Just about everything you could build starts with knowing how to make a basic
box. Whether you're making cabinets or drawers or bookcases, desks, beds, they're
all just variations on the humble box. This is a great first project if you're
just getting into woodworking. And there's lots and lots of ways to make
boxes with all different kinds of joinery but in this video I'll show you
the simple rabbet joint method I use almost every time. It's quick. It's strong.
It gives you nice square corners without a lot of fuss. Hey welcome to Woodworking
for Mere Mortals where it's my goal to take the mystery out of woodworking and
teach you how to build your own projects without a lot of space or expensive
tools. You can get started today by downloading my free guide to setting up
shop for under $1000 at mytoollist.com. For this demonstration I'm gonna be
using regular three-quarter inch lumber that's available at any Home Center.
Aesthetically speaking, smaller boxes will look nicer with thinner lumber but
making thinner boards is a topic for another video. And if you'd like to make
this exact box, I've got free plans down in the description. I'll be able to build
this box using this single board. First thing I want to do is crosscut the four
sides to their lengths. These final two cuts are gonna be the lid. I'll set those
aside for now. Next I want to rip all of the sides down to the same width. A lot
of you probably already know when I rip boards I like to clean up one side first
then flip it around and rip it to its exact width. I want to go ahead and glue
up the two pieces that make up the lid now so that they'll have time to dry. And
all I'm gonna do is shave a little bit off of each edge so they'll fit nicely
together.
The secret to edge joining boards is you just don't want to clamp them down
really tight. Just a real gentle clamping will do it. Otherwise they can buckle.
Then you want to look down the edge and make sure that it's not curved. I can see
it's bending a little bit on this one so I'll just straighten that up with a
couple of cauls. These are just boards where I've got some packing tape on them
so that the glue doesn't stick. That flattens it out. So that's it!
Seems kind of silly to use so many clamps for such a small glue up but each of
these clamps is really important. And when you're gluing up panels what
you're looking for is a small bead of glue squeezing out and that just means
you've got enough glue in the joint. Okay I'll let that dry for a while. There's
basically four different methods for cutting rabbets. The first method is to
use a router table with a straight bit in your router if you don't have a
router or a router table. The second method would be to use a stack of dado
blades in your table saw. Some places you can't get dado blades and if you don't
have any dado blades, a third solution would be to use a single blade and make
two cuts. One going this way, and the other cleaning up that shoulder this way.
That method is a little tricky for beginner woodworkers. I don't recommend
it. It requires a special setup and it can be a little bit
dangerous. So what I'm gonna do is the simplest method for making rabbets and
dados using a single blade and just multiple passes. The first thing you're
gonna want to do is clamp a board to your rip fence. This is a sacrificial
fence and it'll let you come right in to your saw blade without damaging your
actual rip fence. The next thing you're gonna want to do is lower your blade
down to half the thickness of the board you're gonna cut. It doesn't necessarily
have to be exact but I like to get as close as possible. I'll cut the rabbets
on the ends of the two longer pieces so that the short pieces fit completely
within that rabbet. In other words the width of the rabbit needs to be
three-quarters of an inch the thickness of a board. To make this cut you'll be
using both the miter gauge and the RIP fence together. In this
situation, since it's not a through cut it's not going to go completely through
the board. This is a safe method. Never use the miter gauge and a rip fence in
combination if you're going to be cross cutting cutting completely through the
board because that is just inviting kickback which can throw that cutoff
piece right back at you. So again for this situation and for cutting dados,
it's fine to use both. So this is real simple I'll just start at the end of the
board and start making cuts advancing the board forward each cut until it
stops at the rip fence.
One thing people sometimes point out is that by using a regular table saw blade
to make dados and rabbets that you can't get a completely flat surface you'll be
left with little ridges. And they do make special flat toothed saw blades just for
that purpose. I've never owned one because I've never seen any reason for
it. I get perfectly fine results with a regular saw blade sometimes there's a
few ridges in there I can sand those down. If I don't want to sand them down
they still hold it just as well. And right about now you're gonna be super
excited to see how this all goes together so go ahead give it a test
drive. Now I can change my setup to cut the long rabbets along one long edge of
each piece to hold the bottom panel in place. I won't be needing a miter gauge
for these cuts and I will be needing the sacrificial fence for these cuts. And
that's because I'll be doing them kind of opposite of the way I did these end
rabbets. This time I'm gonna start with the fence up close and then slowly work
it further and further away until I get a good fit I'm going to use this
half-inch plywood for my base so I'll start with the blade right up against
that board. I'll make one pass over the blade with each piece then move the
fence over a little bit at a time until I get a good fit for that bottom panel.
So when you think you're getting close to the final width of that rabbet you
want to test it against your actual bottom panel to make sure that you're
not going too far. So here I can tell that I still have a little bit further I
could do like half a blades thickness.
To get a good fit on that bottom panel I like to cut it to size by first dry
fitting all of the side pieces together. If you have one of these strap clamps it
makes this process a lot easier. I highly recommend getting one of these. I've had
this one for probably fifteen years and I can't tell you how many hundreds and
hundreds of times I've used it. But if you don't have one you can just use some
regular bar clamps on the sides. Rather than use a tape measure I usually like
to just make a mark where I need to cut it. I'll cut this a little oversize to
start with so that I can nibble it down to a perfect fit.
The bottom panel will help keep the box square while you're gluing it up so I
like to glue together all the sides and the bottom at the same time. Another
reason I like to use rabbet joints is that there's a lot of surface area for
the glue that makes it a really strong joint. And you want to make sure that you
get glue on both surfaces. This one and that shoulder piece. And I'm not putting
any glue on that bottom rabbet just yet it won't hurt if a little bit gets on
there. Now I can put the glue in this rabbet.
And like everything else I'm not putting a lot of pressure on these clamps. Now I
can see how the lid turned out. Nice, now all I need to do is cut that down to its
final size but I think I'll wait until this is dry so that I can get a good
measurement.
I'm gonna make my lid a little bit bigger than the box so that there's a
lip all the way around. If you want you could make it the exact same size as the
box. And I'll kind of wrap it on all four edges just like I did before.
this is a free paint stirring stick that I've glued a couple of pieces of
sandpaper to and it's really handy for sanding rabbets.