One of my spare hive roofs died last year (maybe as much as 80 years old) and I got some larch to make a replacement. The originals are all box jointed and pinned - I decided to go with dovetails.
I haven't done dovetails for maybe as much as 30 years, so turned to various books I have for guidance on spacing, but found it seems to be glossed over and it's a balance between appearance and the amount of work involved. The timber is 150mm wide and 12mm thick. As strength and ease of manufacture was the essence for me, I ended up with an equal pin and tail spacing of 18mm and that seems fine. For future reference is there any guidance on this?
The question I really want to ask is whether I need to glue the joints? The now open box with good tight dovetails will have fillets added to hold something like a 10mm ply panel for the zinc covering, which will give some stiffness, but as asked should I glue the dovetails?
Thanks
Rob
I haven't done dovetails for maybe as much as 30 years, so turned to various books I have for guidance on spacing, but found it seems to be glossed over and it's a balance between appearance and the amount of work involved. The timber is 150mm wide and 12mm thick. As strength and ease of manufacture was the essence for me, I ended up with an equal pin and tail spacing of 18mm and that seems fine. For future reference is there any guidance on this?
The question I really want to ask is whether I need to glue the joints? The now open box with good tight dovetails will have fillets added to hold something like a 10mm ply panel for the zinc covering, which will give some stiffness, but as asked should I glue the dovetails?
Thanks
Rob
