How to dowel narrow slats

[Gabriel Marusic]

I'm helping my dad with one of his woodworking projects where he is making a credenza with sliding doors that have narrow slats in the door frame. To give you a visual, this piece here has doors that look very similar to what he's trying to do. https://www.allmodern.com/furniture/...000244447.html

We're trying to figure out the best way to attach the slats to the inside of the door frame and are thinking that we'd like to use dowels but are stumped on how to best dowel the actual slats as they are thin and narrow. The door frame itself is straightforward. I want to say the slats are about 3/4" wide by 3/4" tall max. Is there some type of doweling jig specifically for pieces like this that I'm just not searching for correctly on google? Also, we're open to other suggestions on how to attach the slats if there are better options. Thanks!

[Jim Dwight]

My dining room chairs, built from a Woodsmith plan, have 1 inch wide by 1/2 inch thick slats. They are curved to match the back legs. The are not glued but rest in mortises at the top and bottom that are 1/2 and inch or less deep (don't remember exactly at the moment). I have a dominoXL so I used the 12mm cutter to make the mortises. Very quick and easy. If I did not have a domino, I would probably have used a jig and a plunge router to make the mortises. I think this will be much, much easier than trying to assemble them with dowels.

[Thomas McCurnin]

The traditional way would be to mortise and tenon the slats. That's what I do for similar arts and crafts or mission furniture that I make.

The easier method, although not very traditional, would be to plow a dado into the frame to the dimensions of the slats and use spacers, similarly sized, but wider of course, to set the spacing of the slats. A little dab of glue on the spaces and slats would do the trick. You really can't see the spacers.

[Gabriel Marusic]

My dining room chairs, built from a Woodsmith plan, have 1 inch wide by 1/2 inch thick slats. They are curved to match the back legs. The are not glued but rest in mortises at the top and bottom that are 1/2 and inch or less deep (don't remember exactly at the moment). I have a dominoXL so I used the 12mm cutter to make the mortises. Very quick and easy. If I did not have a domino, I would probably have used a jig and a plunge router to make the mortises. I think this will be much, much easier than trying to assemble them with dowels.

Thanks for the feedback. I do actually have the Domino DF 500, though the smallest domino is still too wide for the slat unfortunately. I'm trying to imagine how the jig for the router would look for the end of the slat since it's long and narrow.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I think the idea is to use the Domino to make mortises in the frame the same size as the slats. I made mortises to hold the back slats of a rocking chair using a drill press and Forstner bit to make overlapping holes and then cleaning up the sides with a chisel.

[Tim Andrews]

This is a timely post. I just happen to be building a Mission style table for my wife that has three 7/8” vertical “rails” centered on each end. I use a Dowelmax for much of my joinery because it is so precise and adaptable to solve many problems, and came up with a way to drill centered holes in the ends of the rails.

The process involves building a jig that holds the pieces tightly and allows the Dowelmax to be adjusted for repeatable holes. A few leftover pieces of the stock itself are sandwiched between a couple of scraps of plywood using CA glue, with the same size spacer placed in the center during the glue-up. Takes about 20 minutes including cutting the plywood.

The rails fit very snugly into the opening, with some requiring a touch of sanding to slide in. I snuck up on the placement of the jig to center the hole. I started with the usual spacers in the jig to get me close, and then used layers of tape to dial it in. The holes are almost perfectly centered, and as long as they are oriented the same way in the piece they will be identical.

It’s much easier to understand visually, so I’ve enclosed a photo below. I have never used other doweling jigs, but it might work with those as well.

[Gabriel Marusic]

This is a timely post. I just happen to be building a Mission style table for my wife that has three 7/8” vertical “rails” centered on each end. I use a Dowelmax for much of my joinery because it is so precise and adaptable to solve many problems, and came up with a way to drill centered holes in the ends of the rails.

The process involves building a jig that holds the pieces tightly and allows the Dowelmax to be adjusted for repeatable holes. A few leftover pieces of the stock itself are sandwiched between a couple of scraps of plywood using CA glue, with the same size spacer placed in the center during the glue-up. Takes about 20 minutes including cutting the plywood.

The rails fit very snugly into the opening, with some requiring a touch of sanding to slide in. I snuck up on the placement of the jig to center the hole. I started with the usual spacers in the jig to get me close, and then used layers of tape to dial it in. The holes are almost perfectly centered, and as long as they are oriented the same way in the piece they will be identical.

It’s much easier to understand visually, so I’ve enclosed a photo below. I have never used other doweling jigs, but it might work with those as well.

This is incredibly timely and perfect. While we don't have the exact same doweling jig it is more similar than different and it should work just as well for my dad's project. Thanks!

[Tim Andrews]

This is incredibly timely and perfect. While we don't have the exact same doweling jig it is more similar than different and it should work just as well for my dad's project. Thanks!

Happy to hear that this will work for your doweling jig. I have certainly learned a lot from others on this forum.

I just noticed that we are neighbors, I’m in San Francisco. Best of luck!

[Jim Dwight]

A 4mm mortise is too big? They must be really thin slats.

I would use a template guide on the router base and size the openings in the jig to that guide. I normally take a scrap of plywood, rip it in half, and cut a strip of the same plywood just wider than the template guide of the router base. Then cut sections of the thin strip for the mortises. You have to remember the distance from the template guide to the router bit when cutting these pieces. The bit would match the slats. An advantage of this approach is if you make the jig right you almost certainly won't put the mortises in the wrong place. I normally just plunge the domino based upon pencil marks and I have to double or even triple check my marks to be sure not to mess up.

You have to glue the thin strip of plywood pieces between the wider pieces. You may want to make spacers to get the openings just right.

[Edwin Santos]

This is a timely post. I just happen to be building a Mission style table for my wife that has three 7/8” vertical “rails” centered on each end. I use a Dowelmax for much of my joinery because it is so precise and adaptable to solve many problems, and came up with a way to drill centered holes in the ends of the rails.

The process involves building a jig that holds the pieces tightly and allows the Dowelmax to be adjusted for repeatable holes. A few leftover pieces of the stock itself are sandwiched between a couple of scraps of plywood using CA glue, with the same size spacer placed in the center during the glue-up. Takes about 20 minutes including cutting the plywood.

Clever jig, thanks for sharing. It reminds me of the basic concept behind many router mortise jigs. A couple of questions:

1. I understand the rails are a snug fit, but is there something else that holds them secure against the force of the drill bit pushing against them? Maybe the vise pinching the jig is enough?
2. Did you come up with some method of keeping your rails straight when assembling? A single dowel will allow them to pivot which is why I ask.

[Rick Potter]

I am with Thomas on this one. There is no real stress on the doors, and the spacer method would hold up fine.

I made a couple cribs with slats, and it worked out well.

[Tim Andrews]

Clever jig, thanks for sharing. It reminds me of the basic concept behind many router mortise jigs. A couple of questions:

1. I understand the rails are a snug fit, but is there something else that holds them secure against the force of the drill bit pushing against them? Maybe the vise pinching the jig is enough?
2. Did you come up with some method of keeping your rails straight when assembling? A single dowel will allow them to pivot which is why I ask.

Edwin, I agree that this is a similar concept to some router jigs. I considered using a plunge router with an edge guide and stop, but decided to use the Dowelmax.

I did not use anything else to hold the rails in place as I drilled them, except my hand from underneath. Since the jig is made from the same size stock as the rail, it's very snug for most of the rails. A drum sander would be ideal to make them exactly the same thickness, but since I don't have one I drilled the holes with the pieces coming straight off the planer. Some of the rails had to be tapped into place with a mallet. One was a hair looser, possibly from a small amount of planer snipe, but holding it by hand worked fine.

Since the rails are doweled both top and bottom, as long as the holes in the aprons are spaced correctly (which is easy to do with the DM), the rails will be straight. It's then just a matter of rotating them square, which I did by eye.

[Gabriel Marusic]

A 4mm mortise is too big? They must be really thin slats.

I would use a template guide on the router base and size the openings in the jig to that guide. I normally take a scrap of plywood, rip it in half, and cut a strip of the same plywood just wider than the template guide of the router base. Then cut sections of the thin strip for the mortises. You have to remember the distance from the template guide to the router bit when cutting these pieces. The bit would match the slats. An advantage of this approach is if you make the jig right you almost certainly won't put the mortises in the wrong place. I normally just plunge the domino based upon pencil marks and I have to double or even triple check my marks to be sure not to mess up.

You have to glue the thin strip of plywood pieces between the wider pieces. You may want to make spacers to get the openings just right.

So the 4mm thickness of the domino works fine but the 4mm tenon is 17mm wide which is wider than the slat if that makes sense.

[Mike Henderson]

The traditional way would be to mortise and tenon the slats. That's what I do for similar arts and crafts or mission furniture that I make.

That's what I do, also. It's really not all that difficult.

Mike

[Jim Dwight]

I used the groove with spacer method making a crib based upon plans from Wood magazine. I liked it so well I later used it to make a cherry headboard and footboard. A major advantage is you can assemble the frame and then insert the slats. Doing it during glueup is a big complication during the glueup. You have to put the slats in before putting too many spacers in or you can't tilt them enough to insert them.

The only real issue I had was with very small variation in the width of the slats or the length of the spacers adding up and making getting the spacing right more difficult. What you need to do, IMHO, is to put in all the slats, then start with the spacers but when you get down to the last 6-10, check the space you have left. It looks better to adjust the final group a little bit each than to have one or two much longer or shorter.