- Joined
- Feb 2, 2013
- Messages
- 3,957
i'm certainly no carpenter, and definitely not a furniture maker.
my brother has a dresser drawer that had a dovetail slide under the drawer that had broken.
the problem is that the female half of the dovetail has a very thin cross section at the base of the dovetail.
to compound the problem, the width of the stock from which the female dovetail was sawn, was too narrow.
i saw this as an opportunity to put myself into an uncomfortable position and learn stuff, in the trial by fire.
my brother got a nice piece of poplar, wider than the original piece, and thicker too.
i laid out, in metric dimensions, the new female dovetail drawer slider spine ( i made up the slider spine part, because i don't know the real nomenclature)
and was using the table saw on spare chunks of wood to ensure good tolerances.
i was certain i was doing everything like Bob Villa, or Norm Abrahms- but apparently my dovetail fu lacks discipline.
i failed miserably because i was so intent on having only a few thousandths of an inch clearance between the male and female parts,
that i completely overlooked how wide my channel was supposed to be, at the narrowest part.
i was so wrapped up in how wide the dovetail had to be at the widest part and i got that dimension worked out on the table saw,
i cut the workpiece , and the dovetail was too wide to even start cutting a dovetail without remaking something
not letting adversity better me, i poured a little Stella Artois on my wounds and contemplated a secondary offensive for Monday after work.
i went to that big box store, and i bought the finest piece of 90mm wide Red Oak i could find.
i laid out the dimensions once again on this even wider piece of wood
this time i chose a different plan of attack, the venerated router
a 1/2" carbide straight bit was used for the main channel to make the dovetailing easier
then a 15° 1/2" dovetail bit was used to make the actual dovetail.
after rapidly finding out that you can't climb router red oak , i readjusted my attack once more
i set up at the other end of (the longer than necessary) board and went for phase 4 or 5- (i quit counting mistakes at that point)
i re-transferred all the dimensions again and this time i used the router in the correct orientation.
i took several shallow passes being extra careful to not go too deep or too wide, i didn't want to set up again
after what seemed to be an eternity, the dovetail finally got cut,
in the correct orientation and with very nice sliding features- almost no resistance
i dripped candlewax into both dovetail surfaces on both members, to ensure easy sliding and used a heat gun to melt it in
here is pictures of my first successful dovetail !
top: broken female dovetail part
middle: my reproduction female dovetail, but beefier
bottom : male dovetail
now my brother gets to put it back together!
thanks for reading!
my brother has a dresser drawer that had a dovetail slide under the drawer that had broken.
the problem is that the female half of the dovetail has a very thin cross section at the base of the dovetail.
to compound the problem, the width of the stock from which the female dovetail was sawn, was too narrow.
i saw this as an opportunity to put myself into an uncomfortable position and learn stuff, in the trial by fire.
my brother got a nice piece of poplar, wider than the original piece, and thicker too.
i laid out, in metric dimensions, the new female dovetail drawer slider spine ( i made up the slider spine part, because i don't know the real nomenclature)
and was using the table saw on spare chunks of wood to ensure good tolerances.
i was certain i was doing everything like Bob Villa, or Norm Abrahms- but apparently my dovetail fu lacks discipline.
i failed miserably because i was so intent on having only a few thousandths of an inch clearance between the male and female parts,
that i completely overlooked how wide my channel was supposed to be, at the narrowest part.
i was so wrapped up in how wide the dovetail had to be at the widest part and i got that dimension worked out on the table saw,
i cut the workpiece , and the dovetail was too wide to even start cutting a dovetail without remaking something
not letting adversity better me, i poured a little Stella Artois on my wounds and contemplated a secondary offensive for Monday after work.
i went to that big box store, and i bought the finest piece of 90mm wide Red Oak i could find.
i laid out the dimensions once again on this even wider piece of wood
this time i chose a different plan of attack, the venerated router
a 1/2" carbide straight bit was used for the main channel to make the dovetailing easier
then a 15° 1/2" dovetail bit was used to make the actual dovetail.
after rapidly finding out that you can't climb router red oak , i readjusted my attack once more
i set up at the other end of (the longer than necessary) board and went for phase 4 or 5- (i quit counting mistakes at that point)
i re-transferred all the dimensions again and this time i used the router in the correct orientation.
i took several shallow passes being extra careful to not go too deep or too wide, i didn't want to set up again
after what seemed to be an eternity, the dovetail finally got cut,
in the correct orientation and with very nice sliding features- almost no resistance
i dripped candlewax into both dovetail surfaces on both members, to ensure easy sliding and used a heat gun to melt it in
here is pictures of my first successful dovetail !
top: broken female dovetail part
middle: my reproduction female dovetail, but beefier
bottom : male dovetail
now my brother gets to put it back together!
thanks for reading!
