Here's a little woodworking tip. When you're gluing up a drawer, put the drawer bottom in BEFORE you glue it up. Has anyone else noticed that the speed at which glue sets up is directly proportional to your need to take the joint apart?
todd
I'm sure that's never been done before...
I did one and stepped out for some dinner... That required a table saw to fix...
Todd Fatheree wrote:
|Here's a little woodworking tip. When you're gluing up a drawer, put the |drawer bottom in BEFORE you glue it up.
Good tip; I will try to remember it.
|Has anyone else noticed that the |speed at which glue sets up is directly proportional to your need to take |the joint apart?
Especially if you've just fired in some brads to hold it together until the glue dries. [g].
Doesn't the bottom slide in from the back & get tacked in place? Or is this a fancier drawer than I've been building?
Dave Hinz
Hm, that sounds familiar.
That crossed my mind too Dave. Although I don't usually build them that way, that would be a good way to fix the problem. Just take a cut across the back of the drawer and slip the bottom in place. My preference for drawers is to enclose them in a dado on all four sides. I've seen too many drawers with the bottom sagging loose at the back, which of course is not a problem with the technique but with the execution.
It's almost as hard as trying to route the grooves for the bottom after the glueup:-( Then you have to round the corners to fit in the front and hand saw/chisel the pieces in the back the router can't reach. Joe
The way I've always done it, which is neither right nor wrong, is to dado every drawer side and slide the bottom in during glue-up.
todd
And it's not just drawers.
I'm doing a box - profiled maple bottom "frame" with fiddle back cherry panel, rosewood carcase/carcass, profiled maple top "frame" with fiddle back cherry panel. The "frames" have 1/4" loose tenon joints, which, while great for aligning things and strengthening the miter join, makes the glue up a little more complicated. And if you're doing it at midnite - well ....
Fortunately, the carcase/carcass hasn't been glued up yet so I can still route a groove in those parts for the bottom panel. Of course the dado on the inside of the bottom maple frame will show. Maybe I'll put cherry in the groove and call it an intended inlay "feature" that only the owner will know about. People love secrets. There's a Navajo or Hopi jeweler, Charles Laloma, who does bracelets and rings which have the best stones in the piece on the inside of the piece.
Short of "shorting" a part, most screw ups can, with a little imagination, be turned into a "feature".
charlie b
All roads lead to Rome. But the closer you get, the longer it takes to get there.
Now you know just one of the reasons why the above is still my favorite method of drawer construction. I've never had one sag and, should someone ask, rank the ability to do any future fixes to the bottom of a drawer as an important *feature*.
So, when you make the back of the drawer, it the back piece just narrower such that the bottom is in line with the top of the groove on the other pieces?
todd
"Todd Fatheree" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:
Yep.
Patriarch
charlie b wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@accesscom.com:
You always seem to be using the most fascinating woods...
Patriarch
And here's Frank Klausz's method of cutting the groove for the bottom AND getting the back piece to line up with the groove.
The way I do it is to rabbet the groove in all 4, and then cut off the back from the rabbet down. The drawer bottom then slides right in the back, 3 brads with large-ish heads and I'm done. Might be another way to do it, but that's what I've been doing.
Dave Hinz
Thanks for the tip. I'm storing this one so that I can refer to it when I build my next set of drawers. ;-)
Your observation about how fast glue sets up is spot on: there is also a corollary when you want the glue to set up so you can stop holding the piece in place.
Frankly, I like the way you do it better, it just seems that it will make a stronger drawer.
Yep ... the back of the drawer bottom slides into place and is fastened to the bottom of the back of the drawer, at the same level that the groove/dado is cut.
Tiplette No. 1: Tack down some scraps of wood at right angles (into an L-shape) onto a sacrificial surface (1/4" melamine) and assemble your box against these scraps.
Tiplette No. 2: Undersize your drawer bottom a smidge (smidges are found on your tape/rule and are the smallest of ticks) so you can pull the drawer square/aren't fighting the drawer bottom.
Tiplette No 3: Dry fit your drawers (for the obvious reasons) and while the whole works are still clamped together pre-finish the interior(s) so that glue squeeze out pops out/off. Shellac Onna Rag works good for this.
Tiplette No. 4: Don't glue the bottom in. Wait for the box sides to set (dry) and flip the whole thing over, re-check for square (square up if needed) and run a bead of hot melt (that glue gun you bought and never seem to use) around the rim of the box. In fact, if you like you can make the groove a couple of smidges (at least two of the smallest ticks) too wide, flip the box over, weight down the drawer bottom (I prefer a bag of lead shot for this) and fill the gap with the hot melt. This leaves no gap on the show side.
Tiplette No. 4 might be a wee bit beyond the pale for some who like to go around and feel up the bottoms of drawers so you've really got to ask yourself, am I the type to go around and feel up the bottoms of drawers?
Oh and the question has to be asked, when was the last time you had to do maintenance on a drawer? Me? I'm thinking should you ever have a drawer fail you'd probably be better off re-making it, but then again, that's just me.
UA100
This is completely dependent on whose drawers. I have no desire to feel the bottom of your drawers no matter how much you assure me well they fit. OTOH, I can think of a few ladies who I'd not mind feeling the bottom of their drawers. Ed
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