available for each template (15
to 20mm for the SZ-14
template). The front and back
can be of a different thickness
than the sides but the front
and the back pieces need to
each be the same thickness and
within the 15-20mm range. A
very pleasing drawer to the
eye, and also a very common
size, is one where front and
back are 19mm (about ¾”) and
the sides are 15mm (about
9/16”).
The fastest, easiest thing is to
simply make all four drawer
components the same
thickness, but you do not have
to.
Length of the Front and
Back Pieces
- Cut the
front
and back
pieces to be exactly
the length you want for the
finished width of your drawer.
If your perfect drawer would
be 400mm wide (a bit under
16”), cut the front and back
pieces to that length.
Length of the Side Pieces
The length of each drawer
side
piece
will be the desired
overall depth front to back of
your perfect drawer less the
thickness of the front piece,
less the thickness of the back
piece plus twice the depth
setting for your router bit
which is 12mm for the SZ-14
and 15mm for the SZ-20.
Side piece length = desired
front to back dimension – 2
times (thickness of F or B –
depth of router bit)
If you want a drawer that
measures 500mm (about 20”)
front to back using the SZ-14
(which calls for a router bit
depth setting of 12mm) and
want to use front/back
components that are 20mm
thick, cut each side component
to be 484mm long.
484 = 500 – 2(20 – 12) or 484 =
500 – 2(8) or 484 = 500 - 16
This is really easy to calculate
using the metric system but
can be a bit confusing if you
insist on staying with the base
eight “inch” system where you
will have to add and subtract
some fractions.
See
“Sidebar on Using the
Metric System”
on page 36 of
this manual for my take on
this question.
Now cut the half blind
dovetails at each corner
If you prepare your stock as
indicated, the cutting of the
half blind dovetail joints to
make a perfect box in less than
five minutes every time is
really simple. With the Festool
VS-600 you only need to
mount the work pieces into the
jig
twice
to make all eight
parts of the dovetail joints on
the four corners. That is
because for half-blind dovetail
joints made on the VS-600 you
can cut two different corners at
the same time. And, you only
need to set up and align the
template once so there is little
chance for error.
Once you have done your one
time set up procedure to adjust
the template to the VS-600,
mounting it and starting to
make your perfect drawer is
simple and fast.
See the sidebar note on “One
Time Setup” on page 32.
Mount the SZ-14 or SZ-20
template into the VS-600 base
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