Can I fix this stupid mistake?

[rob]

Hi all, I made some dovetailed drawers for a dreseer the other night and when gluing them up didn't check very accurately for square. 2 of the

4 are enough out of square as to be unusable as they will not close correctly on the slides. The bottoms are removable from the back. These drawers are 33" wide by 18" deep, 5/8" aspen with 1/4" hardboard bottoms. Half-blind dovetails. I am thinking that maybe if I remove the bottoms, put some glue in the dado for the bottom, then install the bottom and torque the whole thing into square maybe it'll hold its shape. Is this a waste of time, or do you have any other ideas?

Thanks for any advice folks! Rob

[Stephen M]

How bad is it?

Can you plane a side to make it fit? (and not breaking the existing glue joints)

[Doug Miller]

If the only problem is that the drawers are parallelograms /___/ instead of rectangles |___|, but they're flat, then that might work. If they're twisted as well, then you're wasting your time.

Depending on what type of glue you used, you *may* be able to reopen the glue joints. If it's hide glue, heat and/or warm water will do the trick. I'm not sure if Titebond can be softened or not; search the Google archives; I *think* somebody mentioned a way to do that, a little while back. If it's Gorilla Glue, you're screwed.

If you can't get the joints apart, you'll need to rebuild the drawers.

And if the drawers are twisted, then rebuilding is the only choice, because that means that either your joints aren't cut square, or your wood isn't straight. Either way, you'd need to start over.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

[lopez]

I think I saw that vinegar will soften Titebond glue.

Len

--------

Stephen M wrote:

[nospambob]

[Wood Butcher]

If heat and/or vinegar doesn't soften the joints sufficiently to let you reposition them, all is still not lost.

Remove the bottom and cut the sides as close to the drawer front and rear as possible. Re-cut the dovetails and reassemble. You'll have drawers that are a bit shorter than before, but you will have salvaged all of the materials and most of your labor.

If you used brads to secure the joints you may be screwed.

Art

[Dave in Fairfax]

If you used a white or yellow glue, De-Glue Goo will soften the glue. check Wooodcraft.

Dave in Fairfax

[RemodGuy]

square (i've used a clamp and some culls before). throw a bead of hot glue around the underside of the bottom where it meets the sides(assuming your bottom is in a dado).

[Leon]

If all else fails, cut the drawer sides away form the front and backs and reroute with the same wood. The drawers will be a bit shorter but the wood will not go to waste.

[rob]

Thanks for all the info gang. I like the idea of rerouting after cutting the sides away. I can live with a drawer an inch shorter as long as I don't have to waste all my wood rebuilding. I'll keep the vinegar trick in mind for later. Thanks!

[Wood Butcher]

WTF gives here???? This isn't the first time I've responded to an RFI, only to have someone else chime in hours later with the exact same thing and then others respond to it and completely ignore mine. Do my posts via scumcast not show up? Am I a persona non grata? Am I in everyone's bozo bin?

Art

[Leon]

Maybe it is because when you chimed in starting your post off with "try vinegar", you were the 3rd behind lopez and nospambob to mention that. Had I not read the vinegar trick at the top of you post I may have read the whole thing and not rementioned a similar solution. Perhaps since your post began as 2 precious posts, yours was skipped over also. Or, you could be right about being in everyone's bozo bin except mine.

[Ian Wheeler]

Art

I think you have to give everyone a break here. My news server seems to drop some posts very quickly - I don't see your original post (or any others that mention vinegar) but I do see some others, including your last one.

Some people (like me) may not see you post - so they try to chip in and help out - not knowing the same answer has already been given.

[Wood Butcher]

LOL. That's rich. Leon you confess to being too lazy to read the entire post then you fault me for the way it's written. Keep trying. Maybe one of these days you'll have an original idea of your own.

Art

[Wood Butcher]

Thanks Ian. Yes, I was defiantly a bit cranky when I posted but I did put the posts not showing up question first in the list of possibilities.

Art

[Leon]

Sorry if I offended you when I pointed out the obvious. You don't like my answer, thats OK, but you asked.