A personal list. Your reasons may vary. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. If you rub your glue-y hands on your pants they will smell like a horse’s bum that has been boiled and then left in the sun (but the smell washes out). — Christopher Schwarz
I’ve always been intrigued about the history of the way some English-trained woodworkers set out their dovetail joints using dividers. I first learned to use this method – which I love – from Rob Cosman. He learned it from legendary craftsman Alan Peters. But where did Peters learn it from? I don’t know, so I’m [...]
My credit card is groaning a bit thanks to all the hardware samples I’ve been ordering to find a selection of quality brasses for some Campaign-style pieces I’m building. Today I received a chest pull that I ordered from Londonderry Brasses of Cochranville, Penn. I have some other pieces on order from Londonderry, but this [...]
When you buy vintage Stanley planes in the wild, one of the most common problems is the tote – and sometimes the knob – are trashed. My first No. 5 had a crude replacement tote that was so poorly rasped that it looked like it was furry. I’d always intended to make a replacement but [...]
When I took my first woodworking class in 1993 I was gung-ho to learn two things: through-tenons and through-dovetails. At the time I was intoxicated by Arts & Crafts furniture and exposed joinery. For many woodworkers, I suspect that exposed joinery sends a message: This piece is made well. It’s not made using corrugated fasteners, [...]
Purchase the complete version of this technique story from AWBookstore.com.
You can do more with your half-blind dovetail
jig than meets the eye. You’ve probably used it
to make drawers with plain, inset fronts, but
it’s really quite simple to make lipped drawer fronts, too.
Even though most dovetail jigs are basically the same, some
of their manuals don’t go into much detail about how to
make this variation of the basic drawer (they often call it
a rabbeted drawer, which is confusing). Whatever kind of
jig you have, here’s a foolproof process for making lipped
drawers from beginning to end.
2. Cut rabbets to
form lips on the
top and ends of the
drawer front (usually
there’s no lip on the
bottom). The precise
width of the rabbets
affects the fit of the
drawer front in its
opening. Fine-tune the
fence setting so there
is 1/16" or less total
side play between the
inside of the drawer
front and the sides of
the case.
Click any image to view a larger version
3. Check the fit of sample dovetails made with your jig.
Use the same species of wood as your drawer parts for
test pieces. Wood that’s too soft gives a false reading.
Adjust the router bit up or down until you make two
parts that fit together with hand pressure alone.
Adjust the jig’s template in and out until you make two
parts that fit flush. The position of the template affects the
depth of the sockets.
4. Place both drawer sides in the dovetail jig, inside out and
front side up. Use the groove in the drawer bottom as a referen ce
guide. It faces toward you and lines up with an outside finger of the
dovetail template.
The bottom edge of every drawer part butts up against the stops on the jig.
5. Rout dovetails
in the
drawer sides.
Move the router
from left to right
for best results.
Use backer
boards behind
the drawer sides
to prevent the
backs of the
tails from chipping
out.
9. Dovetail one drawer
side and back as a pair, making
a standard half-blind joint.
As in Photo 4, one pair is
placed in the left-hand side
of the jig and the other pair
in the right-hand side. You
won’t get parts mixed up
if you remember that the
grooves always go nearest
the stops of the jig.
Sand all the inside faces of
the drawer before gluing.
In this business, there are a few things you don’t share: Finishing secrets, wood sources and saliva. This post breaks one of those three cardinal rules – revealing excellent wood sources. Last week Andy Brownell took me to a lumber supplier that has been sitting under my nose since I moved to Cincinnati in 1996. [...]
While Horton Brasses has agreed to produce some custom pieces of campaign hardware for the chest/secretary I’m building for Popular Woodworking Magazine, that doesn’t squelch my desire to see what other makers have on offer. So I ordered a load of campaign brasses from Ansaldi & Sons of Hudson, N.H. The company has a wide [...]
After posting this story about the campaign-style fork and knife, I got an e-mail from woodworking researcher extraordinaire Jeff Burks. Burks, a trade carpenter, is a voracious collector of books, magazines and journals relating to woodworking. He also spends a lot of time researching patents related to tools and the trade. Which brings us to [...]
When I hang out with other woodworkers, the conversation almost always turns to what we are building now and what we are building next. Recently I said something I didn’t think I’d ever say: “I want to build a fork.” As I’ve been digging deeper into the 250-year history of campaign furniture, I’m turning up [...]
