Advice on a simple project please.

[Charles Webber]

Hello all,
I am making a few night stands that are like the attached photo but I am using 1 3/4 inch oak. So it is much thicker and heavier. I do not have a dowel kit the right size in order to line up the holes for the dowels. The first one I made was just a bit off, but I want to correct that "bit". I started to think maybe I don't even need to use the dowels. Would just wood gluing the pieces together be substantial enough? Or with them being so thick and heavy I should use the dowels for sure?
Thanks for the advice. I know it's probably a stupid question, but I am just learning.
THANKS!!!!361640

[Jerry Bruette]

You could use screws with plugs of the same or contrasting wood and I think it would be strong enough.

[Ted Reischl]

You actually have much worse problems if you are building it the way it is shown in the picture.

Notice that the top and bottom pieces have their grain running left to right.

The side pieces are front to back. That means the top and bottom will be shrinking/expanding at a much greater rate than the side pieces. If you use dowels you are almost guaranteeing a split in the top and bottom. If you just glue it, it will fall apart.

Hopefully you are not doing that, the piece shown in the photo was built by someone not very familiar with woodworking. Unless it is some kind of particle board with veneer on it. Even so, from a design standpoint, the grain running counter to each other does not look that great.

If'n it were me I would be thinking seriously about using a sliding dovetail. It will work even if you set up the grain as shown in the pic. It would be blind in the front and you would only glue the front few inches of the dovetail.

[Davis Young]

You might have wood movement issues if you build it like in the photo using 1-3/4" solid oak. The piece appears to be plywood as you can see the edging is applied to the board, so there is no wood movement issue there. But if built in solid as it appears, the top and bottom will try to expand and contract but the sides will not. Two ways to get around this:

One is you could orient the sides so the grain is vertical. That way the boards would move together. However you will have a face grain to end grain joint where glue by itself is possibly not strong enough, so you're back to the dowels. You could use a simple shop made dowelling jig for this thickness.

The other way is to orient the top and bottom so the grain runs front to back. The boards are again oriented the same way with the added benefit of a face to edge grain joint thus no need for dowels. The down side is you will see end grain at the front edge, which may not be preferred, especially if you are gluing boards together to get the width of the top and bottom.

[lowell holmes]

When I miss drill a dowel hole, I insert and glue a dowel in place. After the glue dries, I cut it flush and drill a new hole.

[Charles Webber]

All,
Thanks for the quick responses. I did not notice the photo with the grains running opposite. Luckily I was actually having my vertical pieces grain going vertical as well. But thanks for that advice because I did not know if I ever did this, that would be a problem. Mental note to self!
I am not advanced enough nor have a tool to make a dovetail yet, but I will be practicing it soon!
I will try the dowels again and use the advice of cutting it off if I miss the first time.
Thanks again on the advice. Each one helped me.

[Matt Day]

Instead of dowels you could use a spline joint. Using a table saw, cut a dado say 1/4 wide and 1" or so deep and glue a spline in place. Very strong. You'd see it is the drawback, but sometimes that adds a visual detail.

[Charles Lent]

+1 I would also go with spline joints and keep the grain running the same direction all the way around, left to right on the top and bottom and up / down on the side pieces. The grain direction would also have to be the same, so it would be running across the narrow direction of the splines and not lengthwise in them.

Charley

[Bill Dufour]

I would use biscuits since they align things with a fence. Though I often use a shim under the machine and I reference everything from the good face.
Why do you care if the dowels are centered or not? I would just eyeball the center of the stock and reference everything from corresponding faces.

[Brian Tymchak]

If I'm understanding the issue properly, I think you could use dowel centers (https://www.rockler.com/dowel-centers). Drill the holes in one side of the joint, set the centers in the hole, align the opposing piece, apply a little bit of pressure, and you should have precisely centered marks in the opposing piece. I've only used them once as I don't use dowels much, but it worked fairly well for me. Maybe others have better or worse experience with centers. If you google around, you can find sets of these for specific sized holes.

[Doug Hepler]

Charles,

No, it is not a "stupid question." IMO you do not need dowels or splines or biscuits for strength. The long grain to long grain joint will be plenty strong enough to hold this box together. Use decent adhesive like Titebond and clamp the joints tightly. It will be necessary for you to keep the boards aligned while the glue sets. Dowels are useful for that, so go ahead and use them if you can get them aligned. You can use dowel centers to position the dowels https://www.amazon.com/General-Tools-888-4-Inch-Transfer/dp/B00004T82N or you can make your own dowel jig out of a piece of 1/2" plywood.

Another way to keep the boards aligned would be to buy some steel angle braces from a local hdwe store and clamp them to the boards as an assembly fixture. Just use waxed paper under them so that you won't glue them to the boards.

Constructive criticism: 1-3/4" oak is going to make a very heavy and top-heavy table. Consider thinner boards at least for the box bottom and sides. And finally, if you would like a challenge, consider learning how to make mitered joints, if you don't already know how. You can make them with a table mounted router, a table saw or chop saw or by hand. As a "learner" it might be a useful and fun experience.

Doug

[Jim Becker]

Instead of dowels you could use a spline joint. Using a table saw, cut a dado say 1/4 wide and 1" or so deep and glue a spline in place. Very strong. You'd see it is the drawback, but sometimes that adds a visual detail.
This is exactly what I was about to type...

[Ted Reischl]

Or... he could buy a cheap pocket screw jig. One of those one holers that you just clamp to the board to keep the bit from skating around. Or, use a forstner bit and drill a pocket at an angle followed up by a regular drill. Not sure how much equipment the OP has.

[Jim Becker]

Or... he could buy a cheap pocket screw jig. One of those one holers that you just clamp to the board to keep the bit from skating around. Or, use a forstner bit and drill a pocket at an angle followed up by a regular drill. Not sure how much equipment the OP has.
Ah, true...I didn't previously enlarge the photo and thought it had mitered corners.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

For something like that you could consider a dado. Here is an example from a shoe rack I built years go. I used screws, but no reason you could not use dowels and glue.

361733

[Randy Heinemann]

I would like the look of it better with the grain on the sides running up and down and then, you would need to use dowel joints or some other joint that would yield a strong glue joint. I suspect the reason this project was was built this way was to make it simple and to mere allow gluing the pieces together because you are gluing face grain to edge grain. With grain on the sides running vertically you are gluing face grain to end grain and the result wouldn't be very strong.

If you want to use dowels and keep this simple, look for a set of dowel centers. Woodcraft sells a set of 8 centers; 2 @ 1/4", 2 @ 5/16", 2 @ 3/8", and 2 @ 1/2". Drill holes in the vertical piece (end grain in this case); one on end, slip in the dowel centers, line up the top piece with the edges of the side, and push down on the dowel centers. The points will leave an indent where the center of the dowel hole should be drilled in the mating piece. I'd practice on scrap first, but it's a simple process. Before I got complex and acquired way too many tools, I used dowels and the centers worked great. Just a suggestion to keep it simple.