Clamping Oooops - How to fix

[Sawdustd]

Thanks. That was very thoughtful. I'm going to try heat (iron) and hot water.

[Sawdustd]

Gaps closed with the aid of a steam iron, hot water, eye stopper, clamps and a "mallet". I initially applied hot water to joints with the eye dropper to soften the glue then began the clamping pressure. Continued for 10 minutes. No movement. Removed the clamps and steamed the joints with the iron for about 5 minutes. Before re-clamping, I noticed that the bottom panel in the chest was not fully seated in the dado. Gave the panel a couple of whacks with a mallet and the joints literally "snapped" close. Re-clamped for 24 hrs to let the glue reset. Will drive a couple of brads in the 4ea tails since the glue bond will be weak. Thankfully its on the bottom back corner of the chest and will not/should not be noticed- except by me. Oh, the steam iron cleaned up nicely with #0000 steel wool and warm water.

Lesson learned: I think the steam iron really sped up softening the glue. I could "iron" all the joints at the same time.

[Shovel Man]

Congratulations on your success.

[rayknight]

Nicely done, that's one of the reasons hide glue advocates love it so much,
and I wouldn't put brads through the end tails. Unless you washed out all of the glue, you have plenty of reserve through all of them, no focal repetitive stress, shoot there are those who knocked together boxes with structurally well cut DT for boxes and they held up for decades with no glue. and you risk splitting the tail when you put the nail in, that's my opinion anyway, and again congrats on your fix and congrats to the forum for good advise. Ray

[Bibliophile 13]

Good job!

You could also have just cut some thin shims/wedges, tapped them in, sawed off the excess, and planed them flush. That's especially handy when you've cut over a line. It's best to tap them in before the glue sets up, but even if you notice gaps after the fact, a bit of superglue on the wedge will keep it in place.

[MidwestMan]

Congratulations and thank you for posting the final results/procedure. 

[Sawdustd]

Apologize for the late response.  Couldn't see your response due the new woodnet software which only showed 1 page of replies/responses.  Software has now been fixed.  Anyways --  the chest will sit inside a base.  The base parts had already been cut, dry fitted over the dry fitted chest and test fitted to insure the chest would sit inside the base.  After gluing up the chest, the base did not fit on that corner.  I didn't want to plane off 1/16" on that corner to make the base fit.  Thankfully, I discovered the cause of the non closure between the 4 pins and tails and the gap closed once the glue was softened.  As a last resort, I would have used shims to close the gaps and then planed down the corner.