Half blind waste removal
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
Visiting family worked on finishing up the 6 drawers for the bed side dressers and other details. The granddaughters take great pride in working on their furniture. The oldest is doing dovetails and planing surfaces and the younger sanding, and laying out the dovetails and other tasks.
I remove half blind waste with the drawer front flat on the bench, routing to the length of the drawer side tails and up to the scribe line that defines the thickness of the drawer side (or case side for case dovetails). What remains is to chisel to the scribe line and remove the waste the router can't get to. A claim has been made that routing with the machine on the end of the drawer edge is superior because less waste is left to chisel.
With this claim in mind I photographed waste removal as I do it. Picture 1 shows the waste left after routing.
Picture 2 shows the remaining waste after one paring cut from the chisel. It would seem that what is left can't be more than what the router leaves routing with the router arranged inconveniently on the end of the drawer edge. The remainder is removed in seconds +/- depending on how easily the vertical waste fibers release from the base of the socket. I need to fashion an angled chisel to shear these off when they want to bend instead of break free.