pictured box is roughly 6 inches square.

I have a much smaller box (3.25" x 3"). The base is simply glued to the bottom. Again I simply glued the bottom in place.

Some years back I threw together a box that is about 18" x 12" x 4". I used scraps, I was in a hurry, and I simply glued baltic birch ply to the top and bottom. It was my intention to remake the box later, and I expected it to fail. Many years later, it is still just fine. It looks horrid, and, replacing it is on my list of things to do, but it has not failed yet; I expect it is only a matter of time.

[Peter Daniels]

Andrew-
Frustrated by a failed box yesterday, I went for a glue solution.
On the floor, I had previously used a Veritas skew rabbet plane to give it edges for an inset look. But, given the fact that I'm evidently blind at birth and my parents never told me- I can't even use that spaceship plane in a manner that leaves an edge where I want it. So the floor ended up having this inner edge gap at the floor.
I planed it flat again, then glued it straight on as I think you are saying.
Might pin it in place if I can find some nice narrow dowels.

Thanks Everyone.
-PD