Fastest Box Joint Jig in the west...

Brent Dowell

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Reno NV
Well, only the making part, I'm sure they all take about the same amount of time to use...

Made a piece of wood 3/8" thick, mounted up 3/8" worth of dado blade in the table saw.

Took a piece of scrap ply, drilled a couple of holes in it and mounted it to my Incra 1000se. Raised the blade to 3/4" about the table and made the first cut. Put a chunk of the 3/8" wide wood in the cut out. Slide it over a bit and used another piece of 3/8" wide wood to get the rough distance to the blade. Made a test cut, needed tightening up a bit, so loosened the bolts I mounted it to the fence with a bit and badabingbadaboom, There you have it, a box joint jig! :thumb:

(Oh and I messed up a bit when I made it. This one goes from right to left when using, as opposed to the traditional left to right... :rofl: )

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Cool jig Brent, so I guess that's part of the things needed to make your shop cabinets and finish your shop reorganization.

I've bookmarked it, and put together with others that I plan to make when I get a TS, (not in the near future I'm afraid to say).
 
Yeah, I finally picked what kind of joint I wanted to use for the drawers in the shop cabinets.

Considered plain old butt joints, butt joints with pocket screws, Locking rabbets, lock miters, sliding dovetails, half blind dovetails on a machine. But I kept coming back to the venerable box joint... :rofl:

It's quick, and easy, and strong, and I can crank a lot of them out in a hurry... :thumb:
 
Very cool Brent. I do the same thing with a sacrificial fence clamped to one of my sleds. I have been fascinated in the past with complex box-joint jigs but thankfully, never coughed up the dough for one ;-)
 
Very cool Brent this is the joint my son learnt to make at school this past week. Only he used the router.

Which brings up a point which is better blades on ts or router. :dunno:

I like the idea of brents one but its just because i like the ts.

Would think using blades one can hog out a 3/4 thick finger in one go which is not neccessary gonna happen on the router table.:dunno:

Can anyone comment on this.
 
Most dado sets have a bit of a scoring action on the outer blades to reduce chipout. That's probably great for a dado, but it does leave little 'marks' just a fraction deeper on the corners.

Dan Noren recently got a set of special TS blades that are geared for making box joints for valentines day recently

So for fine work, a router, or specialty saw blades would give you a truly flat bottom. For knocking out a bunch of shop cabinets, or more utilitarian use, a TS with a dado blade would be more than sufficient.
 
If you get a flat top grind blade (designated as FTG) you will get a square kerf. Most blades are alternate top bevel (ATB) and give a kerf that has a protrusion in the center. You can also stack FTG blades for a wider kerf, just make sure the tooth geometry doesn't interfere between the two blades shim with paper or cardboard and tighten down well.

As far as the jig goes....fewer moving parts, fewer chances for mistakes. I drilled a hole in the miter gauge so I could dowel each jig to be in the same place, then make the jig for each width I want to cut.
 
Thats the way I do mine on my slider. I do all four parts at one time by shifting two 1 pin. I use a dab of hot melt glue to make sure they don't shift. When done you just peel the glue off and they are in nice sets ready for assembly.

I like box joints. They have a better gluing surface than dovetails, and in my humble opinion are a better choice for drawers that will see heavy use. Not as sexy, but stout. My bench has poplar drawer boxes, and some have well over 100#s in them[clamps] and have survived many years of abuse with none broken. I intended to pin them but never got to it.

My favorite is the pin and cresent joint. In examining old furniture I have never seen one that has failed.
 
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...Dan Noren recently got a set of special TS blades that are geared for making box joints for valentines day recently...

I've got the same Freud set, and I love it. Not only are the bottoms of the cuts flat, but the width is exactly 1/4" or 3/8", so I can use the Incra fence on my saw to easily increment each cut. No need for the slotted jig and pin, and the joint fits every time. :thumb:
 
My experience with a simple box joint jig that screws to the miter gauge is that it works fine at first, but if you make a run of joints it tends to loosen up and lose accuracy. The alignment pin is glued into a slot that supports it well only on one side.

I found that putting a base under it helped a lot. Just a bit of sheet stock glued to the bottom of the fence and the alignment pin keeps everything aligned even after cutting many joints. If you like, you can make it independent of the miter gauge by adding bars to turn it into a sled.
 
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