Shopsmith Forums

Thanks for the pictures - now I understand what you have in mind.

I am currently building the drawers. Each of the three cabinets will have four drawers. Two at 4.25" on top, a 6" in the middle, and a 10" on the bottom. The drawers are each about 14" deep except one of the 6" drawers will be extra deep to store lathe chisels.

While I am trying to do most of this project on my Mk V, my box joint jig will only work on my other table saw.

I built all of the smaller 4.25" drawers first. Tonight I started on the first of the three 10" drawers. Herein I found my error.

As best I can figure, I do not have quite enough of a tight fit on my spacing for each notch cut. It did not show itself on the smaller drawers other than a slightly tight fit. However, on the larger drawers, the error shows itself readily. Fortunately I only did one drawer, so I can fix this with only having to recut that one drawer. I will have to run a longer test cut to ensure I have corrected my error before moving on.

Box joints are simple and tedious; a recipe for errors and accidents. I am moving slowly on this part and if I have time in the evening, I only do one. At my slow and methodical pace, each drawer takes about 30-40 minutes to cut.

I already nearly ruined one of the smaller drawers. I was all set up to make a cut and realized I had positioned it wrong in the jig.

The last time I did box joints on plywood I had a good deal of blowout. To remedy that on this project, I am using scrap pieces behind each workpiece.

I am still stuck in “drawer purgatory” but I am now ready to install them. Prior to gluing them up, I decided to build Nick Engler’s gluing jig.

Here is a link to The Workshop Companion website:
https://workshopcompanionstore.com/

This is a fantastic gluing jig and provides a dead flat surface with a 90 degree corner and holes everywhere for getting a clamp anywhere it’s needed.

Also, to mitigate glue squeeze out I waxed the edges of each piece.

My plan was to remove the wax after the glueup by aggressively wiping it down with mineral spirits.

I knew that mineral spirits will dissolve the wax and then evaporate and wouldn’t otherwise harm the wood.

Here is where I learned something new. I also found it would remove any pencil lines and red crayon marks I had missed.

Took ‘em right off!

Am I the only one who didn’t know this?

The drawers are installed and I will be working next on drawer fronts. I got a good deal on some hickory, but I underestimated and will need to get a little bit more to have enough for the drawer fronts.

I'm happy with the way the drawers work. I put some double sided tape on a few scraps of wood to use as temporary drawer pulls.

tfrayne wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2024 3:43 pm I am still stuck in “drawer purgatory” but I am now ready to install them. Prior to gluing them up, I decided to build Nick Engler’s gluing jig.

Here is a link to The Workshop Companion website:
https://workshopcompanionstore.com/

This is a fantastic gluing jig and provides a dead flat surface with a 90 degree corner and holes everywhere for getting a clamp anywhere it’s needed.

Also, to mitigate glue squeeze out I waxed the edges of each piece.

My plan was to remove the wax after the glueup by aggressively wiping it down with mineral spirits.

I knew that mineral spirits will dissolve the wax and then evaporate and wouldn’t otherwise harm the wood.

Here is where I learned something new. I also found it would remove any pencil lines and red crayon marks I had missed.

Took ‘em right off!

Am I the only one who didn’t know this?

Now you know WHY it is referred to as a solvent.