Two fer Monday

Re: Two fer Monday

A cistern is usually concrete with a tapered access hole in the top to receive a plup. I presume you aren't asking about lids on water storage tanks.

I'll let someone else focus their powers on solving the second question.

Re: Two fer Monday

My guess for Q #2 is that a carver's eye is at the cutting end of the chisel and not at the other end. A round mallet requires no attention to see if the head is turned the right way.

Tommy

Cisterns were/are made of

of stuff other than concrete and sometimes lined, sometimes not. A cistern dovetail was used in England.

An assist ...

to be sure but not the reason.

Clarification

A cistern dovetail can be used lots of places but it is a term used by the Brits to describe a dovetail used on cisterns for a specific reason.

cistern DT.

Most dovetail jigs make them by default, unless you have a fancy one;-)

guess on mallet

If you use a round one, the force is centered and that helps transfer the impact better and keeps it from spinning.

Answer

1. The so called cistern dovetail was used to make the outer case of the cistern, some were lined with a waterproof material such as lead some were plaster lined. The timber outer 'case' used dovetails which were equal in size to the pins rendering the maximum strength possible to withstand the pressure of the water. As stated by Dan most dovetail jigs do this by default, but the British "cistern dovetails" were much larger than the examples produced by jigs of today.

2. So he can use less force when striking with it. The force of the swing is focused on a smaller area (the tangent point of a circle) instead of over a larger flat area. This would lead to lighter taps, but the same equivalent force. Owing to this also is the tendency to "choke up" on the mallet for additional control and the roundness allows for comfort and feel.

Dan does good!.