Greene & Greene End Table - #15 Drawer Divider/Guides & Problem Part 1

The cabinet will have one drawer and now it’s time to make the guides and the dividers for it.  The drawing below shows them. 

Going through my box of shorts I came up with some that were long enough but not quite wide enough for the dividers.  Since they are hidden and out of sight, I decided to edge glue pieces to get the required width.  They are all a little thicker than I need and close to being the same thickness so it is an easy task to glue them together.

Once the glue had cured a few passes through the thickness sander flattens them.  Cutting to rough length and ripping to final width comes next.  Here they are with the second piece ready to be run though the table saw.  To be safe I did move the already ripped piece on the left out of the way before making the cut.

Cutting to final length using the chop saw is next.  I started by taking a skim cut off one end of each piece to assure it is square. To make sure both of the pieces are the same length I used a stop and a clamp to hold both of them securely in place. 

The dividers have notches at all four corners and a rabbit at one end.  All of them are cut with the stack dado blade.  It would have been nice if they were all the same but no chance for that.  Each one on the divider is different.  I guess it could have been worse but as the dividers are mirror images, I did get to make one cut on each piece before resetting the saw.   Here the table saw is set to cut the rabbit that goes on one end plus a finished part setting on the table saw fence.

With the dividers done the guides need to be added.  They are ½” thick and in my box of shorts there were a couple pieces that thick and long enough to work.  After ripping to final width cutting to final length is next.  Rather than measure then cut them a fence is used to flush the long edges and a stop block at the end makes sure the end is flush with the notch in the divider.  That setup is shown in the left photo.   The actual marking is done by scribing a line with the knife shown.  The tip is on the piece to be marked pointed at the guide whose length I am trying to match.

The guides are glued onto the dividers.  Some very thin pin nails are used to keep them from slipping during clamping.  The photo below shows the setup used to make sure all the edges are aligned while the pneumatic pin driver is used to shoot the pins in place. 

Once the guides are glued and pinned in place, they go in the bench vice to clamp the two pieces tight together.  Here there are thick cauls in front and behind the assembly.  That’s because the assembly is longer than the vice and I wanted to make sure pressure gets applied all the way to the ends.

 After letting the glue cure for a couple hours, the assemblies are taken out of the vise then checked for glue squeeze out.  The bottom joint had a little excess glue as shown in the top photo.  It is easily removed with the scraper shown.  The bottom photo shows the cleaned-up joint.

Drilling the pocket holes is next.  This is one time where I got my order of operations out of sequence.  I should have drilled the pocket holes in the guides before gluing them on but I didn’t.  It’s not a huge problem I just have to readjust the depth collar on the drill bit so the tip of it just comes through the piece.  This is how that adjustment looks like.

From here I can put the bit in the drill and bore the 8 holes for the screws.

After the holes were drilled, I was getting ready to fit the assembly in the cabinet and came across an unpleasant surprise.  The divider's notches are not identical as noted earlier and per the drawing below.  The front notches are deeper than the back ones and I had just drilled all the holes based on the shallower notch.   The result is the pocket holes in the front do not have enough material to provide for a strong connection.  This assembly provides support for the drawer and I am afraid that in use they would fail.  Needless to say, I was not very happy.  As near as I could tell two options were available.  First, was to remake the assemblies and second was to try and fix the problem.  If these were visible when the project is done a new set would be made.  However, they are inside the cabinet and not visible so trying to fix is an option. 

After some thought the only real option was to fill the holes and redrill the pocket holes.  The drill used to make the pocket holes is stepped with a large diameter of 3/8” so I needed a 3/8” oak dowel to fill the hole.  Taking a ½” square oak scrap piece from the project waste pile I turned a dowel to about a hundredth of an inch over 3/8”. 

Once the square ends are removed the dowel rough is cut to length and driven through the 3/8” die shown below that sizes the dowel to just what’s needed. 

The dowels are then cut to final length using the bench hook and Japanese pull saw like was done with the tenon patch in Post #6.  They are then glued and clamped in place.  The photo shows what they look like after the glue has cured and the clamps removed.

Cutting the plugs flush with the guides is next and the bandsaw is used to get close.  The left photo shows everything ready to go and the right photo shows the plugs cut off.

The block plane in the top photo below is used to bring the plugs next to it down very, very close to the guide’s surface.  The last little bit is taken off with a sander.  The top divider/guide in the same photo is done and ready to have the pocket holes drilled in the right place.  The bottom photo shows the same piece with the holes drilled.  All of this repair could have been avoided if I hadn’t gotten the order of operations out of sequence and drilled the holes before gluing the guides to the divider. 

Next Up – Drawer Divider/Guides Part 2 & Shelf Supports