Locking Rabbet Joints

7/28/2019 Locking Rabbet Joints

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locking

rabbet joints

© 2011 August Home Publishing Co.



setup & safety tips

2 WoodsmithShop.com © 2011 August Home Publishing Co. All Rights Reserve

Standing a workpiece on end to

make a cut on the table saw can

be a challenge.

fence. To provide extra support

or long workpieces, I attach a tall

auxiliary ence made out o ply-

wood to the rip ence (Figure 1).

base. Also, a zero-clearance basekeeps the workpiece rom drop-

ping into the opening between

the blade and the insert. Simply

stick a piece o hardboard to the

saw table with double-sided tape,

and raise the blade through it.

support block. Finally, to hold

the workpiece tight against the

ence (and avoid tipping it or-

ward), I clamp it to a support

side, as shown in the drawings on

the previous page. Note: Both parts

are cut with a 1 ⁄ 4" dado blade.

tongue. To orm the tongue, the

frst step is to cut a groove in the end

o the drawer ront, as in Figure 1.

This requires standing the piece on

end. To do this saely, I use the sim-ple setup shown in the box below.

When cutting the groove, the

goal is to end up with a 1 ⁄ 4"-thick

tongue. This way, you won’t have to

adjust the width o the blade when

you cut the dado later. So start by

positioning the ence 1 ⁄ 4" rom the

inside o the blade.

Then raise the blade to the cor-

rect height (or either a lipped or

ush joint) and cut the groove, as

you see in Figures 1a and 1b. Note:

Place the inside o the drawer ront against the ence.

The second part o making the

tongue is to cut it to length, as illus-

trated in Figure 2. This is just a

matter o using the ence as a stop

to establish the fnal length o the

tongue (Figures 2a and 2b).

When cutting the tongue, there’s

one thing to be aware o. I you

remove the waste in a single pass,

the cuto can get pinched between

the blade and the ence and come

ying back. To prevent this, I make

several passes until the workpiece

“bottoms out” against the ence.

dado. When you’re done with thetongue, the next step is to cut the

dado in the side o the drawer.

You’re ater two things here. The

tongue on the drawer ront needs to

ft the dado in the side. And the nar-

row stub (the part that’s let on the

end ater you cut the dado) must slip

into the groove in the drawer ront.

In theory, this should be easy. Just

adjust the blade height and set the

ence. But in practice, I’ve ound this

can produce such a tight ft that the

stub breaks o. To prevent this, I

use a simple, two-pass method. The

goal is to make the dado a hair wider

and the stub just a bit narrower.Start by setting the ence and

blade height “by the numbers” (Fig-

ures 3 and 3a). But don’t cut the dado

just yet. Instead, add a ew strips o

masking tape to the ence, as in Fig-

ure 3. (You may need to experiment

with the number o layers).

This nudges the workpiece away

rom the ence when you make the

frst pass (Figure 3b). Removing the

tape and making a second pass pro-

duces a perect ft, as in Figure 3c.

a.

3

b. c.

DOUBLE-SIDED

TAPE

1 2

block, as illustrated in Figure 2

above and Figure 1 on page 1.

It’s just a scrap with a piece o

hardboard that extends out in

ront so you can apply pressure

to the side o the workpiece. Cut-

ting a notch in the block creates

a clamping surace. And gluing

on a strip o sandpaper keeps the

workpiece rom slipping.

Locking Rabbet Joints

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