Single-lap Dovetail The single-lap (known to many folks as a half-blind dovetail) is the best known of the dovetails since it’s used to join the front to the sides of a drawer.
What is the most popular dovetail?
The through dovetail joint is the most popular dovetail joint because it is strong, attractive, and versatile. It is commonly used in furniture-making, cabinetry, and woodworking. The through dovetail joint is a traditional woodworking joint characterized by the interlocking triangular shape it creates.
What is a standard dovetail?
A dovetail joint is a joint that holds together the sides of the drawer. It consists of a series of tail shapes cut in both pieces of wood, and they fit tightly together, like two jigsaw pieces. Once they are fitted together and glued they create a very strong, neat joint, which resists being pulled apart.
Where are dovetails most commonly used?
A dovetail joint or simply dovetail is a joinery technique most commonly used in woodworking joinery (carpentry), including furniture, cabinets, log buildings, and traditional timber framing.
What is an English dovetail joint?
English Dovetail / Through Dovetail The craftsperson usually orients the tails and pins in this joint horizontally, although this isn’t a cardinal rule. It is sometimes called a through dovetail because both the pins and tails go all the way through each-other.
What is the strongest joint in woodworking?
Mortise and tenon joints have stood the test of time for their remarkable strength. This traditional joint involves a projecting piece of wood, called a tenon, securely fitting into a corresponding cavity, a mortise. It can be reinforced with glue or wedges for stability for a stronger hold.
Are dovetail joints worth it?
Making sure that you pick a drawer joint that can withstand this type of wear and tear is crucial to the longevity of your kitchen cabinets. Dovetail joints are considered one of the strongest joints used in kitchen cabinetry construction and are the best solution for a kitchen cabinet drawer box.
What is the difference between English dovetail and French dovetail?
English dovetails are the most common. They have interlocking joints and allow the most amount of space – usually several more inches of room than you would get with French dovetails. This is because the dovetail groove cannot be put all the way at the edge of a drawer with French dovetails.
What is a French dovetail joint?
Fyi, the English dovetail technique is also commonly referred to as a butt joint. French Dovetail: This technique is based on cutting out a slat in the middle of a board and also a corresponding piece of wood that can slide into the middle cutout. English and French Dovetail Drawer Construction.
How deep should a dovetail joint be?
Two-step Shouldered Joints With a 3⁄4″-diameter flush-trimming bit in your router, plow out the dado to 3⁄16″ deep. Next, take your router with a tem- plate guide and dovetail bit, set it to 9⁄16″ deep (without moving the straightedge) and make the cut into the case side.
Is 11mm dovetail the same as 3 8?
However, that is not the only difference between the two dovetails. They also have different groove angles as shown below. The 11 mm dovetail has a 60-degree angle, while the 3/8” dovetail has a 45-degree angle.
Should you glue dovetail joints?
Michael Dresdner: The only areas that require glue on dovetails are the diagonal faces. All the diagonal faces are long grain, all the square faces are end grain, and all the flat faces abut end grain. Therefore, you need only apply glue to the diagonal faces on the tails or pins, or both.
Are dovetail joints difficult?
Hand-cutting a dovetail joint is kind of a woodworking high-wire act; one slip of the saw or chisel and the joint either won’t fit together or will look sloppy. It takes a lot of time to master the ability to cut dovetails quickly and well (by hand or machine), without a lot of fussing around.
What is the common dovetail ratio?
6:1 (9.5°) and 8:1 (7.1°) dovetail ratios are the most common (though you’ll often see 4:1 and 10:1 as well). 8:1 and higher ratios have a steeper angle that works well in hardwoods, since these woods aren’t as likely to compress and don’t require as extreme of wedge.
What is the difference between English dovetail and French dovetail?
English dovetails are the most common. They have interlocking joints and allow the most amount of space – usually several more inches of room than you would get with French dovetails. This is because the dovetail groove cannot be put all the way at the edge of a drawer with French dovetails.
Is dovetail the highest quality?
Dovetail is arguably the strongest joint in millwork. It’s made so that it can’t be twisted or pulled in any direction except for one. This means that it’ll take more force to break or damage the joint. Because of the preciseness of each piece, this joint is held into place without the need for extra reinforcement.
What is the ideal dovetail angle?
Answer from the experts: Clearly, there’s no shortage of advice about the “best” dovetail angle: Some woodworkers recommend using 12° for “coarse work” and 7° to 10° for decorative joints.
Is dovetail the strongest joint?
Strength. Dovetail is arguably the strongest joint in millwork. It’s made so that it can’t be twisted or pulled in any direction except for one. This means that it’ll take more force to break or damage the joint.
What is the weakest joint in carpentry?
The butt joint is the simplest joint. An unreinforced butt joint is also the weakest joint, as it provides a limited surface area for gluing and lacks any mechanical interlocking to resist external forces.
What is the weakest type of woodworking joint?
A butt joint is the most basic kind of wood joint where the end of one piece of material butts up to another without any shaping done to the material. Because this technique utilizes minimal surface area for glue, it’s generally considered a weak joint unless supported by additional fasteners such as nails and screws.
Which is the weakest carpentry joint type?
A butt joint uses a simple technique whereby two pieces of material are joined together at their ends, without any special shaping or cutting. Although it is simple, the butt joint is also the weakest of the wood joinery types.
Is a finger joint stronger than a dovetail joint?
It depends on the application. For box joint, some people put a lot more fingers than it is possible to do with Dovetail. In this case, the gluing surface is larger, and the joint is likely stronger. Also, some find a way to hide a finish nail in the joint.
When did they stop using dovetail?
According to oldcopper.org, coppersmiths kept on dovetailing the seams until about 1900, after which better joinery technology made the time-consuming dovetail process obsolete. This means that a dovetailed pot or pan could have been hand-cut or machine-cut.
What is an impossible dovetail joint?
Press a dovetailed board into another board with matching sockets, and you’ve created woodworking’s most iconic joint. The dovetails and sockets wedge the boards together, so the joint can’t pull apart; the only way to disassemble it is to lift the dovetailed board back out of the sockets.
What is a Knapp joint?
Are dovetail joints easy to make?
Of the four types of dovetail joints (through dovetail, half blind dovetail, secret mitered dovetail, and the sliding dovetail), the through dovetail is the most basic method, and a perfect one for hand cutting. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief on the internet, they are not really all that hard.
