Hi Gary- have a little problem in a jewlery cabinet I’m building. The interior has lots of panels and shelves arranged asymmetrically, w/ interlocking horizontal and vertical members. That is, the horizontal members don’t go all the way across, they intersect with vertical members, which intersect other members. My problem is that one of my horizontal pieces, with sliding dovetails, is about 1/32, maybe 3/64, too long. The parts all 3/8 thick and I was able to muscle it in, but it’s caused other parts to bow. I’d like to fix this problem, but I can’t simply trim the piece in length and recut the dovetail as this will cause the tail to become too narrow. Other than milling an entire new piece, do you know of anyway I can adjust to fit?
Thank you for your consideration,
Michael
Replies
Michael,
I'd take a chance and trim each end of the long piece. Take 1/64" off each end and see if that doesn't still make a tight fitting joint without bowing out the verticals. If they come out too loose, I suppose you could glue on a sliver of wood to one side of the tails. But for all that work, why not just cut a new piece?
Besides that, I have no other good solution. I always fit my sliding dovetail pieces to length first making sure they just slip into place. Then I cut the tails on them. Good luck. You know, **** happens, especially in the shop. Learn from your mistakes and press onwards. It's what I have to do every time I screw up.
Gary
http://www.northwestwoodworking.com
Gary- thank you for your thoughts. I did end up trimming the problem piece, and the fit is acceptable, if a little loose. I may use epoxy when it comes time to glue that one piece. Typically I would have done as you suggested, measure to length first, but the piece that defined the length (ie, the vertical divider) also had a sliding dovetail and I wanted to cut them all at the same time so my setups were consistent. So, live and learn, if you're not careful :)
Thanks again,
Michael
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