Hey guys i have a question for anybody who does dovetailed drawer boxes.
Id like your guys opinion on a dovetail machine. When doing volume drawer boxes would you recommend getting CNC dovetailer or would just a automatic one be good enough? i know cantek has a nice automatic for around 10k.
kind of a new field for me here...

I have a manual machine and once it's setup it makes making the parts very easy. 95% of my boxes are from 15mm Baltic Birch plywood.

With the automatic machine you are stuck with specific heights of drawers. In my case on my manual machine it's always a factor of x.365" I can make them a bit smaller, probably down to x.125"

With a CNC dovetailer you can make your drawers most heights because the computer can adjust the spacing.

Speed wise, they're about the same from what I've seen in videos, and what I know from running a Cantek automatic dovetailer. You can only load and unload parts so fast

I don't know if witg any of the cnc options if you have full control of the code or not. You could possibly get way better results being you could score in a climb cut, then finish it off in a conventional cut.

I want to build my own, but have zero time to do so.

The Cantek is painful to get dialed in.

I have the Grizzly and it too is a pain to get dialed in. But you only have to do the major dial in once and then a minor dial in every time you change the bit which isn't too often.

I climb cut all my drawers, especially the Baltic Birch.

I nest mine in the router with 1/2" Baltic birch prefinished.

Cut and assembled is about 10 min a box includes CNC time.

If you have a CNC I would recommend this route .

Do you do anything with the raw wood ends? Finish them or just leave them raw?

That is one question I was wondering about... how it works with different drawer heights? that part doesn't look like its adjustable on the cantek.

so when your saying nest them with the router do you mean do the dovetails on the router or are you just talking about a dado or blind dado?

and as far as finishing the raw ends... the costumer we are making drawers for wants prefinished baltic birch with prefinished half mill banding. any raw ends stay that way.

I have a Dodds SE20 that I like a lot.
Perhaps I'm not understanding the draw of the single spindle machines, cnc or otherwise
A friend has a Omec 750 and while it does a good job I don't think it compares to the production capacity of the Dodds

Hi Jim
i am curious about your dodds machine? what year is it.
I know of a SE25 cnc machine for sale but its a 02 model and the company says the controller is discontinued.
I am wondering if that should be a issue or if its best to just leave it be and look for a newer one?

Curious about the Dodds as well. Ive seen some of their multipin machines at auctions.

Is anyone running a Brookman 25 pinÉ

Really like to talk to someone running one. I did have a few emails with the last tech in england and since lost touch.

Then the Leigh dovetail jig while way way slow still makes a much nicer looking drawer than the Multipin things. I guess the CNC can do the sameÉ think so speaking as a non CNC guy.

Likely hijacking this thread a bit, apologies on that.

Funny both of you should ask...
I bought the Dodds from a large cabinet shop that I used to purchase doors from.
They run about 250 employees, and the guys had destroyed one foot actuator and thrown the other away.
The owner said they didn't know how or have time to fix it and they bought a new MereenJohnson
I tinkered with it about half a day, and wound up replacing both pedals and cleaned it and reset all the fences and fixtures on it.
The pedals were about 20.00 ea off Amazon thanks to our reopening trade with Vietnam.
I think I overpaid a little for it at 5k, but it was close (no freight, and next closest one at auction was 900 miles and unable to inspect) and other than the obvious abuse to it, fairly low use.
It does a great job.
I was buying about 4500.00 worth of boxes a month, so payback was pretty quick, and I can produce them on demand and schedule. It is not a cnc machine, but automatic- foot pedal actuated or timed sequence.
I have a Brookman 15 spindle manual machine that I ran prior to buying them and it does a good job, just more effort.
I've done several jobs at 200+ boxes but you feel it after doing that many.
A job around 50 or so boxes is about the sweet spot on the Brookman.
It's complete, in great shape with fairly new Dodds cutters in it and about to go up for sale, as I need the space.
PM me if you'd like information on it.

I have a Dodd’s single bit manual machine, it is definitely a lot slower as someone has to run it, it does do a really nice job though. For a long time I just purchased drawer boxes as we didn’t do a lot of dovetail, most drawers were for commercial projects and were either a butt joint with dowels or a dato joint.

Quicktrim,
I would be interested in hearing more about the nested cnc for drawers. How is that set up? I assume the tooling would be minimal and not to expensive, The part I am curious about is the accuracy for having a part in position so everything lines up and fits tight. Are you using a jig to hold the parts in position.

jim
so im wondering on that dodds machine if its not a cnc how do you adjust the spacing of the dovetail if you have different drawer heights? so that on the end you dont have like half a notch or something like that?

i was also curious about about the nesting on a cnc machine as well. if its efficient enough for doing volume drawers?

I assume you work within the confines of the machine. My manual Grizzly's magic number is always x.365". So 4.365", 10.365" etc. You can get it down to about .125" if you need to squeeze a drawer into a smaller height area, but that's about it before you start to see a free tail.

I make my drawer heights in one inch increments with the bottom recessed up 1/2"
Typically 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 inch drawer box heights
My standard top drawer is 7 7/16" face with a 6" high drawer box using a Blum 563H slide.
It's a production thing..
I wouldn't even consider adjusting the spacing in a kitchen or bath..I might if I were building high end furniture, but I'd probably expect to hand cut those anyway