- Today, we are here
to talk about rabbets. (funky music) Rabbets are one of those fundamental woodworking joints that you just can't get too far without knowing how to execute. They come in really handy. So, I've used rabbets extensively in a project I'm working on right now with the nightstands and chest of drawers, where the panels, for the
top, the sides, the back, are made out of solid wood, and they have to go into a groove. So, in order to make everything fit and look the way I need it to look, we cut a rabbet around the perimeter. Now, this is just one of my test pieces, so it's kinda jacked up a little bit but you can see what the rabbet is, it's just a groove,
essentially, or a dado, if you're going across the grain, that is on the edge. So it goes all the way to the edge and creates this little lip, and then this quarter-inch lip can go into a quarter-inch groove. And that's exactly what I have back here on this nightstand project. So the top and the sides, here let me bring it over there. From this view, this is
the back but the side and top look the same,
all you see is a nice, flat panel, and it's all solid wood, so you might be wondering what's going on movement-wise. Well, that's where the rabbet comes in. So, what you're seeing is
this side of the panel. The rabbet inside faces the inside, and it's been cut in
such a way top to bottom we're not so worried, right? It's across the grain this way where we have movement issues. So, the panel has been cut short by an eight of an inch to allow movement on both sides, and then,
I just cut a 3/8 rabbet in both sides which also
has a little bit of a gap. So if you look inside the cabinet, you would see a little
bit of gap between the leg and this part of the rabbet here. So, that's just one use for a rabbet, but if you think in terms of just basic carcass construction for kitchen cabinets or like my shop cabinets here, you'll find rabbets
really handy for let's say cabinet sides. How do you get that top to sit on there? Well you don't wanna just drop the top in and do a butt joint, right? You could put a rabbet into the top of that side piece and drop
that top of the cabinet right into the rabbet
and then you could either drive a couple screws or just use glue alone, a lot of times, to seal that thing in there. So, the rabbet is a fundamental joint so it's important to know how to make one. Now, you can make 'em a
lot of different ways. You could use a router,
you could use a table saw, several ways at the table saw alone. You can use a rabbeting bit, which is a bearing guided little doohickey that will create this sort
of edge treatment on there. So, tons of ways to do it. My favorite way is to use the table saw, and if any of you have read the book "Hybrid Woodworking,"
which I have right here, I cover this as well as grooves and dados, in detail here, this might be something you wanna check out, but
it's a cool technique where you can do the bulk of the work at a power tool, and then we come back to the workbench to finesse it, to fit and get the perfect fit. So what I have in the
table saw is a dado stack, this is one of those tools that basically, if you have a table saw you kinda can't do without it, it really makes
it a lot more versatile, but basically it's a bunch of saw blades stacked together in a
sandwich that allows you to cut nice wide pieces instead of just a single blade width. I've got it for about 3/4 of an inch here, to give me the rabbet
that I'm looking for. Now, here's the key to making this cut. Do you see this little
fence that I have here? This is a sacrificial
surface, and what I mean by that is we're actually gonna cut into it intentionally. A lot of times you make a new fence, you don't wanna cut
into it, but this is one that I can use specifically for this task. Now, this is a really nice
pice of like laminated material here, you don't need to have something that fancy. A simple piece of plywood clamped to your regular fence
would work just fine, a 2x4 that's been jointed and planed, so that you know it's nice and straight, you can use that too
because here's the thing, you're gonna start with the blade low, and then you're gonna bring the fence over so it's just over the blade. The goal is to actually bury
the blade into the fence, and that's what's gonna
allow us to get our cut right up to the edge of the workpiece. So when I run a workpiece across, I should be able to get that
rabbet right on the edge, it'll be nice and clean. I do recommend that you use some sort of push block here, and
the reason is because when you're removing this much material, the momentum and the
sheer force of that blade wants to cause it to
lift, and it can do that at the front of the cut,
at the back of the cut, in the middle of the cut. So by using a push paddle, or the gripper, you can actually apply a good, even amount of weight and pressure
hopefully giving you a nice, consistent rabbet. The thing is, though, the
nature of these things, not all your work pieces are this small, so you may not be able
to control it as well. You may have a bigger
piece or a piece of plywood or something, that has a
little bit of a bow in it, so you may actually end up with a slightly inconsistent rabbet, and
that's where the hand tools come in, so let's head
back to the workbench. So, let me show you the
two tools that I like to use for making the adjustments here. First, is a router plane, this is one of my absolute favorites. If you are a power tool
enthusiast, this is probably the hand tool that you're
gonna relate to the best because you have the blade protruding out of the bottom of this plane as you run it across the surface, it's
at a fixed location. So it works a lot like a regular router. You can kind of understand
what this thing is doing, and unless you tilt it
in some wacked out way, you kinda can't cut too
far, that's the great thing about it. It's a very consistent and
easy to understand tool. This is the other tool I like to use. This is my shoulder plane, and this guy is pretty
unique in that the blade goes all the way to the edges here, which a lot of planes,
the blade is gonna stop inside the body of the plane. But the key is this one
will allow me to go right up to this edge, which is
critical for something like a rabbet, right? If it stopped any sooner,
then you'd have a ridge at the end, which isn't
gonna be very helpful. So which one do you use? Well, I should mention that this, we would have intentionally cut this thing just a bit shy, so that if
the workpiece lifted up, we'd have a little bit of
extra material to remove, and at the very least, we take one complete pass
or two complete passes to get this thing to fit into our groove. I like to be cautious when it comes to this stuff instead of
going, trying to get right to the number then overshooting. So we'll just put it into the bench. Important thing here is
you really only need a stop at the front, but I bring
the back dog in just to support it. I don't crank this thing down, cause if you crank it down,
you create a bow here, and that makes it
difficult to plane, right? So, just a little bit of
pressure to immobilize it, hold it in place. So, we can use this shoulder
plane to do the work, and I'll just make a quick cut here. Now, these can be a
little tricky to balance cause it is kind of an
odd-shaped plane, right? So it takes a little getting used to. The thing about this is, it will take some of those high spots and knock them down, if you know where the high spots are. So, you might just take your groove, put it on there, and try to spot where the high spots are. And you go oh, it's a
little thick right here, I can't get the work piece to go on, so let me just work this area here, and you can clean that spot up. The thing that this
doesn't do is it doesn't make sure that we have an even depth all the way across. And that's what the router plane is really good at doing, so that's where you might consider using this one. So, let's intentionally
induce a bit of a taper here. Right so I've got a little
bit more material removed on this side than I do on this side. Well, the router plane is
gonna help me find that, even if I didn't know it was there. So, if I'm set here, I don't know for sure at this point, I mean I
do because I just did it but you might normally not know if this is the lowest point, but
you basically set it to that point, and then
move it along the surface and see if it starts to catch. You can kinda move along
and find all the places it starts to grab, you
know you may have had the lowest point. If I start over here and go to this side, I'm gonna see a gap, so it
should be pretty obvious when I'm at the low point. All right so, putting
pressure on the right side, my left hand is just kinda
helping me move it forward, but all the downward
pressure is on the right, otherwise I tip. I'm just pushing forward,
and I start to see the blade catching, there
we go, look at that. You see? So there was
a bit of a high point in the middle. So if I wanted to, I
could then loosen it up, bring it down a little bit more, repeat. Didn't take very much off, there we go. Now it's going all the way across. Okay, so what's great
about this is it's going to ensure that the depth
of this rabbet is even all the way across. But I do find that I get
better, smoother results with the shoulder plane, so you know, if I even it out and then
maybe take one more pass, I get a nice shaving off
of there and this is nice and smooth. So, you're not really
doing a whole lot of work to this board. If you are, then you gotta
adjust your table saw to make a deeper cut. The goal is not to work
more for the sake of using hand tools, it's to
use the hand tools quickly, and make one or two passes to get this guy to fit perfectly, and
you just sweeten the fit, you're not looking to
do a ton of extra work. Either one of these tools will do the job but you can see, fundamentally, they work differently. So this guy, the router
plane, is gonna help me fix some problems. This one will help me fix them too, but I gotta know a little bit more about that surface before
I use it because I might make the problem a little bit worse if I'm not careful enough with it. But this for me is a
very quick way to end up with really a precise, perfect fit. Now, I'll tell you what,
if I just go power tools and I don't do this, typically
what I wind up having to do is raise the blade a little bit so that all of my rabbets
fit in the grooves. What that inevitably does,
is it results in some of those rabbets not fitting quite as snug as I want them to. A lot of folks question whether or not incorporating hand tools is worthwhile, because they see the hand
tools as being very slow. But the reality is, if it's done properly, you start to find the places
where your power tools can let you down. And sometimes, it's just the pure physics of the situation that result in a joint that's not completely consistent. But man, those hand tools can bail you out of those situations. And, I gotta say, there is something fun about taking some nice,
sweet shavings off, getting the absolute
perfect, dialed-in fit, and just knowing that
you're at the sweet spot. And sometimes with a power tool, you may find the sweet spot, but you also may go right past it. (laughs) That's the
problem with power tools. So yeah, that's the
basics of creating rabbets the hybrid style. (guitar music)