2/8/2026 Note: I originally posted this blog on LumberJocks back in April 2017. I m re-posting it here so I can eventually remove it from there.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that cutting miters was the scariest part of this project. The second scariest part was assembling the case so the mitered corners looked nice.

The issue was alignment. I couldn't use splines to align the edges (unless they were blind). I don't have a biscuit joiner, so biscuits weren't an option. With my cheap dowel jig, I'd never align dowel holes well enough to make things work. (2/8/2026 note: With my current JessEm jig, I bet I could make it work. Back then, I was using some cheap no-name jig that wasn't very accurate.)

In the end, I decided to sacrifice a tiny bit of drawer width. I already needed to cut two 3 1/2" tall dividers to support the three drawers. If I cut two more to act as inner sides, I could glue the beveled (outer and visible) sides to them. That would address the twist in the top, and then the miter joints would be purely cosmetic.

To deal with wood movement, I made the dividers and inner sides such that the wood grain was vertical. This way, all panels would expand and contract in the front-to-back direction. I edge-glued more boards to make a short panel and crosscut the dividers and inner sides from it.

After cutting the dividers to size, I used a 2" Forstner bit to drill the cable management holes. I also pre-drilled the pilot holes for the drawer slides. (I knew I didn't want to deal with the headache of drilling those holes after assembly.)

To attach the dividers and inner sides, I pulled out my trusty Kreg pocket hole jig. I used pocket holes and screws to attach all four pieces to the inverted top panel.

To keep the dividers from sliding when I drove the pocket screws (I also used glue), I clamped scrap boards on both sides.

Then I flipped that assembly over, placing it on the bottom panel. I could use pocket screws on the inner sides, but not for the dividers. For them, I used counterbored screws through the panel.

Finally, I glued the actual sides to the inner sides. The results were not as good as I had hoped, but they were okay. There were definite gaps (around 1/32" or so) at the corners, but I thought I could deal with them prior to finishing.