Squaring Drawers

Building drawers is generally a pretty straightforward task. But there's one aspect of the job that can easily trip you up and spoil the end result. Once the joinery is cut, you face the touchy job of assembling the parts into a square drawer box. And squaring the drawer is the real clincher.

It's easy to check for square by comparing diagonal measurements. But then squaring up an out-of-square assembly is a little trickier. Shifting the clamps slightly is one way to do this, but it doesn't always work for me. So I came up with a more reliable method - the squaring rods you see in the photos.

The concept is pretty simple. The squaring rods are used to apply pressure across the short diagonal of the drawer to push it into square. For large drawers I have a squaring rod consisting of a section of threaded rod, two turnbuckles and a couple of eyebolts. As you can see, the eyebolts wedge into the corners of the drawer to force it into square.

I also have a more compact set of rods for use with smaller drawers, as shown in the inset photo. These are made from threaded rod, coupling nuts and rubber caps.

I keep a variety of lengths of threaded rod on hand to handle any size drawer. And with a minimum of effort, square drawers are pretty much a done deal.

Good woodworking,

Ted Raife
Editor, Woodsmith

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Printer-Friendly Version Squaring Drawers Building drawers is generally a pretty straightforward task. But there's one aspect of the job that can easily trip you up and spoil the end result. Once the joinery is cut, you face the touchy job of assembling the parts into a square drawer box. And squaring the drawer is the real clincher. It's easy to check for square by comparing diagonal measurements. But then squaring up an out-of-square assembly is a little trickier. Shifting the clamps slightly is one way to do this, but it doesn't always work for me. So I came up with a more reliable method - the squaring rods you see in the photos. The concept is pretty simple. The squaring rods are used to apply pressure across the short diagonal of the drawer to push it into square. For large drawers I have a squaring rod consisting of a section of threaded rod, two turnbuckles and a couple of eyebolts. As you can see, the eyebolts wedge into the corners of the drawer to force it into square. I also have a more compact set of rods for use with smaller drawers, as shown in the inset photo. These are made from threaded rod, coupling nuts and rubber caps. I keep a variety of lengths of threaded rod on hand to handle any size drawer. And with a minimum of effort, square drawers are pretty much a done deal. Good woodworking, Ted Raife Editor, Woodsmith Send for a preview issue of Woodsmith magazine More Tips & Techniques Index of Tips by E-mail More Tips & Techniques WoodNET, Woodworking on the Web Subscriber Links Update your Email Preferences Subscribe
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