stopped dovetails

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engineer one

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ok so does anyone on here actually make these by hand all the way??
or do you cheat, and use a router, if not how do you do it???

i mean the housing, how many people have a dovetail saw or plane as some books seem to suggest?? how do you keep it flat and level?

paul :wink:
 
Paul
Do you mean "sliding dovetails"?
If so, I use a router. Mind you, if I had a dovetail plane............. :wink: :lol:
Philly :D
 
Hi Philly

Here are a couple for you: -

ece301049a.jpg



ulmia300342a.jpg



Cheers
Neil
 
yes it is i guess a sliding dovetail, but "stopped"

so from the comments so far that's a not by hand then :twisted: :lol:

paul :wink:
 
Stopped sliding dovetails were cut by hand, even the stopped tapered sliding dovetail housing.

Shaped guide block, chisels, saws and router plane. Though the special plane could be used on the male/shelf part.

SEE Ernest Joyce pages 156 & 157 or my first book pages 81-85 for a router method.

David Charlesworth
 
i note you say, WERE david.

i have joyce and noticed that it requires quite specialised tools which is why i asked :?

paul :wink:
 
I think of it as a "dovetail housing".Done it but not often.
Can be done with tenon or dovetail saw and a few chisels (like most things!). No special tools but I suppose Joyces guide blocks could be useful, but not essential.
Different page (178) in my Joyce must be different edition.
I notice he says "much to be said for a straight-sided housing...infinitely preferable to a badly cut, complicated joint" but his book contains pages and pages of extremely complicated joints most of which are best avoided except in emergencies!
This can be misleading for a beginner as in reality very few of these joints will ever be used and any need for them is likely to be designed out at the beginning, or just seen as a challenge for the enthusiastic woodworker.

cheers
Jacob
 
well alf, reading two books one after the other caused me to have a little brain fade :cry:
i also read joint making by terrie noll, the GMC book, which shows using a dovetail plane and a dovetail saw. :roll:

since my hand sawing is pants anyway, i was wondering how you sort out the far end of a stopped slot with the saw. you are obviously restricted in the movement of the saw. i wonder whether it might be easier with a pull saw.

joyce, as jacob says recommends that stopped housings with dovetails can only be chiselled out and that seems a real pita. not least because it must be very difficult to keep it flat and level :?

ah well back to the drawing board, although it does offer some interesting design ideas for showing off, if one can do it properly, and there of course is the rub :cry:

final thought where is a good place in the UK to get hardwood dowels if you haven't got a LN dowel plate???? an no time to set up the router for turning your own.

paul :wink:
 
engineer one":7dgevgz5 said:
snip
since my hand sawing is pants anyway, i was wondering how you sort out the far end of a stopped slot with the saw. you are obviously restricted in the movement of the saw. i wonder whether it might be easier with a pull saw.
You'd have to open up the end of the slot with a chisel and then you could get the saw in.
joyce, as jacob says recommends that stopped housings with dovetails can only be chiselled out and that seems a real pita. not least because it must be very difficult to keep it flat and level :?
Joyce also says saw and doesn't say special tools except guide blocks (optional). Easier than you think - saw the sides down to depth, chisel out the bottom to the depth of the saw cut
snip
final thought where is a good place in the UK to get hardwood dowels if you haven't got a LN dowel plate???? an no time to set up the router for turning your own.

paul :wink:
Not difficult to rive them roughly round with an axe or something, and then trim with a block plane or chisel. Start by drawing the diameter at each end of your blank.
You can get your local engineer to make you a dowel plate a lot cheaper than the LN - n.b. has to be firmly fixed in bench, not used loose as LN show.

cheers
Jacob
 
Paul, think your are right on the pull saw. The right tool for this job is a stair saw, one of the few western pull saws.

cheers Pedder
 
Paul,

If one reads Joyce carefully, and looks at the photos, I think all your questions are answered. I know the layout is a PITA, but Joyce has the answers to almost all basic, and not so basic woodworking technique.

The guide blocks compensate for less than perfect sawing, even mine.

If you don't have a router plane it is possible to improvise with a ground concrete nail in a block of wood, which I found useful for small inlay work, before very small router cutters existed.

David C
 
thanks david, i will look more carefully, but my version of joyce (the fourth edition) shows little in terms of photos, mainly drawings and a photo of the stay used in chests which are installed "loose" but i can see no construction or layout details.

as i think more about what i was intending to use it for, it would be belt braces, and a clamp so i will stay with m/t's and practice my ordinary dovetails then try a little later with the slider :?

paul :wink:
 
Joyce 1st ed Batsford 1970 has this perfect picture of a housing in progress:

joyce1.jpg


It shows:
end of housing opened up by chisel
lines cut with knife being opened into a V to take the saw cut
tenon saw, bevel block and router plane to hand
You could get the depth more easily by clapping on a depth stop to the side of the saw - a piece of ply held with a spring clipboard-type clip.
Can't see what advantage there'd be in a pull saw - you'd still need to start the end in a hole.
Even less so if you had to fork out £250 for one of those aforementioned jap jobs :shock:
Nowt wrong with an ordinary tenon/dovetail.

cheers
Jacob
 
Hi,

Just one detail of the joint, one could rip off an edge the whole length of the board, joint this piece so it fits perfectly the board and before gluing again, planing some nice open sliding dovetails. I did this once for my tool storage. You see the pigeonhole dividers are housed in stopped dadoes. You have to look twice to see the joint.

stoppeddado.JPG


Just to put you on another track,

Marc
 
Thank you Jacob,

That is exactly the right photo.

I was made to do a stopped tapered dovetail housing on my tool cupboard, which was the learning vehicle, in the workshop where I trained.

This was 1972 when the electric portable router was a newish thing!
I still have the large Elu which was bought perhaps in 1973. The Elu cutters were all threaded and screwed directly onto the shaft. Too expensive, so add on collet chucks were purchased. This of course added extra vibration so things were often quite scary. The router still runs perfectly.

best wishes,
David
 
The Taunton book "Traditional Woodworking Techniques" has the technique that uses the guide block on pgs. 20-22 by William Thomas. It has some fairly decent photos.
 

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