Western Dovetail does what few carpenters can; they make getting custom, high quality dovetail drawers easy. If you’re blessed with a dovetail jig and the carpentry expertise to make high quality dovetail drawers, then carry on and ignore this article. However if you want the high quality, without the hours of precise carpentry and profanity associated with botched joints, then read on. High quality furniture makers know that the dovetail joint is stronger than nails, screws or dowels. And the joints look better too. Western Dovetail makes it easy to outfit your new or existing cabinetry or furniture with dovetailed drawers and custom options including; wood species, drawer bottom thickness and location, top edge details, under-mount hardware, pull out options, file drawers, curved fronts, and special dividers, grooves and slots. They even developed the first commercially available angled dovetail joint in 2004, originally to accomplish a 45 degree angle corner drawer to be used in the corner of a kitchen in conjunction with the Blum® Tandem under-mount drawer slides. For Green cred, they are the world’s first Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) and Smart Wood certified drawer supplier. You can rest easy your lumber isn’t being smuggled in from Pirate hijacked boats from Somalia loaded with endangered hardwoods. Certified wood drawers are available in most domestic and imported species upon request. Turn-around time is often within a speedy 5-7 days, with exact lead times at the time you place your order. Pricing varies substantially based on custom options, but roughly speaking, plywood drawers are about $30 per drawer average and solid wood drawers are about $40-$60 average depending on species. Call or fax Western Dovetail for a quote.
About Marc Lyman
I think you greatly over-exaggerate the time, expense, and skill required to dovetail a drawer. These days, you can pick up a reasonable quality and easy to use dovetail jig for under $100 and a router for another $200. The only required skill is then to cut some boards to proper length and clamp them in the jig. Cake.
Furthermore, while the dovetail is among the most highly regarded of drawer joints – certainly the most identifiable among the general public – it is not necessarily the best joint for a drawer. While dovetail joints are robust, there are stronger joinery techniques available – not that most drawers need joints that are more sturdy than dovetails. In fact, most drawers only require joinery that is far less sturdy than dovetailed drawers. So, unless you just want the look of dovetails (admittedly important) often the effort isn’t worth the outcome.
DC