chest of drawers

[steamboat]

Hello all. Please advise me.
At the mo I am building some chest of draw made form reclaimed Oak. The tops will be made from wood blocks which are around 5cm x20cm 40cm glued together. To make the tops big enough and so the bits go thought the thicknesses I have made up four squares consisting of six blocks, now this is my question; how is it best to glue the four blocks together for strength and longevity? I have made some bedside cabinets in the same way (except smaller) and used a loose tong joint to join the blocks, will this work for the bigger units and should I glue the lot to some ply wood??? I can take some pictures if It will help.
Many thanks all

 

[OPJ]

Your loose tongue option sounds like a good idea. You could use solid wood for the tongues, if they're going to be seen. But, people prefer to use 3/8" (9mm or 10mm) plywood for the tongues as you get a "better" glue joint with all the grain cross-over and there's no risk of the ply expanding or contracting like timber.

If the timbers are 400mm long, 200mm wide and 50mm thick (sorry, I can deal with mm's and inches fine, but cm's seem to cause me problems! :wink: ), what about biscuit-jointing, if you have access to a biscuit jointer or router table with 4mm slot-cutter? There's be no exposed 'tongues' using this method.

Another option would be to dowel them, but, this can be very tricky unless you have a decent jig. Not one for the absolute beginner's, really.

Then again, I'm sure there are many people who'd be happy enough to edge-joint them with glue and no reinforcements. The advantage of having a tongue or spline is that if helps keep the pieces in alignment.

 

[steamboat]

Thanks for the advice Charly

 

[NeilO]

OPJ wrote: I can deal with mm's and inches fine, but cm's seem to cause me problems! ),

OPJ, glad to see Im not the only one... :lol:

steamboat, Olly`s suggestion of loose tongues is about the best/easiest I can think of, dowelling is an art, if like Olly said you havent just a decent jig..

 

[steamboat]

Thanks for that I have used the loose toung and it workes a treat.
Thanks