Exercise in tapered sliding dovetails

Tell us how

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Always interesting to learn how they were done. There are many way to skin this cat.

Re: Tell us how

John Pappas

I'm the student here, not a teacher. Watched video on YouTube. Homestead Heritage School of Woodworking. 25 minutes. Followed his method completely. Did several practice joints. Thought I was ready. First attempt resulted in some scrap wood. Kept at it. Had to do some mending on a couple of the earlier ones. The last three made me happy. I'd give myself a B or B- grade overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g0QA2Nwkc0

Re: Tell us how

John Pappas

oops. copied link in middle of video. just start a the beginning. sorry

It's upside down (pomu)

Re: It's upside down (pomu)

John Pappas

You might be right, but do you think it looks ok that way?

(What does "pomu" mean?

Love that

Jack Guzman from Maine

I really like the design of that. Looks like fun too.

Re: Love that

John Pappas

Thanks Jack, What was fun about this was going from failure to success in a new endeavor. As I said the last few joints were made well.

Re: Exercise in tapered sliding dovetails

David Weaver

That's a visually interesting little piece. I did my first large sliding dovetails by hand this past year on a two part cabinet. They are so strong that I envision the house being torn apart by a tornado and the cabinet bouncing across the landscape taking only dents while everything else is ripped apart.

(not to mention the benefit of not having complex clamping on glue up or having it be that critical in general to use much glue).

Re: It's upside down (pomu)

Clint Searl

I like the look a lot. The interlocking cantilevers show up in 19th century Japanese cabinets and stuff by Gabriel Viardot. "pomu" was as close as I could get to "down" upside down on the keyboard

sliding dovetails

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

One of the obvious benefits of a sliding dovetail is that it creates a strong joint. Another is that it creates a very compact joint.

This entire case was built from mortice-and-tenons and sliding dovetails ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Exercise in tapered sliding dovetails

John Pappas

Thanks David. It is a strong joint. I was surprised how strong the ones I did well were And in this piece it's a matter that all eight move or none of the eight move. I did not think glue was necessary for this piece considering all it does is just hang around.

Don't keep us hanging...

Jim Matthews

Show it up on the wall, already.

This is an accomplished piece

Jim Matthews

All of the components need to align in three axes.

Not a trivial task.

Kudos

Appreciate your comments.  Thanks

Parallel vs Tapered sliding dovetails

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

Jim, it was not my intention to showcase the piece of furniture, but rather to highlight the joinery. That piece was mentioned on the forum about a month ago, when it was published in FWW magazine.

The other factor I wanted to draw attention to is parallel vs tapered sliding dovetails.

For the purposes of the construction of that piece, where the sockets were relatively short, they could be made parallel. However, when a socket is long - say the width of a case - then tapered sliding dovetails are better used .... otherwise it would be a nightmare to fit together.

Tapered socket ...

Link to make: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/EntryHallTableForANiece8.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

I may be guilty...

Jim Matthews

...of tugging on Superman's cape.

The most intriguing aspect of this is that the "strip" of material housing the multiple sockets appears to be applied to the external panels. That implies that the joinery van be completed in a discrete step - without risk to the show faces.

This is fiendishly clever.

(I'll be stealing that, thankyouverymuch.)