How to keep drawers square?

[Cooler]

3) I don't recommend pocket holes to build drawers, especially if the material is plywood. Even if you use glue it is an end grain glue up, which won't add much strength.  This is why most drawer building techniques employ some type of joinery.

I always use through dovetails for drawers, and usually on poplar.  

However my dovetail fixture is mounted and really large drawers are a problem for me because the over-sized pieces will hit the back wall.  For that reason when I built my shop drawers I used 4 pocket screws per side in the front into the sides, and 3 screws per side in the rear into the sides.  

The drawers are just 4" deep and have a half inch plywood bottom.  I load them up with electric drills, electric jig saws, a Sawsall and other heavy pieces.  I've used them for about 6 years and they have held up fine.  I'm not fond of the appearance but I cannot fault the strength.

[Hank Knight]

I took a drawer building workshop at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine several years ago. It was taught by Craig Vandall Stevens (http://www.craigvandallstevens.com). His method of squaring drawers was interesting. As others have mentioned, he was very particular about cutting the sides, fronts and backs to matching, exact lengths and squaring the ends. He used a shooting board to fine tune the lengths and square the ends. He dovetailed his drawers by hand then applied yellow glue sparingly to the pin sockets, assembled the drawer (without the bottom) and set it aside without clamps. When the glue began to cure, but was still in a plastic state, he checked the drawer for square. If it needed adjustment, he simply nudged it square with hand pressure and set it aside to finish curing. When the glue had fully cured, he slid the bottom in and tacked it in place with a brad or two on the back edge and he was done. The drawer held the hand adjustments while the glue finished curing. I thought it was pretty slick, especially since he didn't use clamps.

I've done this with smallish drawers and it works very well, but it is completely dependent on the accuracy of your parts and your joinery. I've found that trying to pull a drawer into square with clamps is seldom successful. If it's not reasonably square to begin with, it usually means your parts and/or your joinery were poorly made. If that's the case, no amount of clamp pressure will solve the problem.

[AHill]

The carcase must also be square. Doesn't matter much if you have a square drawer if the carcase it fits into isn't square. All the same suggestions about drawers apply to the carcase.

[rwe2156]

Steve N  You may disagree, but I'm going to say if you made 100 boxes out of pocket hole screws, and assembled them as well as you could, and 100 with butt joints and also made them as well as you could that you would see at least 4x the failure in the butt jointed boxes, if the intended use was for a drawer, then you would see in the pocket holes.

I absoluletly do disagree.  I assume you noted I said screw the sides into the backs, right?

If you still disagree I'm suspect I would have a hard time convincing you its simple mechanics. 

The same reason a toe nailed stud is not as strong as one nailed through the plate.

Pocket holes is one of the weakest joinery methods.  They have been proven to be a very weak joint check the video by Mattias Wandel and do the research.

[ez-duzit]

...Pocket holes is one of the weakest joinery methods...

This. Pocket hole "joinery" is vastly inferior to common, proven, traditional methods. It has no use at all in my shop except (once in my 40+ years as a pro woodworker) where necessary to match existing construction.

As others have pointed out, care must be taken with the cutting setup to insure precision. And I check with a square and diagonally clamp any troublesome assemblies.

[Steve N]

This. Pocket hole "joinery" is vastly inferior to common, proven, traditional methods.

You are of course aware that the ancient Egyptians used angled holes to join boards. They used wooden pegs in the holes, instead of screws, they didn't have screws back then. Need to be careful throwing around words like traditional, depends how far back you are willing to look, and who's history you are looking at  
 However they aren't near as new as the Kreg jig is either. I would call the furniture of the Federal period to be both significant and certainly older than the Kreg jig. Remember to give us a shout out when you get to be a published woodworker.

I won't make a blanket statement as you have, rather I would suggest any woodworking technique has times when it might be very appropriate, and times when they may not. I started in this thread saying I don't make drawer boxes with pocket holes, but that doesn't mean they cannot be used, and angled is going to be less prone to destroying the wood as straight in will. If they allow the OP to actually do some woodworking that is a good start. It's possible over time he'll embrace other methods. I think the well rounded woodworker will have some experience with all methods, because as always there is more than one way to skin that cat.

[Randy C]

Maybe I should have provided some more info when I initially started this thread. I am building a table/cabinet for my big green egg. It will be outside but under a covered patio. 

I am building a drawer for the cabinet. Thus, I am not doing fine woodworking here but I do want to do the best job that I can do and learn from the process. I understand that if I were building a piece of furniture I might want to do dovetail joints.

Thanks for everyone's input.

[ez-duzit]

...You are of course aware that the ancient Egyptians used angled holes to join boards...Need to be careful throwing around words like traditional...

Need to be careful not to confuse "archaic" with "traditional." By "traditional" drawer joints I mean the currently used, accepted and long proven methods, but not necessarily dovetailed.

Unlike dowels, when you drive screws in, at an angle, there is a tendency to draw the two pieces out of alignment and out of square. Pocket holes are often an amateur shortcut, but should not be considered a replacement for proper joinery.

[Howard In Toronto]

I clamp a framing square to my components.

Regardless of how good my processes and results are, I'd usually end up with out of square assemblies. And it drove me nuts. That's when I decided to use my framing square to "train" my assemblies while putting them together.

My process is pretty straightforward -
- I run a 2x4 over the TS blade
- then I move the fence slightly to juuuuust widen the kerf to accommodate the thickness of the framing square's leg
- I place the scrap on the outside of the square and clamp them both to the component
- assemble the joint with the Kreg apparatus

Voila - square assemblies. Every time.

HTH

Howard

[Steve N]

Unlike dowels, when you drive screws in, at an angle, there is a tendency to draw the two pieces out of alignment and out of square. Pocket holes are often an amateur shortcut, but should not be considered a replacement for proper joinery.

My SHOCKED face. For a person who wouldn't think of owning a pocket hole tool, you sure seem to know a lot about them. It is proper joinery if the maker says it is. You sound like a person who is fine with whatever someone thinks as long as they agree with you.






I'm all done here.