What Is A Dovetail Joint? A dovetail joint is a joinery technique used in woodworking, traditionally used to join wooden furniture. Dovetail joints are known for their inherent strength and resistance to being pulled apart (tensile strength).
What is the purpose of dovetailing?
Dovetail joints are a sign of a true craftsman. Noted for their resilience to pull apart, these finger-like joints between two pieces of wood enable a tight, strong, and long lasting fit. Dovetail joints require zero mechanical fasteners, making them more attractive to the traditionalist.
What is the use of a dovetail joint?
Applications of a Dovetail Joint? Dovetail joints are most commonly used woodworking. Carpenters use dovetail joints to create cabinets, furniture, drawers, log buildings, carcass construction, timber framing. Dovetail joints are known for their strength and durability.
What is the purpose of a dovetail jig?
The dovetail jig helps the woodworker to easily make dovetail or finger joints when constructing boxes and furniture items. It’s only limited by your imagination. Dovetail jigs, in particular, come in different forms.
What is the purpose of dovetailing?
Dovetail joints are a sign of a true craftsman. Noted for their resilience to pull apart, these finger-like joints between two pieces of wood enable a tight, strong, and long lasting fit. Dovetail joints require zero mechanical fasteners, making them more attractive to the traditionalist.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a dovetail joint?
The interlocking dovetail joint has a large gluing area, further adding to its strength. Hand cut dovetail joints require precise handsaw and chisel skills, and can be fiddly to mark out and cut. If dovetail joints are poorly made they will lose the advantage of strength and durability.
When was dovetailing used?
While dovetail joints can be found on ancient Egyptian coffins from 3000 BC, they were not used in European and American furniture until the mid 1600s. Dovetails have flared tails like a bird on the end of the drawer’s side boards that interlock into mirroring pins on the drawer’s face board.
Are dovetail joints necessary?
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.
Are dovetail joints still used?
They are still used today by many experienced custom furniture makers. Dovetail joints are not only used to make a strong joint for drawer construction, but cabinet makers often use them to join the tops, bottoms and sides of cabinet cases, as was done on antique furniture.
Are dovetail joints worth it?
This adds extreme strength to the drawer box joints. It is almost impossible for the joints to break because of the dovetail cuts as well as it being made from solid wood. In addition to this, most companies will also add the full extension, undermount, soft closing drawer guides.
What are dovetail ways?
Dovetail slides can also be known as dovetail ways. They consist of a permanent base into which the tenon interlocks but can still slide and a saddle, which is the moving part. Dovetail slides are direct contact systems in which the sliding area is regarded as the dovetail slide’s bearing system.
What is an example of a dovetail?
The scheme is neatly dovetailed into the established system of private practice. Fraternity was dovetailed with obedience to administrative authority. His ‘reply’ – which begins before her speech has finished, the two passages dovetailing seamlessly – fits his line remarkably closely to her musical profile.
What is the best angle for a dovetail?
Percy Blandford, who has been writing about woodworking for a long time, writes in his new book, “The Woodworker’s Bible,” that any angle between 7.5° and 10° is acceptable. The ideal, he says, is 8.5° for softwoods and 7.5° when joining hardwoods.
Why are dovetail joints good for drawers?
A sign of quality and solid construction, dovetail drawers have an interlocking design that creates a sturdy lock. This design, which includes “pins” and “tails” that fit tightly and precisely together, is a sign of solid craftsmanship.
What are the advantages of a dovetail saw?
Most importantly: When you are sawing dovetails or any other joint, the canted or tapered blade allows you to saw to your baseline on the front side of the work and still be shy of the baseline on the backside of the work. Then you can look over the work and finish the job.
Why is a dovetail joint suitable for the construction of a drawer?
Because of how a dovetail joint is shaped, it has amazing tensile strength, meaning it’s almost impossible to pull apart. This extremely strong construction means you can open and close your kitchen drawers as many times as you like without having to worry about the drawer face coming loose.
What is the meaning of dovetailing process?
Meaning of dovetailing in English to cause something to fit exactly together: Their results dovetail nicely with ours. We tried to dovetail our plans with theirs. Connecting and combining.
What are the advantages of a dovetail saw?
Most importantly: When you are sawing dovetails or any other joint, the canted or tapered blade allows you to saw to your baseline on the front side of the work and still be shy of the baseline on the backside of the work. Then you can look over the work and finish the job.
What is the purpose of dovetailing?
Dovetail joints are a sign of a true craftsman. Noted for their resilience to pull apart, these finger-like joints between two pieces of wood enable a tight, strong, and long lasting fit. Dovetail joints require zero mechanical fasteners, making them more attractive to the traditionalist.
Is dovetail joint the strongest?
It used to be. Now we have good adhesives— today’s glues are stronger than wood itself— this is no longer true. A box joint provides more glue surface than a dovetail and should be used if strength is your purpose. Dovetails are still used because they are pretty, though.
What is the weakest wood joint?
A butt joint is the easiest of all simple wood joints, but also is the weakest. The cut end of one board butts up against the edge of another piece at a right angle. The key to every type of wood joint is having smooth, square cuts on the boards, and the butt joint is no exception.
Is dovetail joint permanent?
The strongest and most permanent right-angled joints made in wood are the ‘dove-tail’ joints, as illustrated below. The so-called tails and pins fit together to form a secure joint.
Why is it called dovetail?
Dovetail joints are made up of two parts called pins and tails. When a master craftsman wants to marry two boards together, they cut a series of pins on one board and matching tails on the other. They are trapezoidal in shape, resembling the tail feathers of a dove (hence the name dovetail).
Who invented dovetails?
This paper considers the origins of the dovetail from ancient Egyptian cabinetwork, through its development as a builders’ and joiners’ joint, to becoming the symbol of refined cabinet making.
What does it mean when two things dovetail?
dovetail (something) (with/into something) if two things dovetail or if one thing dovetails with another, they fit together well. My plans dovetailed nicely with hers.
Is dovetail the highest quality?
Dovetail joinery is a benchmark of high-quality construction because these fasteners are all potential weak points that can degrade or break-down over time.
