Backyard Birds – Part 30

After gluing together the frame of the cabinet, I could start on the drawer. The walls of the drawer would be constructed from four pieces of wood: three pieces of padauk for the front and sides, and one piece of cherry for the back.

To join the four pieces of wood together, I cut dovetail joints. Dovetail joints involve cutting corresponding thicker trapezoidal shapes, called tails, and thinner trapezoidal shapes, called pins, into wood.

Dovetail joints are a very popular method of joinery because they look elegant, they’re strong, and they’re pretty simple to make once you get the hang of them. Getting the hang of them does take a lot of practice, though. I have a whole graveyard of attempted dovetails that I made when I was first learning how to do them.

Some people cut dovetails entirely by hand. Some people use power tools, with router attachments that can cut the pieces. I mostly cut them by hand, although I usually use the bandsaw to take out some of the excess wood before I start doing precision cutting. The main tools that I use are a handsaw, chisels, and a few gadgets to make marks on the wood to show where to cut.

Many people, even if they don’t have woodworking experience, are familiar with dovetail joints, particularly a type of dovetail called a through dovetail. In a through dovetail joint, the joint is fully visible on both pieces of wood.

I made through dovetails for the rear corners of the drawer, where the padauk sides met up with the cherry back.

For the front corners of the cabinet, I used a different kind of dovetail joint: a half-blind dovetail. I did not want the joint to be visible when the drawer was shut, so I used half-blind dovetails to mask the joint.

After I had cut the dovetails, I used the table saw to cut large grooves on the outside of the drawer sides, so that they could run along a track on the inside of the cabinet, and small grooves on the inside of the drawer, so that I could insert the drawer bottom once it was complete.

I waxed the inside surfaces of the drawer before putting it together. The wax brought out the depth of color in both the padauk and the cherry. Below are pictures of each type of wood with one side waxed and the other side not waxed.

When all that was done, I fastened the dovetail joints with glue.