What You’ll Need
■ ⅛" drill bit
■ ⅛" dowel
■ Small handsaw or backsaw
■ Small (8 oz. to 13 oz.) hammer
■ Combination square
■ Drill/driver
■ Chisel, at least 1" wide, or sandpaper
T
he pegged joint is a standard in tradi-tional furniture. Historically, it’s been used to pin through a mortise and into a tenon, but it can also be used in place of nails on basic joinery like dadoes and rabbets.Not only do the pins lend strength to the joint, but they also add a decorative touch. You can use a plain dowel in the same or a contrasting wood. I usually opt for a contrasting wood, because I like the look a little better. When you’re building a piece of furniture for your home, pegged joints lend a more refined look.
The joints on both the front rabbet and the rear dado on the drawer of this router table can be pegged.
1.
Start by applying a layer of glue to the joint, then clamp it up. Make sure the cor-ners are square with a tri- or combination square. You can either let the glue dry com-pletely and then move on to step 2 or keep the clamps in place throughout the pegging process and move on right away.2.
Use a combination square to mark out three equally spaced points on the side of the joint, then drill the holes using a 1⁄8" drill bit, as shown in photo A. Make sure to drill at least 1" into the drawer front.3.
Once the holes are drilled, you’re ready for the pegs. To make the pegs, cut the dowel into lengths of approximately 1½", using aA
B
handsaw. Put a little glue on the ends of the pegs, then use a hammer to tap them into the holes you drilled in step 2, as shown in photo B. You’ll know when you’ve hit the full depth of the hole because you’ll hear a difference in tone as you tap on the peg.
4.
Now the dowels are in place, and you’re ready to trim them flush to the side of the drawer. Start by sawing them off with a small handsaw or backsaw. Hold the side of the saw flush to the drawer side, as shown in photo C, and you’ll be pretty close to flush.5.
Trim and smooth the end of the sawn peg with a sharp chisel. Lay the flat side of the chisel against the side of the drawer and carefully trim the pegs flush. Or, if you’d rather, you can trim the pegs with sandpaper—just take care not to round the edge of the drawer front.T
o me, shutting off the power has always seemed like the most dangerous part of using a router table. Normally, you make a cut and then reach under the router table to turn off the router at its source. But until it’s switched off, the bit spins, ready to catch any stray part that finds its way onto the table. And to turn off the router, you have to reach up into the dark, hard-to-see portion of the table, close to where the bit is spinning.The solution is to install a power switch so that you can turn the router on and off without reaching under the table. If you’re more savvy with electrical work than I am, you can wire your own power box, plug the router into it, and then install a switch. But installing a prewired power box like the one seen here (from Bench Dog Tools) is easier. The switch turns off easily when the work is done, but it also has a safety switch that keeps the machine from turning on accidentally.
Installing the switch couldn’t be easier.
Simply screw it in place under the top or on the side of your base. Then plug the router into the switch and plug the switch into a wall outlet. Cords can be looped through the access hole in the back of the base to keep them out of your way as you work.
I N S TA L L I N G A P O W E R S W I T C H
C
E
veryone loves buying tools, and many even enjoy the sometimes finicky work of tuning them up. But with all those tools comes the need for tool storage that is safe and out of the way. A shop without a logical storage system is just a big pile of lumber and metal—not the kind of place where you can expect to get much work done.In this chapter, you’ll build a number of different projects that provide plenty of storage for the basic workshop: banks of drawers, cabinets with doors, lum-ber and clamp racks, and a smart pegboard system that keeps your most-used tools close at hand.
All of these projects are sized to fit a small shop, where space is at a premium. But the overall sizes of these projects are not critical. If you need larger stor-age cabinets, a full wall of pegboard panels, or only enough lumber storage to handle a single project at a time, adjust the sizes of the projects to fit your space and needs.
Many woodworkers feel that they should be build-ing furniture or trimmbuild-ing the windows in their house instead of building storage units for their shop. While it’s true that you can buy similar storage units at home centers, building your own storage units allows you to design the units to fit your needs exactly. It’s also a good way to learn the skills that will improve your woodworking for building more critical pieces.
Storage
What You’ll Learn
■ Building no-fuss drawers
■ Cutting dadoes with a router
■ Making drawer pulls without hardware
■ Installing a face frame
■ Adding adjustable shelves
■ Using butt hinges to hang doors
■ Cutting mortises by hand
■ Anchoring projects to wall studs
■ Using a cleat system for hanging projects
T
he projects in this chapter are more than quick fixes for getting lumber off the floor and tools off the workbench.They’re also designed to teach skills that are valuable to any woodworker. And wouldn’t you rather learn how to build a chest of drawers using plywood than risk mistakes on expensive cherry or the irreplaceable walnut boards that came from a tree on your grand-parents’ farm?
The router table and tablesaw workstation projects in earlier chapters showed a couple of different methods for building drawers. And while those same methods work just fine for storage drawers, the ones built here are an even simpler design. What’s more, you don’t need hardware; a drilled hole is a serviceable drawer pull and an interesting design element as well. You can use this same drawer design to outfit cases of all sizes and shapes.
Building the two-door cabinet is a crash course in cabinet and furniture making. When you learn to build a cabinet, you learn how to build a simple bookcase, add adjustable shelves, and apply a face frame. When it’s
time to hang the doors, you’ll learn methods that work on everything from your home’s front door to the doors in your bathroom van-ity. You’ll learn a clever method for hanging cabinets—or anything—on the wall.
You’ll also learn how to build the small projects necessary to keep any shop from being cluttered—racks for storing lumber and clamps and customized tool boards to help keep everything organized.
Throughout the process of building these projects, you’ll pick up ideas for building other storage systems and also learn a number of methods that will improve your woodworking skills. Not to mention, it’s a good way to clean up your shop.
A drawer for every needQuick-to-make shop drawers offer lots of storage.
Back Rabbet Rear of sides, top, and bottom
rabbeted to accept back
Rabbet
be pegged or nailed.
Upper drawers
Lower drawers