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Process of Dovetailing Woodworking

woodhometips
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On Apr 22, 2018
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The housed dovetail or tapered sliding dovetail is one of themost underused joints in the cabinetmaker's repertoire. I Typically it is dismissed as being too time-consuming and difficult to make. It is, however, the best way to join the end of one board cross-grain into the middle of another board without nails, screws or dowels.

The natural structure of wood causes problems with any cross grain joint. In a typical dado joint between a shelf and a vertical case side, for example, the mating side-grain to end-grain surfaces make poor glue joints. Adding rabbets, or even tenons, does not change this basic relationship, unless you also add screws or nails.
Process of Dovetailing Woodworkin

Dowels come loose as wood expands and contracts during the year. The sliding dovetail avoids these problems because it is an interlocking mechanical connection that doesn't require adhesives, so wood can move naturally without breaking the joint. And, all you need to cut the joint is a careful layout, a beveled guide block. a sharp chisel and a plane.
Joint Anatomy-Sliding dovetails are made in a variety of forms, but the most common one has the top surface of the joint dadoed straight in and the tapered dovetail cut into the bottom surface. The joint is typically stopped in the front and a shoulder is set back4 in. to /2 in.
The most important feature of a true sliding dovetail is its taper, which is thinner at the front than at the back like other woodworking process. This taper allows the joint to be assembled loosely for trial fitting, only becoming tight when driven home. It's always a surprise when the hand-tight trial fit needs to be driven apart with a mallet.

Tools for dovetailing

Cutting a sliding dovetail involves basic hand tools plus a couple of special items: a chisel guide block and a dovetail plane. The important feature of both of these tools is an angled edge. The chisel guide block is simply a board somewhat longer than the width of the stock to be joined; one long edge is square and the other long edge is beveled about 80o, or at about a 1:6 taper.
The dovetail plane looks like a rabbet plane, but it has a sole with the same bevel as the guide block and a skewed iron. Dovetail planes are commercially available, but can easily be made by modifying an old skew rabbet plane, as explained in the sidebar below.
Laying out the joint-To avoid confusion, the joint should be carefully laid out in a systematic manner. Unlike dovetails commonly used for drawer or case work, one half of the joint cannot be scribed from the other, and the accuracy of the fit is entirely dependent on cutting the lines correctly. Start by locating the top line of the dado and scribing this line across the face of the socket board and down across the back edge.

Determine how deep the recess will be

A marking gauge should be set to this measurement and the bottom line scribes on the back edge of the board parallel to the face. Along this line (not along the face), measure out the thickness of the pin board and mark the other bottom corner. Then, with a T-bevel set to the sole angle of the dovetail plane, scribe a line from this bottom corner up to the face. This establishes the shape of the joint at the back edge. Before going any further with the socket board, take the marking gauge and scribe a line across the bottom face of the end of the pin board and carry this line across the front edge.

Last Few Words

To establish the front end of the socket, mark the shoulder setback line on the face. I have never heard of a rule for how wide the front end should be, so I finally made up my own rule as follows: The narrowest width (the root or front inside corner) of the dovetail should be equal to half the thickness of the pin board.

Source

https://www.wonderfulwoodworking.com/dovetail-joints/
https://perfectpowertools.com/

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