Domino Drawers

[Mike Goetzke]

I have made drawers using Dominos a couple times. I cut the mortises and then assembled the boxes. I recently saw that some build/glue the box and cut the Domino mortises afterwards. This seems better/easier to me. Any disadvantages of doing it this way?

Thanks

 

[SoonerFan]

I have never heard of this approach. It seems interesting and is something I will look into. Did you watch a video or something? If I am understanding the approach right, I suppose one negative is you cannot use the Domino for alignment of the drawer box components.

 

[jhawk1981]

Not sure if what you are talking about is what I've done in the past, but I used dominoes on some drawers years ago and I assembled the drawer boxes and then added them after. Attaching a picture for reference.

Hope it helps.

Jesse

 

[ChuckM]

The dominoes serve both an alignment and a joinery functions for a box construction. If one puts together a box before mortising, it means one doesn't need or benefit from that alignment function.

 

[woodferret]

Disadvantage to doing it the traditional way is that the 4mm that most people use for this, is only 18mm deep. That means, 12mm sides, you're plunging 5mm (setting 15) and a through on the side (watch your fingers). If you do the decorative-ish plunge afterwards, it's easy to just set 25 (15mm) and not worry about having a domino too short.

If you're doing 15mm sides, then it starts to get silly the traditional way and I don't think the dominos add any strength anyways - especially the decorative method that doesn't even push into the front face.

Of course, this is all moot if you make your own dominos.

 

[jhawk1981]

I probably should have added that i built those "domino drawers" with a rabbet (sp?) on the sides, like I normally do, but instead on pins or brads to secure them, I used the dominoes after clamping them up. Some strength for the pulling force when opening the drawer, but looks better than brad also. Now I just have to learn how to do dovetails.

 

[SoonerFan]

@jhawk1981 Every time I think about dovetails I conclude using Dominos is faster, provides plenty of strength and I then choose to spend the extra time on another are of the project. But like you, I should probably do it a couple times to teach myself the ins and outs of dovetails.

 

[Cheese]

I just made a simple jig/fixture to hold and register the box sides when I needed to Domino the surfaces. A couple of DestaCo clamps and 2 small oak blocks screwed to 3/4 ply that act as side stops for the Domino when plunging both vertically & horizontally.

Vertical plunging and the result...8424-8426-8426

Horizontal plunging and the result...8431-8432-8433

 

[Packard]

@jhawk1981 Every time I think about dovetails I conclude using Dominos is faster, provides plenty of strength and I then choose to spend the extra time on another are of the project. But like you, I should probably do it a couple times to teach myself the ins and outs of dovetails.

When I was making lots of drawers, I kept my Porter-Cable dovetail jig permanently set up with two routers (also permanently set up.

So making a drawer only entailed cutting the front and back and the sides to length. Then to the jig. Setting up the jig and the two routers setups represented 75% of the joinery time. So properly dovetailed drawers can be made efficiently.

For an occasional drawer, I use through dowels for the joints. I drill three holes per joint. I gently tap the dowels in place, so no trimming. Just sanding. But still slower than the ready-to-use dovetail setup.