A cabinetmaker in Tulsa showed me his drawer boxes and now I'm stuck arguing with myself
Two weeks ago I was in Tulsa helping a buddy finish a kitchen install, and the guy who built the boxes, name was Dale, let me poke around his shop for an hour. He only builds drawer boxes out of 1/2 inch baltic birch, no dovetails, just glued and screwed with a shallow rabbet, and he swears by it. I grew up on dovetails, my old boss would have smacked me for even saying that out loud, but Dale's boxes had zero rack after five years in a rental house. Here's my problem. Half of me thinks a drawer box with no joinery is a cheap shortcut that won't hold up for a customer paying 18 grand for a kitchen. The other half watched Dale pull a box out, flip it over, and show me the same joint I was about to write off as junk. So where do you all land? Is a glued and screwed rabbet box fine for anything that isn't heirloom work, or am I giving up something real by skipping the dovetails?