It’s symmetrical, with interlocking dovetail slides and keys. The sides are alike, as are the ends and the top and bottom. Which is really the top? How do you get it open? The answer may not be immediately obvious. For now, don’t try to solve it. Think about getting it made.

You’ll only need a couple feet of stock, depending on board width. So rummage through your stashes of scraps too good to toss. Joint and plane all the stock for the box to a 1/2″ thickness. Rip the sides and ends to width, and crosscut these four parts to length. Make sure you have some decent sized scraps, thicknessed along with the good stuff, to use for dialing in setups. Set the rest aside for now.

Making Rabbeted Miter Joints

I elected to use rabbeted miter joints to assemble the sides and ends. The joint’s benefits are its clean appearance, its improved stress resistance over a plain miter joint, and particularly its ease of assembly. You can cut mitered rabbets on the table saw, but it’s less intimidating to make them on the router table. You’ll need a bit to cut rabbets and a chamfering bit to add the mitered ends.

The sequence, as shown in the photos, is as follows: First, you rabbet the parts. Then you bevel the ends of those rabbets — in effect, mitering them.

The depth for all the rabbets is half the stock thickness, in this case 1/4″. Put a straight bit in the router and carefully adjust the depth of cut to 1/4″. Make a test cut on a piece of the setup scrap; rip the scrap in two and put the pieces together in a shiplap. The faces must be flush with the bottoms of the rabbets tight together. If you’ve got a gap between the rabbets or if the faces aren’t flush, tweak the bit height and cut a new test. Then set the fence for the first round of rabbets.

The rabbets cut across the ends of the box sides are half the stock thickness in width, or 1/4″. Slide the fence into position, and use the final depth-of-cut test piece as a gauge in setting it. You want only enough of the bit exposed to cut as wide as the depth. Again, confirm the accuracy of the setup with test cuts.

Rabbet the ends of both side pieces, backed up with a good-sized pusher to guide the workpieces through the cuts.

Now alter the setup for rabbeting the box end pieces. These rabbet widths match the stock thickness exactly. Using an end piece as a gauge, shift the fence to expose more bit. Once again, confirm the accuracy of the setup with test cuts. That done, cut rabbets across the box ends.

Beveling the Rabbets

The bevels (or miters) are routed with a chamfering bit. When you fit the bit in the router, be sure to extend it far enough out of the collet. The bottom of the cutters must be 1/4″ above the tabletop to mill the bevels. As you adjust the height of the bit, use a workpiece to gauge the precise elevation. The terminus of the angled cutting edge must align with the rabbet bottom. Similarly, adjust the fence so only enough of the bit is exposed to cut the thickness of the rabbet projection.

Confirm your setup using the final rabbet test-cut scraps. Make any necessary adjustments before cutting the good parts. Back up the cuts to prevent blowouts.

After sanding the parts and checking the fit, I assembled the box with glue, clamping it with a band clamp and four shop-made corner blocks. To make such blocks, cut a rabbet in a 1-1⁄4″-square strip, then chop it into four pieces, each about 2″ long. Wax the faces of the rabbets so the blocks don’t get glued to the box. As you tighten the band, measure the diagonals to ensure the box is square — you may need to coax it.

Make Rabbeted Tops and Bottoms

After the glue sets, pop off the band and corner blocks, clean up the edges of the box, and rip and crosscut the top and bottom to fit the box you’ve now got. I cut the two parts using a cutoff sled on the table saw, and I used the box assembly to set a stop for ripping, then crosscutting the parts accurately.

Cut 1/8″-deep, 1/2″-wide rabbets around the top and bottom (see Drawings), so these parts set slightly into the box. Glue the bottom to the box (not the top).

Rout Slots, Slides and Keys

I routed all the dovetail slots, grooves, slides, and keys with a 3/4″ 14° dovetail
bit. I cut the wide slots in the box ends first, then routed and fitted slides to them. Put the bit in the router and adjust the cut depth to 3/8″. Plan to make the slots about 1-3⁄4″ wide (precision here is irrelevant). Set the fence 15⁄16″ from the tip of the cutter for the initial cut. Using its rabbet, position the top on the box. To prevent blowout damage, cut two pieces of scrap to cover the top and bottom. A clamp holds the package together and ensures you slide the same side of the box along the fence on each cut.

Make a first pass, routing a dovetail groove through one end of the box. Then roll the box end-for-end and make a duplicate groove through the other end. Adjust the fence about 5/8″ further away from the bit and make second passes though both ends, widening the slots. A second fence adjustment and third cuts should be sufficient to complete the slots.

To make the slides, cut a strip of 1/2″-thick stock about 2″ wide and 7″ long. Leave the depth-of-cut setting unchanged, but move the fence to house the bit almost completely. A shallow first pass along each edge of the blank establishes the dovetail angle but leaves a shoulder above the bit to bear against the fence. A multi-pass cut-and-fit process, shifting the fence, whittles down the dovetail section without affecting the overall (fence-bearing) width of the blank.

Once the blank fits easily into either slot, cut it into two slightly overlong slides. Clamp the box in your bench vise, with a scrap tucked in to hold the slide in place, as shown. Plane down the slide flush with the box end’s face. Turn the box over and repeat the operation to finally fit the second slide. Sand the ends of the wide slides flush with the top and bottom of the box. Glue the slides to the box top (and only to the top, not to the box itself).

With them in place, you can now rout the key grooves across the box top and bottom. Milling them repeats the earlier process for routing the wide slots. Clamp scrap against the wide slides to prevent exit damage. Lower the bit to cut only 1/4″ deep, and set the fence to locate the groove in the center of the box. Plow grooves across the box top and bottom.

Make the keys the way you did the wide slides. Resaw or plane a 1″-wide strip of stock to 3/8″ thick. Rout the edges and fit the keys into the grooves. Plane them flush and trim them to exact length.

I applied Waterlox for finish, allowing it to dry for several days before rubbing it out with wax and #0000 steel wool.

Solution Step of Construction

The solution to the box’s puzzle — how to open the thing? — is in the limited movement of the bottom key. It moves clear of one slide, but then stops with its far end sticking out. That movement aligns tiny notches in the key’s edges with the dovetail notch in the adjacent slide. Pull the top up, and the slides (they’re glued to the top, remember) pull up and off with it.

The key’s movement is governed by a 1/8″-dia. dowel pin projecting into a short slot in the box bottom. Fit it by pulling the key out of the bottom and laying out the ends of the slot on the centerline of the dovetail groove. Drill the ends of the slot with a 3/16″ bit and then waste the material between them. Reinsert the key, aligning its ends flush with the box ends, then transfer the near slot end location to the key with a transfer punch or drill bit. Move the key to what will be the limit of its travel and score its edges to mark the two notches that must be pared. Pull out the key and drill a stopped 1/8″-dia. hole at the mark, then pare off the dovetailed edges. Reinsert the key, glue the pin into its hole, and fit the top and slides in place.

I left the key in the top unglued, as a kind of diversion. The key comes out, but the box just doesn’t open!

Click Here to Download the Materials List and Drawings.

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The first choice for the average rabbeting operation is the rabbet bit, which has a pilot. It minimizes setup: The only adjustments you can make are the depth of cut and the angle of attack. The measurement between the bit’s cutting edge and its pilot governs what I call the width of the rabbet. (A lot of bit manufacturers call this the depth of the rabbet.) You insert the bit, adjust the depth setting, and rout. It is simple.

To alter the width of the rabbet with such bits, you can do two things. One is that you can change your angle of attack, as shown in the drawing. This can be a useful approach, since it can change the dimension over which you have control, while preserving the simplicity of setup and operation that pilot bits provide.

The other thing you can do is to change the pilot bearing. Every bit manufacturer sells separate bearings, and in the case of rabbet bits, they package sets that will give you many different cut widths from one bit.

Interchangeable bearings make the rabbet bit versatile. A number of manufacturers offer bearing sets to complement their rabbet bits. Depending on the bearing used, a standard 1/2″ rabbet bit will also give you 1/8″, 3/16″, 1/4″, 5/16″, 3/8″, and 7/16″ cuts. That’s seven different cut widths from one bit. You can find packages with fewer bearings, and with more bearings.

(There is a third thing you can do, and that is to circumvent the pilot somehow — using an edge guide or a fence. You can only narrow the cut using this approach, but it’s valid: it works. If you take this approach, though, you probably should question why you are using a rabbet bit and not a straight bit.)

The piloted bit can be used in both handheld and table-mounted routers, of course. Because the bit is piloted, you don’t have to use the router table fence. (You should use a starting pin if you don’t use the fence.) If you do use the fence, set it so it lines up with the pilot. Hold a straightedge so it bridges the bit gap in your fence, and adjust the fence until the pilot just touches the straightedge (without lifting either end off the fence).

While the rabbet bit has some limitations, it is easy to set up, cutting predictable widths without time-consuming test cuts. And rabbeting curved work is something only a piloted rabbet bit can do.

Thwarting Splinters

The best way to avoid splintered edges when you rout rabbets is to make the first pass what I call a scoring cut. There are two ways to make it.

With a handheld router, make the first pass a climb cut. It’s usually a wavering cut, because nothing is guiding it. Rather than hitting the wood fibers head-on and driving them out from the board’s edge, the cutter is sweeping in on them, creating a crisp edge to the cut. On a second pass, feed the proper direction, cutting full depth.

There’s good reason to be wary in making that climb cut. The router seemingly will try to run away from you. But the cut is shallow, so the cutter can’t get much traction. And, of course, you have a firm grip on the router, too.

The approach on the router table is different. I don’t like climb cuts on the router table, ever. So set the fence to allow the barest of cuts, only 1/32 inch, perhaps 1/16 inch. Feed in the correct right-to-left direction. The cutter glances across the wood fibers and doesn’t get enough purchase to dig out an ugly splinter.

Reset the fence then, and cut the rabbet to whatever depth you desire.

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Strong and versatile, the sliding dovetail joint has many applications, from case construction to leg-and-rail joinery. You’ve probably seen a drawing of the sliding dovetail joint. It’s a hybrid of the dado and the dovetail, with a groove in one part, a tongue on the other. Because both the groove walls and the tongue sides are angled like a dovetail, the joint has to be assembled by sliding the tongue into the groove from one end.

Those canted walls give the sliding dovetail joint a decided strength advantage over a dado. The joint mechanically resists tension, meaning that the tailboard can’t pull away from the grooved board. Even without glue, the parts stay linked together. The wood must crush or break before the two parts separate.

This characteristic of the joint simplifies assembly routines. You won’t have parts collapse while you’re fumbling with clamps. Two hands usually are sufficient for assembling even multi-part casework, like a chest of drawers. Slightly bowed panels sometimes can be pulled into line without elaborate clamping configurations.

The sliding dovetail joint has another singular advantage: If left unglued, it will allow the parts to move without coming apart. A breadboard end is the obvious example. You apply a narrow strip of wood across the end of a glued-up panel to conceal its end grain and to keep it flat. The joint — unglued — allows the tabletop to expand and shrink across its width, even though the end strip isn’t elongating and shrinking.

Other applications of the sliding dovetail abound:
•    Join shelves to bookcase sides.
•    Build drawers, joining the sides to the front and the back to the sides.
•    Join aprons to table legs, and even rails to stiles, in frame-and-panel constructions.
•    Mount moldings and case tops with dovetail keys or butterfly keys, holding them tight to the structure but allowing the wood to move.
•    Mount battens to tabletops, lids, and doors to prevent them from bowing, doing this in the same way you’d mount a breadboard end.
•    Make drawer runners and guides.
•    Construct extension-table slides.

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West Coast router guru Pat Warner is selling a straight bit set on his website www.patwarner.com. Warner selected four straight bits from the catalog of Paso Robles Carbide and bundled them with a mortise-cutting bit of his own design. With his set, you can rout mortises and tenons, cut grooves, dadoes and slots, joint on the router table, and do template-guide cuts.

“Each one is unique,” says Warner. “Not one of them looks like another. All were selected for their functionality, durability, deflection resistance, quality of cut, safety and the ability to be reground four or five times.”

The set includes:

– 1/4″ solid carbide, two-flute straight with a 3/4″ cutting length and a 2″ overall length

– 5/8″ carbide-tipped, two-flute downshear straight with a 1″ cutting length and a 3″ overall length

– .508″ carbide-tipped, two-flute mortiser with a 9/16″ cut length and a 3 1/2″ overall length. Warner calls it “a long, strong, short-fluted tool for deep excavations.”

– 1-1/8″ carbide-tipped, two-flute slow-upspiral with a 1 1/8″ cut length and a 3″ overall length

– 1-1/8″ carbide-tipped, two-flute slow-upspiral with a 1 5/8″ cut length and a 3 3/8″ overall length and a shank-mounted bearing

The set comes with Warner’s knowledgeable backup. His web site has information on applications for each bit, and a telephone call or e-mail will elicit “advice on safety, routable material, setup, practicality and general support.” Just don’t expect step-by-step guidance.

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This 3 1/4 hp, 15 amp, variable-speed tool looks to me like a war machine from Star Wars, what with its squat motor and compact knobs perched high on beefy posts.

Sliding it around atop a workpiece reinforces that image, since the extremely high knob placement makes it pretty ungainly.

But the Triton has two revolutionary features for table-mounting: a winder-operated, rack-and-pinion, micro-adjustable system for setting the depth-of-cut and one-wrench, above-the-table bit changing.

I’ved used the Triton for only a couple of weeks, but already I can tell it’s going to be my router-table warrior.

The Triton has two modes: plunge and “winder.” Turn the mode selector in the hand-grip to “unlock” and the router operates like a typical plunge router, complete with a plunge-lock lever beside one of the handgrips and a two-position depth-stop turret. But turn the selector to “lock,” and that hand-grip becomes a “winder.” Squeeze the winder’s lock-ring and turn it to raise and lower the motor on the posts.

Release the lock-ring to hold the elevation. A separate micro-adjust knob raises or lowers the bit in those superfine increments-1/32ths, 1/128ths, thousandths, micromillimeters. What’s your measuring pleasure?

More Good Stuff!

Wind the motor as far as it will go into the base. The collet projects a good 3/4″ beyond the router’s base. At the same time, a spindle lock automatically engages and a cover over the power switch locks. The collet is above the table now, and only one wrench is needed to loosen it. Just a quarter-turn frees the bit. Because the switch cover is locked, you can’t turn on the router, even if you tried (I did, I did. It won’t power up.) And if the switch is on, the router cannot be plunged to bit-changing depth. (Yeah, I tried that too, and that feature works as well.)

Because of the through-the-base bit-changing arrangement, clear polycarbonate shields between the base and motor provide chip defection and collection.

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A Noden Adjust-A-Bench is just what you need. (It is certainly what I need!) It is the invention of furnituremaker Geoffrey Noden, who felt the need in his own shop, and had the know-how to design a sound, foolproof adjustable-height leg assembly.

If mounted on the Noden leg assemblies, a benchtop can be raised and lowered through a 15-inch adjustment range. The legs are strong enough to withstand all the pounding, pushing, and pulling your woodworking can deliver. What is unique is that you can drop it to mid-thigh height when an assembly table is what you need, then jack it up above elbow height when a higher-than-usual work surface is useful. The ratchet adjustment mechanism provides a stop every 1 1/2 inches. Optional casters provide a means of fine adjustment between ratchet stops.

For the last several weeks, I’ve been using Noden’s own bench, which he lent me right off the floor of the Philadelphia Furniture Show in April. It has been great for operations I usually do at my 4-foot-tall router bench. Loved having it when I assembled the case for a chest of drawers (haven’t gotten that low assembly table built yet). And I sure would like to have the casters so it would be easier to move around the shop. Even though this particular bench lacks a vise and has a top I’m leery of marring, it is handy and practical.

The Adjust-A-Bench consists of a pair of powder-coated metal leg assemblies. You supply the wooden rails and a benchtop. Each assembly consists of two nesting trays with a ratcheting mechanism. Together the pair weigh 78 pounds.

To raise the benchtop, you simply lift it. A latch in the ratchet prevents the bench from dropping. To lower the benchtop, you step on a foot pedal and lift slightly. The pedal disengages the latch and allows the benchtop to be lowered. (If you step on the pedal inadvertently, the benchtop won’t drop.) Adjust the bench one end at a time or, if you have a helper, both ends simultaneously. Set it level or at an angle.

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