How to Make Dead Simple Drawers - No Nails and No Screws

if you're looking to make simple well-constructed strong drawers utilizing only your table saw and they don't require any nails or screws to hold them together then you found the right video welcome to pony box wood shop [Music] about four or five years ago i noticed my friend james using this process to build drawers for his jewelry cabinets and other cabinetry i thought it was a really simple process that built a very strong and sturdy drawer and i like the fact that it didn't require any nails or screws and once you got your table saw set up you never had to move that set up again your table saw fence stayed in the same spot your blade stayed at the same height and you made all of your cuts without ever moving it which i thought was a really unique and easy process the only thing that you need for this project is of course your boards i went ahead and pre-cut mine uh to make your drawer you need a front a back and two sides your table saw a dado stack but really all you need is your two outer blades you might need a couple shims because this needs to be set up to cut a dado wide enough to fit a quarter inch piece of plywood through it mine just requires the two outer blades and it's good to go you also need a board that extends the height of your table saw fence and what i'm going to do is use a couple clamps and i'm going to attach this board to my table saw fence to give it some extra height because one of these cuts is going to require your table saw fence to be a little bit higher uh just to be able to safely do it so i'm just going to use this piece of three quarter inch poplar that's laying around my shop and a couple regular clamps to clamp it to my board it's going to give me plenty of height when i make that cut now i'm going to be using just some regular clamps to clamp this to my table saw fence but really a better option is to cut a sliding dovetail on the back side of a board like this and then use these dovetail clamps they're very handy they keep them around the shop all the time that way they slide in and can clamp right to your table saw fence and you kind of have a dedicated taller fence to keep around the shop for other cuts but for this i'm trying to make it simple be able to grab a board throw it on this is perfectly fine it's going to work great with just a clamp on the front end and the back end it's going to raise our table saw fence up make this a good safe cut if you don't have a dado stack i will put a couple links down in the description section below to a few affordable dado stacks and also to this one it's a little more on the high end but it's a really good dado stack i really like it it's served me well over the years and if you want to know more about a dado stack i'll put a link right there in the corner of this video that you can check out i'll tell you everything you need to know about it as far as installing them all the parts that come with them and all of that good stuff all right with my dado stack in place i'm gonna go ahead and move my fence over and get it set up a quarter of an inch away from my blade now remember to use a tape measure or something to measure this with because if you're using this three quarter inch board attached to the side of your fence then your measurements on your table saw fence are not going to be correct with our fence set we can now set our blade to one quarter of an inch high lower that down right there so this is where this process gets its name the blade is a quarter of an inch wide it is a quarter of an inch from the fence and it is set at a quarter of an inch high so they call this the quarter quarter quarter method now that our table saw is set up we don't have to touch it again throughout this entire process that's really nice and we can go ahead and start making our cuts and the first thing we're gonna do is go ahead and cut a quarter inch dado down the long edge of all four of our boards and that's gonna be the dado to accept our quarter inch plywood for the bottom of each one of these drawers so let's go ahead and get that done on each one of these boards and then we'll move on to the next step with our quarter inch dado cut along the long edge of each one of our four boards let's go ahead and set aside all of our boards except for one of the side pieces and let's finish up the cuts on these what we're going to need to do now is cut a quarter inch dado along the short edge on both sides of the side pieces so we're going to use a miter gauge for that butt it up against the fence and then just push it through then we're going to flip it around butt up the other edge to the fence and then push it through and we're going to do that for both the side pieces to finish those up all right now both of our side pieces are complete we have the quarter inch dado along the short edge on both sides and a quarter inch dado along one of the long edges so now let's move on to the two end pieces we've got the front and the back so these two end pieces they're going to be done a little differently than the side pieces you're going to want to take the space that we already have a dado in and put it up against your fence and stand the board up on its edge and then we're going to run it through like this this is why you needed that taller fence that's going to keep your hand safely away from the blade as we're running it through and it's going to create a rabbet on this back side so we're going to go ahead and make a cut on each end of each one of the front and the back pieces and get that done so i'm gonna be honest with you i don't like the width in that throat plate it's making this cut a little too unsafe when i get over here it's making it rock a little too much on me so i'm going to change out this throat plate real quick all right there we go i feel much better about that i should have had that in there in the first place that's another thing it's a very good lesson if something doesn't feel right if it doesn't feel safe stop reevaluate and change it so that it is safe even on video i don't mind stopping and doing something correctly i would rather be able to do this correctly for the video in a safe manner and show people the correct way than i would try to just fight through that and risk having a disaster so now that's a lot more safe let's go ahead and finish up these cuts now that all of our dados and rabbits are cut we can go ahead and drop it this thing together and get a measurement for the quarter inch bottom so these dados and rabbits just fit right into each other and if all your measurements were correct you should get them to pop right in with just a little bit of force just a little bit of snugness but nothing too much there you go there we go and there we go so everything fits snug so the reason why this simple joint stays so strong over the years for these drawers is you have this rabbet going into this dado and when you're pulling on your drawer you'll be pulling this way this is your front board and the face will go right here and i don't care how many years you pull on this you'll never pull this joint loose because of the way that that rabbet goes inside of that dado like that so it makes it a very strong joint for drawers and it works perfectly let's go ahead and measure for square and bottom we're going to measure inside the inside for the length and then we're going to add a half of an inch that's going to be to make up for the quarter of an inch dado on both sides so i've got my measurement i'm going to add a half of an inch and that's going to be the length of my quarter inch plywood and then the same thing for the width i'm going to get the width and then add a half of an inch now if you're doing a bunch of these what i recommend is getting all of your side and end pieces cut for all of your drawers setting up your table saw running all of the pieces through to get your rabbets and dados and then taking the dado stack out putting in your regular blade and cutting for all of your quarter inch bottoms that be a nice way to batch all these out and get these done very efficiently and quickly so i'm going to take all this stuff out get my bottom cut and then we'll get a final assembly on this now that everything's cut we can go ahead and do final assembly on this drawer i'm just going to add a little bit of glue in the dado i am not going to add any where the quarter inch panel goes i'm going to put my two end pieces in place pretty simple now i can slide my quarter inch bottom panel into place there we go all right with that in place a little bit of glue in the dados of my other side piece i can go ahead and slide that into place nice and snug now here's a nice thing about the construction of this drawer is it only takes two clamps if i can find those two clamps the only thing you have to clamp are the two ends there you go with pressure on both of these end pieces get some of that excess out i'm sure i got some on my table saw hey kids don't do glue ups on your table saw it's a terrible idea but kind of in a hurry and not paying attention but anyway so now it's in the clamps and sit there in the clamps once this glue is dry this drawer is done and it is good to go one of the one things you can do but you don't have to is take your nail gun and put some pin nails into the end grains of these boards on the sides here and that will allow you to take the clamps off the pin nails will hold these in place and allow the glue to dry and it'll be good to go all right folks that does it for us today i want to teach you up another video right there i hope that this video helped you in streamlining and making your drawer construction a lot easier this is a great method i hope you use it let me know down in the comment section what you think about it as always down in the description section there'll be a direct affiliate link to all the tools that i use in this video anytime you use those links it helps the channel out and i appreciate it we'll see you on the next one

Channel: Penalty Box Woodshop

Views: 641,816

Rating: 4.9281464 out of 5

Keywords: how to make dead simple drawers, dead simple drawers, simple diy drawers, how to make drawers, easy drawer box construction, how to, how to build drawers, how to make drawers for beginners, diy drawers for desk, diy drawers, how to make drawers for desk, how to make drawers for cabinets, penalty box woodshop, penalty box woodworking

Id: C7_bmT8r6zk

Length: 12min 8sec (728 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/peterbalazs]

Yeah, dado blades. Unfortunately that's not something we, Europeans, can use.

[u/pour_bees_into_pants]

Any concern about expansion on the plywood bottom? It sounded like you measured for a pretty tight fit.

[u/[deleted]]

Shit. Where the hell did I put my table saw?

[u/nightwood]

Perfect for people who have a workshop with a table saw, but no nails or screws!

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/FirCoat]

Great video! Bookmarked it for future reference.

What made the original throat box more dangerous? Naively, it just looked like the surface (not the height or size of opening) changed.

[u/lordrashmi]

I'm literally about to do this. Was setting up my dado blade before the kids interrupted me. Will do it tomorrow.

Thanks for the refresher!

[u/Big_Truck_Rodeo]

The only thing I dont like about this method is that the end grain of the sides will show on the front.