Dovetail marking out

[Sheffield Tony]

I was looking at the front cover of the last Fine Woodworking last night. It has a box, jewelry box perhaps, with a book matched veneered top, holly and ebony (?) stringing etc, and through dovetails.

These dovetails have a very conspicuous baseline marked with a knife across both pins and tails. Now, I know that a knife line is most accurate, and easy to align a chisel in. I know that it is a common feature, and that it is taken as a sign of a genuine handcut joint. But I don't like it. on the sides of drawers, all well and good. On the oak bookcase I made recently with conspicuous dovetails I went to some pains to avoid a knife line. On a jewelry box I'm not even all that sure I like the through dovetails at all in combination with the "fine" features of the lid.

So, quick question - do you like to see, or leave visible, a knifed baseline on your through dovetails ? Even in outwardly visible places ? If so, can you convince me why I should like them ?

[Sorry, I could not find a picture. But looking at the Fine woodworking homepage, my eye was caught by the changing picture at the top - wait for the guy cutting tenons on the table saw. That made me shudder.]

Edited to add: not a very big picture, but this is the box:

 

[marcros]

personally I prefer to see subtle and understated, so no knife line. To me, it is just ostentatious.

 

[Racers]

It seems to have been the norm since the 17th century.



Pete

 

[AndyT]

I don't like to see a visible knife line and don't favour visible joints where they would normally be concealed.

A knife line is an aid to accurate cutting, not a necessary part of the finished joint. Putting it on display either says "look at me, I'm handmade and expensive" which is a bit of a show-off thing to say, or else just says "I don't know any better."

But that's just my opinion, and I'm a bit old fashioned. On a similar theme, I don't want to see what brand of pants someone wears by reading the waistband showing above his ill-fitting trousers!

 

[Jacob]

Knife line DT shoulder is almost universal on old furniture, good or bad. And over-cutting the line to a greater or lesser extent. It's how you make/made accurate DTs by hand.
Removing by planing afterwards is a bit "I'm handmade and expensive" along with DTs through in both directions visible on the front (on posh furniture drawers - it's OK on cheap workaday boxes).

PS that FW box above is strictly ostentatious modern - Barnsley, post Arts n Crafts etc. Nobody was interested in seeing DTs in earlier days but fashions come and go.

PS it's about the only place you will find knife lines on old furniture and almost the only place they were used. "Marking" knife is a bit of a misnomer - they are for cutting; pencils and scribes are for marking

 

[DTR]

I don't mind seeing the knife line myself, but as can be seen above some people object to it. So now I tend to plane them off afterwards.

 

[John15]

I'm still a novice at cutting dovetails but prefer not to see knife-lines.

John

 

[Corneel]

Yes to knifelines. I think it looks great. But I don't really mind when they have been planed off either. I am kind of indifferent.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Knife lines are careless and messy.

 

[scotty38]

Knife lines are careless and messy.

You should see my dovetails......

 

[n0legs]

Knife lines are careless and messy.

You should see my dovetails......

:lol:

No knife lines please.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

For me it depends on the piece. That jewellery box would be better without them, indeed maybe better with hidden joints. On drawer sides, particularly the through dovetails at the back no problem. A lot of old furniture has these lines, probably because dovetails weren't a fancy alternative to a machine cut joint, they were made in a hurry as a utilitarian joint and it's quicker to scribe a line all the way across, I imagine (although don't really know) that very high end furniture did not have visible knife/gauge lines.
Paddy

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

There are lots of instances where through dovetails are done on a Leigh jig or Gifkins jig and the knife lines are put on afterwards, so it is not even real evidence of hand made joints! Personally, if the dovetail is on show, for a graphic effect, then the scribe line should be avoided. It makes no sense having a marking out line on show, when we would not expect the pencil lines used to remain. As for drawer sides, one classic way of fitting drawers, is to make them fit too tight and plane down the sides for the desired smooth, slop free fit. This will remove the scribe lines anyway, which should not have been so deep for their removal, when doing this. Less fussy drawers might still have the scribe marks on them, if the fit was achieved straight away, but it depends on the class of the work needed. I don't expect anyone buying
an expensive piece will tolerate scribe marks. I always remove them.

Mike.

 

[G S Haydon]

Context and personal preference, just like most things really.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I see cutting gauge lines which, although still knife lines, does define how the shoulder lines were marked by registering the stock of the gauge against the end grain of the parts, rather than measured along an edge from an end with the shoulder line cut using a square and a marking knife. I suppose it's a quirk on my part to describe the marking of dovetail shoulder lines as scribed with a cutting gauge.

Still, as to my appearance preference I think context is part of the key.

1. Visible scribed lines = speed, and possibly indicates a utilitarian structure rather than a 'fine' one, but definitely not necessarily. I've made many a small box and I can't really recall ever scribing only the bits to be chopped out, although I may have done once or twice - it's always seemed too fussy, finicky, and time consuming to me, so a quick score across with the gauge in 2 seconds or so does the business, rather than picking and pecking for two or three minutes.

2. No visible shoulder lines = some loss of speed, and an aesthetically driven preference, not mine, but not wrong either, depending on the maker, the time pressure, the end result desired, etc.

3. Drawer dovetails lacking scribed lines look wrong to me. I'm not completely sure why, but I think the question I ask when I see this form is: "Why bother with all that fiddling for something that's only seen intermittently?". And, perhaps perversely, some people/clients expect to see scribed lines to 'prove' the hand of the maker's been at the job! Slainte.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Hello,

There are lots of instances where through dovetails are done on a Leigh jig or Gifkins jig and the knife lines are put on afterwards, so it is not even real evidence of hand made joints!


wow, do people really do that? Next they'll be putting plane tracks in panels out of the drum sander

 

[woodbrains]

'

Hello,

There are lots of instances where through dovetails are done on a Leigh jig or Gifkins jig and the knife lines are put on afterwards, so it is not even real evidence of hand made joints!


wow, do people really do that? Next they'll be putting plane tracks in panels out of the drum sander

Hello,

Yes, you'll be surprised what people get up to! Jig made Half blinds are easier to spot, because they can never have needle pins like hand made London pattern ones. But still I've seen chunky, jig made half blinds, with scribe lines added. I've even heard of people re establishing scribe lines of hand cut ones, when planing had removed them during cleanup.

TBH I would not make a jewellery box or the like that had scribe lines showing. If people knew what they were looking at, they should spot hand cut dovetails, and if they don't know what they were looking at, I suspect they wouldn't care for scribe lines! I wouldn't selectively mark, either, as it is too fussy, but a wheel marking gauge, used with care, makes scribe lines fine enough to disappear with a few strokes of a hand plane on cleanup. So scribe lines would probably never appear on even my rough work. (As it tends to be these days, I don't get much opportunity for fine stuff these days)

Mike.

 

[custard]

Jig made Half blinds are easier to spot, because they can never have needle pins like hand made London pattern ones.

That's almost correct, but there is a significant loophole. On a Leigh Dovetail Jig you can cut the pin board first (half lap or through, makes no difference) with the finest of needle pins, you then do a manual transfer from the pin board to the tail board and cut the tails by hand. Visually it's absolutely identical to a hand cut dovetail, but you save maybe 30% or 40% of the time taken on each drawer and there's a bit less skill/risk involved. I've done it when I've had a lot of dovetailing on a job, say a six or eight drawer chest, anything less than that and the set up time for the Leigh Jig negates much of the advantage.

On the scribing question, for what it's worth the policy at the Edward Barnsley Workshop is no scribe lines, ever, not even for the through dovetails at the back of the drawer. I always thought that was bit odd as the Barnsley way in drawer construction is to build the drawer with the sides about 0.5mm proud of the front, which you then plane off, so you'd remove any scribe marks at that stage. Still, workshop rules are workshop rules and who am I to argue.

 

[charlibalv]

Totaly agree that on a quality piece there should be no scribe lines the extra care/time is full justifed. On more everyday peices then its purely whatever takes your fancy. However the practice of putting knife marks on after the use of a jig is a con and says more about the maker than the peice itself.

 

[Jacob]

Jig made Half blinds are easier to spot, because they can never have needle pins like hand made London pattern ones.

That's almost correct, but there is a significant loophole. On a Leigh Dovetail Jig you can cut the pin board first (half lap or through, makes no difference) with the finest of needle pins, you then do a manual transfer from the pin board to the tail board and cut the tails by hand. Visually it's absolutely identical to a hand cut dovetail, but you save maybe 30% or 40% of the time taken on each drawer and there's a bit less skill/risk involved. I've done it when I've had a lot of dovetailing on a job, say a six or eight drawer chest, anything less than that and the set up time for the Leigh Jig negates much of the advantage.

On the scribing question, for what it's worth the policy at the Edward Barnsley Workshop is no scribe lines, ever, not even for the through dovetails at the back of the drawer. I always thought that was bit odd as the Barnsley way in drawer construction is to build the drawer with the sides about 0.5mm proud of the front, which you then plane off, so you'd remove any scribe marks at that stage. Still, workshop rules are workshop rules and who am I to argue.

Interesting that.
The point about the so-called London Pattern (or "single kerf") DT is that it's actually the easiest (and hence cheapest) hand made way. It features, done almost (i.e. by eye) perfectly on top quality work, and less perfectly on cheaper work.
Barnsley (and for that matter Morris and the whole movement) were essentially amateurs inventing a whole set of rules about how things "should" be done, often ignoring how things were done by people who had to do it for a living i.e. the trade.
So, yes a "bit odd"
What they had in common was that no serious maker would ever oeuf about with DT angle gauges and considerations of 1/8 or 1/6 - strictly for the world of magazine reading amateurs.