a real great way to decide on drawer glides of wood ( mechanical metal
ones are a sin... no skill needed ! ) is to go to an antique store or
antique show and bring a pad, pencil and a digital camera if you can.
handmade furniture is as old as time and drawers and such have been
figured out way back when... there are only so many choices... the
best method i've ever come across is a hardwood dovetailed tongue idea
down the center of the underside of the drawer.

the dovetail is fitted to the underside of the drawer while the
dovetailed plow piece is fitted to the frame. the drawer has
virtually no side to side wobble with such an arrangement. you'll
need a router with a sharp bit to create such, of course.


as for the rest of your questions... i recommend you do some reading
and viewing of conventional furniture joinery. avoid the cheaply made
furniture cuz you wont get a realistic idea of good old fashioned
lasts forever joinery like you would if you could view the joinery on
say victorian furniture.

the junk made today wont last the 125 years victorian furniture has
lasted.

glue... the 2 best wood glues i've used so far are ' Gorilla Glue '
and polyurathane glue. both these glues are waterproof, they expand
with the furniture... never becoming brittle as with waterbased glue
and their big plus is that they expand as they dry filling up a space
4 times their size. waterbased glue shrinks on drying. on an 1/8 inch
oak veneer piece poly glue comes right out the pores onto the face.
it sands off perfectly.

since you've invested time and money into woodworking it pays to do as
much reading and seeing and touching about the trade as you can.








On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 23:06:50 GMT, Bay Area Dave wrote:

1) Every drawer I've made I've used full extension slides. Now I want
to make an end table with a single drawer; all wood. If I have oak on
hand, do I make a single center runner (and btw, HOW?? ) or do you
use two runners, or runners on the side, from oak? I also have maple,
but the table will be oak. In other words, how do YOU make a drawer
slide with all wood components?

This is going to be a country styled oak end table with a drawer near
the top, and I'm leaning towards, but not committed to, a full width
shelf near the floor. Thinking about tapered legs, which I suppose I'd
have to start by gluing up 5/4 or 6/4 material to make the legs thick
enough. At what point do you make hollow legs (not that I'd imagine
that would be the case for the size I'm gonna make)?

2) I saw a picture of fluted legs that are taped only near the floor,
starting about six inches up. The flutes taper off to a point, like I
had asked about a while back. Still can't quite envision how to bring
the flute to a sharp point while routing it. If I use a router table to
flute, do I just practice at lifting the leg up near the end of the cut,
and set a reference mark, so that all 3 flutes have the same ending
contour. Seems like that would be hard to pull off with uniformity, so
I'm expecting someone has a better way.

3) I think I'm going to finally make mortise and tenons. (MAJOR
CRINGING! I have the mortising attachment for the DP, which should work
in oak, I hope.) Mortise first, and then make the tenon fit it,
correct? What level of smoothness does a decent M&T have to have for a
long lasting joint? I can't imagine that the mortising attachment is
gonna leave the walls of the mortise all that smooth. I've only gone
general purpose chisel for now. Do I just got at it with sandpaper or
do I need to buy more tools (aaargh! I can't get something new every week!)

I don't have a tenoning attachment for the TS, but could rig up
something, albeit kludgy to run a board thru vertically. Is using a BS
not a good way to do it? I have one blade that gives a reasonably
smooth cut; a 3/16 Pro olsen 10 TPI, raker set. Should I just use the
TS for ALL the tenon cuts? I'm expecting that if it's all done on the
TS, I won't need to smooth the surface, but to make a tiny adjustment,
do you sand or what? My new smoother is the only plane I've got. Or
would I be better off milling this on the router table, using a 1/2
straight double flute bit. I could make precise depth changes to the
bit for a very precise fit. Would you use or TS or router?

Please tell me I can accomplish these tasks without buying more stuff!
Eventually I'll get a bunch of chisels, and perhaps a tenon jig for
the TS. But for now, is this doable with a BS, TS, router table, and no
Neander tools but one basic chisel and a smoother.

How do you set up a router to do a deep, carefully positioned mortise,
without buying the Leigh jig, or other expensive jig? Like I said, I
have a router table, but I also have a 2 1/4 HP handheld router.


dave