al ladd
03-14-2022, 9:20 AM
I just posted a video on how to cut the double locking corner joint, a seldom seen drawer front joint that was once widely used when Americans made high quality furniture in quantity. The drawer fronts on a china cabinet my family owned, a prized possession, had these joints on the drawers, and they caught my eye when I was a young boy, -long before I had any interest in woodworking per se.
I used them for drawer fronts on my production jewelry boxes for a few years, even making a special router set-up with two routers in line to speed things up. When I built my CNC router, allowing me to cut dovetails while I did something else at the same time, I abandoned the double locking corner joint, but as my business has changed in recent years, I realized I'm starting to do more one-off work, and the DLCJ might make sense again in some cases.
It's great when you have a stack of drawers of differing heights, each of which would require a different layout if dovetailed. My CNC method requires a good deal of CAD work, so if I haven't done that already for a particular depth it can be a chore just to do the CAD work.
Though the mechanics of cutting the joint are quite simple, the right order of events and a little trick with a spacer block make it a lot easier to achieve the required accuracy for a tight joint, and they really must be very accurate to work well.
Now, as I'm venturing off into the land of selling plans, I thought introducing my builders to this joint was a worthy endeavor. And I bet some Creekers will enjoy it too.
Here's my video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYloXQXs8aY475835
I used them for drawer fronts on my production jewelry boxes for a few years, even making a special router set-up with two routers in line to speed things up. When I built my CNC router, allowing me to cut dovetails while I did something else at the same time, I abandoned the double locking corner joint, but as my business has changed in recent years, I realized I'm starting to do more one-off work, and the DLCJ might make sense again in some cases.
It's great when you have a stack of drawers of differing heights, each of which would require a different layout if dovetailed. My CNC method requires a good deal of CAD work, so if I haven't done that already for a particular depth it can be a chore just to do the CAD work.
Though the mechanics of cutting the joint are quite simple, the right order of events and a little trick with a spacer block make it a lot easier to achieve the required accuracy for a tight joint, and they really must be very accurate to work well.
Now, as I'm venturing off into the land of selling plans, I thought introducing my builders to this joint was a worthy endeavor. And I bet some Creekers will enjoy it too.
Here's my video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYloXQXs8aY475835