When Dovetails Cry Pt. 1

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You asked for it and now you are going to get it. Today we are cutting some dovetails.

Oh, it is good.

(Music Playing)

Marc Spagnuolo: Welcome to episode 27 of the Wood Whisperer. I am your host Marc J. Spagnuolo and on today’s show we are going to cut some true dovetails.

Now dovetails are an extremely old joints, in fact, they date backs at the times of ancient Egypt and China where from what I understand, they have uncovered tombs that actually still had furniture pieces and that it contain dovetails. It is really amazing.

Now dovetails are extremely strong. They are really attractive and you could see why people like to include them in their furniture. But, why are they giving so much emphasis? Why is it, sort of it end old bill for most wood workers?

(Music Playing) Dovetails …… experience the difference.

Now while dovetails are a great way to attract the opposite sex, they are by no means necessary. You could certainly construct drawers and case work with a number of other joinery methods including rabbits, you could certainly use dolls. I even got an example right here.

This is a drawer that I built for one of my favorite pieces. This lives in our living room and I wanted to do something. I mean dovetails have been done a million times before, why do I need to do it again?

So what I have is a hotel befront, maple sides, and wangy accent trim.

So if you take a look, I have actually got three stainless steel dulls into a rabbit, it was cut into the hotel barer. And, I actually decided to dress it up by putting this little strip of wangy in the front.

So unique, very strong, especially in a lot of decorative drawers like this that holds business cards and means, it is not a big deal, but the point is this is every bit of strong as a dovetail joint and it is really attractive too. People look at angle wood, is that why did you do this? And it is a little bit unusual but you can do that. You can make people keep guessing without using dovetails.

Dovetails are a little bit predictable sometimes, so but that being said, dovetail will indeed improve your work. They are something that you should strive to perfect and to get really good at making.

And one more thing to think about when the siding went through or not to use dovetails in your project is the recipient. Think about whether or not they even have an appreciation for a dovetail. Do they even know what a dovetail is?

I mean, when I look around the four arms and just hear the conversation that go on, sometimes it seems to me that we are making dovetails to impress other woodworkers. When you look at the fine difference between a hand cut dovetail and one that was cut by a machine, usually it is got to be a very discriminating person who collects furniture or a woodworker.

These are the only two people who could pick out the difference between them, and like I said, some people do not even know what a dovetail is. So you need to keep that in mind when designing a project for a customer or even a family member.

The other thing is you do not necessarily want to let your customers or your recipient standards of quality dictate your level of quality. So, if dovetails are the way you think drawer should be constructed, then do that because that is the standard you set for your self. Mean that they do not let our customers standards dictate my stopping point in a project, it is the day that I stop caring about my craft.

And before proceeding we should probably talk a little bit about terminology. A lot of time with dovetails, you have got the terminologies, pins, tails, you are not really sure what should be your drawer front, which one should be your side. It can get pretty confusing. So, let us go over to that really quickly.

I have got two boards here, and at first glance they look pretty similar right? But one of this is our tailboard and the other is our pin board and of course one of this is our drawer front and the other would be the drawer side.

So let me first show you the way I always tell them apart. If you look really closely at them, face on like this, one of them looks like a birds tail or a ducks tail or something. The other one does not.

This one where the sides flare out like that, to me that looks like a tail and that is your tail board. These are pins because they are not the tail board. There is nothing about that that makes me say hey, that was like a pin! But I know which one is the tail process elimination. This is your pin board.

So the one thing you really have to memorize once you can figure that out is memorize which one should be your drawer front. Your pins are always your drawer front. And if you a sample of joint, you could always double check yourself.

The joint goes together like this,

Nice type fit.

Now, I put the drawer or I put the side piece on this way, this joint comes apart in this direction, which means this would make a horrible drawer front because you are always pulling on the drawer front. And, this could easily come apart so that really makes no sense to do that way.

So your pin board will always be the front of your drawer because I will not get this apart without breaking this piece. That is the natural magic of he dovetail joint is its naturally strong in that direction and that is why it is perfect for drawers.


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