How to Align Your Drawer Grooves

How to Align Your Drawer Grooves

My box joint jig setup sometimes produces a tiny offset at the edge of a drawer joint, and that can lead to a misaligned drawer bottom groove if I don’t fix it before making the grooves.

Build up some tape strips on a mismatched drawer joint before cutting grooves for the bottom panel.

Instead of sanding the edges flush, which I do later, I build up the “low” edge with layers of tape to shim it even with the other part before forming the groove.

The tape strips ride the table saw fence, perfectly
lining up the groove with its mating piece.

The tape “shim” slides along the saw fence and holds the piece in perfect alignment as I cut the groove.

– John Pettus
Westminster, California

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