Drawer bottom oops

[dan lemkin]

Hi,

I am playing with my new Leigh Superjig and trying to figure out how to make up some drawer boxes... I was not thinking clearly and used a tablesaw to cut out the 3/16 groove for plywood drawer bottoms.

Clearly this won't work because they cut through the dovetailed corners.. See pics below

Is there an easy way to do this? The only other way I could think of was to plunge route a groove using an alignment jig. If this is how it is done, are there any plans or pictures of such a jig.

thanks
dan

[Gary Lange]

That looks like something I would do. Now that I know not to I was thinking that if you used a router table with stops at each end for the distance of the grove you could just set the board onto the bit and then route from one end stop to the other and lift it off. That's just me thinking off the top of my head. I am sure some others will have better ideas. Then again maybe this ain't such a bad idea.:)

[Vince Shriver]

Just a thought, not sure if it's doable: clamp the box together tightly with a band and then lower it over a pre-set wing slot cutter with a top bearing in your router table and slowly rout out your channel.

[Tom Veatch]

The technique Gary describes is precisely the way I do the bottom groove in dovetailed or box jointed boxes/drawers/etc. That method limits the size of the box/drawer to the maximum spacing you can conveniently set for your stop blocks. An alternate method that I'm considering but not yet tried, is to use one of these router bits (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=47818&cat=1,46168,46176) or something similar. That method is limited to a couple of bottom thicknesses unless you do multiple passes with a height adjustment between passes.

[James Gillespie, Jr.]

That looks like something I would do. Now that I know not to I was thinking that if you used a router table with stops at each end for the distance of the grove you could just set the board onto the bit and then route from one end stop to the other and lift it off. That's just me thinking off the top of my head. I am sure some others will have better ideas. Then again maybe this ain't such a bad idea.:)

This method works quite well, and was shown in one of the recent issues of Wood Magazine. Just be sure to round the corners of the bottom to match the bit's contour so it will fit into the groove.

[Joe Chritz]

If half blind dovetails are used you can bury the dado so it isn't visible. If you are going to have an applied front then you can do the same with through dovetails as long as the sides are burried where they are not visible. Other than that a stopped dado with a router or shaper is the best and easiest way.

This is one of the reasons most of my drawers are half blind dovetails anymore. That and the single router and bit setup.

Joe

[Anthony Anderson]

That looks like something I would do. Now that I know not to I was thinking that if you used a router table with stops at each end for the distance of the grove you could just set the board onto the bit and then route from one end stop to the other and lift it off. That's just me thinking off the top of my head. I am sure some others will have better ideas. Then again maybe this ain't such a bad idea.:)

I use the stops on the router table, as Gary mentioned. I measure where the drawer bottom groove will be from the end, and then put two pieces of scotch tape (the easily removable kind) on the router table fence, and then put a mark using a RED permanent sharpie fine point, at both the leading and trailing end of the marks (make these marks on the scotch tape). The marks on the scotch tape will represent where to stop and start the cuts to accept the drawer bottom, without cutting through the dovetails and the end of the board. Not sure if I explained that very well. Regards, Bill

[Dewey Torres]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=98637