Survey - Dovetails

Re: chisel? *LINK*

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX


>I ordered through Mr. Iida-san, who apparently sees Tasai-san fairly often. I suspect that Harrelson Stanley at Hiraide (http://www.japanesetools.com/ ) can also order custom Tasai iron.

It took between 2 and 3 months, with a few emails exchanged on how and why I wanted it. Feel free to say something like "just like Pam's" if you'd like to shortcut this process; but your hands are probably a lot larger than mine. It's 10.5" long with the blade and handle each slightly more than 3" long. I'd originally asked for a total 6" long, thought I wanted a real short chisel, but Tasai-san said that wouldn't do. At that point I simply provided my hand width and length and trusted in whatever he made.

On price, that's a private thing between me and Iida-san. It was in the ball park of the cost of the high end Tasai's on Harrelson's site; but keep in mind that I have several Tasai chisels, including an ultra thin paring chisel I got from Harrelson, and a very special plane he made called "On," which I'd bought from Iida-san. I made a point of complimenting him on both. Also, I've bought several other items from Iida-san on ebay. I have no idea whether any of these transactions made any difference. It may even cost you less if you get a duplicate. Who knows, Tasai-san may have made several copies when he made mine.

Pam


contact Tomohito Iida

Re: Apology accepted, Dan

Thom D


>Is Kingshot a tail first guy? I can see the point on half lap though I still don't do it. It all works. I just thought the tail first was pretty off-beat, but it seems as though a lot of people do it. I certainly see the appeal of ganging the tails, though sawing is so fast I'm wouldn't care. I would be pretty tempted to gang them on a thick board and then resaw them.

My objective is to get good enough to saw the two parts separately without any direct measurements or templates. I wanted to add that to my demo, about the time I gave up doing demos. I don't think it would be terribly difficult for one size of stock alone.

Re: Apology accepted, Dan

Sgian Dubh


>Thom, I can't say if Kingshott is a tails or pins first type-- I've never seen any of his writings/videos to know. For that matter I've never seen any of the how-to books or videos on (dovetail) joinery. I learnt how to set out and cut dovetails differently before any of these aids were available.

I can say though that I find it a little odd that anyone would advocate cutting pins first when dealing with either through dovetails or lap (half-blind) dovetails. This method completely eliminates the savings in time that can be achieved through cutting the tails first.

Using the tails first method means, of course, that you can gang together drawer sides, carcase sides, box sides, etc., and cut them in one batch. This technique has been mentioned a few times in this thread. I think my personal record was to cut four pairs of drawer sides tails in one batch, but I may be wrong on that for it could have been five pairs.

Whichever order the tails or pins (of through or lap dovetails are cut) the pins at either end of a board have to be cut individually. I find it hard to understand why anyone would forego the opportunity to save time on what is in truth a pretty tedious and repetitious job by forcing themselves to also cut the tails individually-- the situation a worker finds themselves in if they work the pins first.

Perhaps my attitude is coloured by my background where fast production has always been the imperative in order to meet deadlines and delivery dates.

On the other hand, secret lap dovetails, secret double lap dovetails, and secret mitre dovetails must be cut pins first as it's the only way that the rakes required can be transferred from one cut part to the other. I probably haven't cut any of these types of dovetails in maybe sixteen or twenty years now. They're generally much too labour intensive for most buyers and mitred joints cut on the sliding table saw and reinforced with biscuits or tongues are significantly swifter and cheaper, which is not necessarily the same as better. Slainte.

Yes, Jim's a tails first guy

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA

Re: Apology accepted, Dan

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX


>Actually, Richard, in his video Kingshott cuts tails first for his hidden half-lap. It could be a little confusing because he talks about removing/cutting out the pins on the first drawer side he does, but he means that the waste is where the pins will go.

I agree that the efficiencies gained in a tails first approach are important and valuable. I disagree that substituting biscuits is suitable and agree that this is not better. :)

Pam

Re: Apology accepted, Dan

Sgian Dubh


>Better, Pam, of course depends on the nature of the job. Structurally I suspect a mitred corner joint in solid wood reinforced with a tongue or biscuits is not as strong as a secret mitred or secret lapped dovetail. Aesthetically there's nothing to choose as the guts of the joint are invisible in either case.

If, however, there's a profit motive then it's sometimes the case that a designer/maker must take the lower cost option. I don't think anyone would expect to see secret mitred dovetailed solid wood carcases and hand dovetailed solid wood drawers in a run of commercial quality kitchen or medical institution cabinets.

Drawer sides in the highest quality work include slips. Slips increase surface wear area at the bottom edge of the drawer sides: thy're like brake pads on cars in that they are wearing parts and therefore replaceable. The groove (in my experience) is generally only cut directly into the sides in upper middling to lower quality work. When the groove is cut into the sides it's the case that the sides, of necessity, become thick, heavy, clunky, inelegant-- pick your preferred derogatory term-- so that enough meat is left to form the groove and carry the weight of a loaded drawer.

If drawer bottoms are carried in slips then drawer sides in typical drawers as you might find in a chest of drawers are only about 8 or 11 mm thick A stack of ten drawer sides ends up being between 80 and 110 mm thick-- not very hard to cut dovetails through the whole pack in one go. The limitation I've found is that there are usually only two to four drawers of the same height so this limits the ganging opportunities.

Denis was asking about tips to speed up the dovetailing job. One trick if you're grooving directly into the drawer sides is to cut a small piece of wood that fits the groove. Jam the wood in the groove of the side and the front as you transfer the rake of the tails or pins to the matching part. This helps line up things quickly. Slainte.

Re: Apology accepted, Dan

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX


>Thanks, Richard, on the tip. Also, what precisely are slips? Can you point me to some explanation of how they're done?

Pam

Re: Apology accepted, Dan *LINK*

Sgian Dubh


>Here's a description Pam. Slainte.


Drawer making Article.

Re: Yes, Jim's a tails first guy

Thom D


>Thanks all for the info about Jim.

I don't really think the ganged sides is a big time savings, since sawing is very fast and there are losses of speed associated with the method , like the need to line parts up. On the other hand enough people are doing it that way that the orthodox critique doesn't hold much water either. I must try a few batches and see how it goes.

The one thing I dont like...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA


>About gang cutting, it's really hard to cope out the waste of the tails out when their ganged. Too much flex in a coping saw blade.

Re: The one thing I dont like...

Sgian Dubh


>Scott, the waste in drawer sides (which are commonly 10 mm thick or less) can very often be whacked out in one blow with a mallet and a sharp chisel. This where a heavily cutting gauged shoulder line really comes into its own-- it's somewhere to locate the pointy end of the chisel.

An alternative, a bit slower and fiddlier I admit, is to use a router, a straight cutter and a side fence to plunge between the tails. There's still some cleaning up to do with a sharp chisel in the corners which all slows the job down.

For preference I use the first method where the wood type, chisel sharpness, the waste size and my confidence allows it. It's very fast when you get a rhythm going, taking perhaps 30- 90 seconds per drawer side end. Slainte.

Attaching the slips

Wiley Horne


>Richard,

Are the slip pieces glued to the inside bottom edges of the drawer sides? Or are they let into the drawer sides somehow? What's holding them in place?

By the way, contributions like these that you make--as a working professional cabinetmaker--are tremendously practical and useful.

Thanks for sharing your hard-earned knowledge!

Wiley

Well, I'm not Richard, but

Andrew F in Australia


>as it's late at night in the UK and the real world series is on at the moment;

the slips are usually nailed into place without glue, Wiley.

As they're an item designed to be replaced, we make it easier for the guy 80 years or so down the track.

The drawer bottom stops them from falling inwards (assuming that you've cut it correctly,) and it takes a lot more weight than what you can place sensibly in a drawer to shear a steel nail in half, let alone 10 of the little blighters. When it's time to replace the slip, you remove the two screws holding the drawer bottom in (that screw into the underside of the drawer back), slide the drawer bottom out and pop the drawer slip out with a bit of judicious pressure.

After they're nailed in, you set a plane really fine and plane them down level with the (previously planed to 'piston' fit) drawer side.

Hope that this helps and,

Cheers,

Andrew

(who's wondering why the only nations that don't play football (of the soccer variety) as their main winter sport are former British colonies.)

One word from me...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA


>Blowout. I've tried to chisel though them it always leaves a nasty edge where the chisel comes through. Even if it's on teh inside of the drawer, I still find it unaceptable. Also I hate flipping the boards to chisel from both sides. That a real time waister IMHO.

I feel much safer coping out the waste and a quick swipe or two with a pairing chisel. I only have problems coping out waist if the board(s) are over 1 inch.

Re: Well, I'm not Richard, but

Wiley Horne


>Hi Andrew,

Thanks a lot for relating your teaching, and perhaps Richard will tell whether he nails them or what. He did say they were maintenance items, meant to be replaced. (Then I ask about glue---duhhhh.) Richard wrote an article on drawer making for Furniture and Cabinet Making magazine, and I seem to recall that the slip/drawer side connection had something fancy about it.

That is an interesting business about the anglophone world having different brands of football than the rest of the world--featuring high-intensity violence and use of hands.

I have wondered also why the US can't play competitive rugby. Maybe we need to field the Philadelphia Eagles. As it is, I seem to recall that a South Pacific island team is our only win in about 15 years--and it was close. And maybe Japan once.

Thanks again! Wiley

Re: Well, I'm not Richard, but

Sgian Dubh


>I do slips slightly differently to Andrew, Wiley. I glue them in using spring cramps or very small lightweight G cramps that I have.

I don't have an image online that I can load that would tell the story quickly but, in words, slips effectively move the side groove for the drawer bottom inwards by about 18 mm. They are bits of timber about 18 mm square. A groove about 6-8 mm deep by about 6-8 mm wide is worked on one edge in the middle. This groove, of course, carries the drawer bottom.

At the front, in the best work, the slip has a wee tenon worked that fits the groove worked on the back face of the drawer front. At the back end of the slip the top edge is notched away to form a rebate (rabbet) and tongue that stops level with the top edge of the groove. This rebate (along with the tenon at the front end) locates the slip at the right height inside the drawer.

There are different ways of making slips. The first way has the slips sitting proud of the drawer bottom and is the simpler way of making them. The second way is so that the top face of the drawer bottom is set flush with the top edge of the slip-- this is more complex as the drawer bottom is thicker and the groove in the drawer front is offset up to a level that matches the top edge of the slip. This also means of necessity offsetting the the front tongue of the drawer bottom that engages with the back of the drawer front up from the tongue that engages with the slips.

Joyce has a couple of images in The Technique of Furniture Making in the section, Drawer Work if you have that book.

Anyway, talking of the World Cup, as far as I'm concerned that doesn't happen until next year in France. That's when the real World Cup of the oval ball and crunching tackles occurs. What's going on in Germany right now is the dummy-spitting, prancing nancies game. I'm sort of surprised to see the Ockers, with their claim to being a bloke'ish macho society, sending a bunch of Sheila's there to run about like limp wristed blouses, but there ya go, ha, ha--- ha, ha, ha. Slainte.

Re: One word from me...

Sgian Dubh


>Scott, that spelch thing (blowout) can be a problem, especially in woods that are either fairly brittle or soft and squashy.

If you get chance to practice on some scrap, like maple, pine, poplar or oak try making a deep score with the cutting gauge particularly on what will be the bottom face, ie, the inside of the drawer side-- this is where a traditional cutting gauge has a real advantage over the recent style of wheel gauges that aren't really capable of being used that way.

Get the chisel really sharp with a fairly low grinding and sharpening angle between about 25- 30�, locate the sharp end in the cutting gauge score and really belt hell out of it with the mallet.

This may, or may not work for you. All you can do is try it and see. Slainte.

Drawer slip - detail *LINK*

Andrew F in Australia


>Hi Wiley,

Here's a rough sketch of the drawer slip layout as I was trained (and do so in custom furniture.)

The main difference seems to be that in furniture here, traditionally, the upper face of the drawer bottom.

I've really hurried the sketch as we're off to see the outlaws today in all their finery, and I'm being hurried up (public holiday today.) I don't want to be late for this one.

Cheers,

Andrew

(who used to play any position in the back 5 on the scrum, but usually loosie or second row, for about 8 years, and doesn't really follow football - I've attached details of a recent incident in a Hamilton pub late, late, late after a loss - look what the former All Blacks captain got up to)




Tana Umanga's handbag slap

Slips

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX


>Thanks, Richard. It appears to me that you could build the side grooves by sandwiching the bottom between slip and a cover of sorts. This provides much more support for the bottom. Very cool.

What I'm doing for our kitchen drawers is installing a center mount sliding dovetail made from wood, which also adds support. I'll have to build one of yours and compare.

Pam

Don't you know it!

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA


>I've DT most woods I can get my hands on, from soft to hard, stringie to brittle, stright grained to down right squirly.

I see a problem in the deep scoring method you talk about. I use to score deep marking lines and found that you can break or shatter pins right off the board oppon assembly or even before, when chopping out tail waist. I guess it a matter of what makes one feel more comfortable. To each his own, thanks for you comments!

edit: back from the inlaws

Andrew F in Australia


>I meant to say:

The main difference seems to be that in furniture here, traditionally, the upper face of the drawer bottom is 3/4" (a modern 19mm) from the lower edge of the drawer side as shown below.

The drawer back is cut a full inch narrower than the drawer sides - the 6mm (1/4") gap that's left on the top allows the air to escape on closing, as well as the air gap under the drawer bottom.

Best regards,

Andew

Re: Don't you know it!

Sgian Dubh


>Scott, I was specifically talking about knocking the waste out between the tails. It's narrow compared to the width of the tails themselves and the gap is always an exact match to a specific chisel width-- 1.5, 3, 6, 9, 12mm wide according to the chisel used to lay out the dovetail set.

Removing the waste between the pins on the ends of say drawer backs, or the lap dovetails on such as drawer fronts you certainly do face a different problem as you describe. The pins can be quite fragile as you point out in through dovetails and the chopping is a tedious time-waster on lap dovetails.

Here are two places where a router, straight cutter and side fence can really speed the job up. True, this is the hand tool side of the forum where power tools tend to be rather frowned upon so you may be unwilling to use such techniques in your work--- a perfectly reasonable objection as far as I'm concerned.

On the other hand, I'm purely a pragmatic furniture maker interested in speed of production and profit. Power woodworking, hand tool woodworking, whatever does the job quickest tends to be my motivation. Slainte.

Re: Drawer slip - detail

Wiley Horne


>Andrew,

Thanks so much for the slip detail drawings. Also on the subject of slips, I also enjoyed your 'outlaw' one. Many here can relate to it.

Wiley

Richard, thanks for

Wiley Horne


>taking the time to write all that out--made it easy to visualize.

Wiley .... still mulling over Andrew's handbag story.