Appreciation post: my bench vise saved a set of maple drawers I almost scrapped

Seth Smith · 2026-10-28T10:00:05.09084+00:00

I was fitting drawer boxes for a kitchen in Norfolk last month and the fourth one racked so bad the front gap swung from 1/16 to a fat 3/16 just by pushing on one corner. Guys on here keep saying to shim the slides and call it done, but I stuck the box in my bench vise with a couple of cauls and gave the long side a slow squeeze over maybe 20 minutes. It pulled the gap back to dead even and the box still slides smooth after two coats of finish. How do you all pull a racked box back without crushing the dovetails?

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Appreciation post: my bench vise saved a set of maple drawers I almost scrapped | Cabinetmakers - HW Forums