Build a Whole Drawer Box Without Changing Your Table Saw Setup

The Problem

Building drawer boxes normally means a run of separate table saw setups — one for the rabbets on the ends, another for the dados that take the front and back, another for the groove that holds the bottom. Every change is a chance to be off by a hair, and with a stack of drawers to build, the resetting takes longer than the cutting. Small setup errors compound into boxes that don't sit square.

The Technique

The quarter-quarter-quarter system gets rid of the resetting entirely. Every cut in the box uses the same three numbers:

• A 1/4" dado stack
• Raised 1/4" above the table
• Fence set 1/4" from the dado

Build the box from 1/2" plywood — Baltic birch or ApplePly, which actually measure a true 1/2" rather than the undersized nominal stuff. With that single setup you cut:

1. The rabbets on the ends of the pieces that form the corner joints.
2. The matching dados that receive them.
3. The joint for the bottom — cut a rabbet on a 1/2" plywood bottom the same way you did the front and back pieces, rather than dropping a thin panel into a groove.

Then glue up and check for square.

Using 1/2" ply for the bottom instead of the usual 1/4" is what makes these boxes so stout — the drawer will carry more weight than the slides under it are rated for, so the hardware fails before the box does.