think dovetails are hard?

UKworkshop.co.uk

Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I was unable to watch the whole thing because the amount of times he says "yeah" started to get on my nerves.
Clearly a very talented craftsman imho
 
tony_s":2v4uc3uv said:
I was unable to watch the whole thing because the amount of times he says "yeah" started to get on my nerves.
Clearly a very talented craftsman imho
Yeah, I agree - very irritating.
 
That looks very narrow and delicate... Is there much strength in this joint? It looks like it could quite easily twist and shear right off.
 
Tasky":2y1i708e said:
That looks very narrow and delicate... Is there much strength in this joint? It looks like it could quite easily twist and shear right off.
A bit stronger than a butt joint.
 
011aa5418a0dc7b73d02d692b053991ec0f4b093cf.jpg

This is my hardest woodwork joint. It takes three days to do.
 

Attachments

  • 011aa5418a0dc7b73d02d692b053991ec0f4b093cf.jpg
    011aa5418a0dc7b73d02d692b053991ec0f4b093cf.jpg
    385.4 KB
I don't doubt that it's a tricky joint. But to regard any joint as a litmus test of skill is to completely misunderstand the reality of cabinet making.

A piece of furniture can contain scores of joints, and hundreds of individual processes. But the final piece will only be as good as the worst executed one of those hundreds of steps. So in some respects cabinet making is like ten pin bowling or clay pigeon shooting, success isn't about one event, it's about consistently great results with zero slips across hundreds or thousands of iterations.

This chair (if you made it as a one off) takes nearly a thousand hours, but the quality is really about the least competent 60 seconds in all that time. Because I'd judge my own performance building it on the worst joint, the worst process, the worst glue-up, or the worst component. Once you've gotten your head around that woodworking reality you stop being impressed by individual virtuoso joints no matter how complex!

Pear Chair 1.JPG


Pear Chair 2.JPG
 

Attachments

  • Pear Chair 1.JPG
    Pear Chair 1.JPG
    81.6 KB
  • Pear Chair 2.JPG
    Pear Chair 2.JPG
    83.7 KB
it's like art, just focusing on somebody's face and being impressed by the detail, instead of the bigger picture which sets the mood, tone, colour palette, would that be a fair analogy custard? every part is a part of the whole.
 
custard":cvtqidju said:
But the final piece will only be as good as the worst executed one of those hundreds of steps.
That is so true. Even at my limited skill level it only takes one slip to mess up a whole piece. Unfortunately in my pieces there is rarely just one slip :oops:
 
Agree it's really a house of cards. Many fairly simple repetitions results in quality. A **** up early on results in stress.
A joint or process can lead the build but on it's own it's nothing just an exercise.
In fact that mantra can be applied to much building work ie bathrooms kitchens extensions etc.
The best are when one man can achieve a consistent level of quality across the board or one company can do the same. The worst are when several mediocre trades are doing it cheaply as and when to fill in.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top