Are Dovetail Joints becoming a thing of the past?

[John]

I just read the post on the Akida Jig, and my first impression was that it looks really cool, and easy to use, and is way out of my budget (especailly when you add shipping).

But, I have to ask myself is there really a need for a $460 dovetail jig these days? There's been a lot of posts lately about how glue joints are stronger than the wood, so the advantages of dovetail joints to me seems dated now. As far as I'm aware, box joints are stronger, faster and cheaper than dovetails (I built a box-joint jig for around $40. It even has a clamp for sacrifical wood to prevent tearout, which the dovetail jigs still don't seem to have...).

So, are dovetails going to be a tell-tale sign of the age of furniture the same way Knapp joints are now, or is there some reason that they will continue to be used?

John

[Lowell Holmes]

They will be used.

Dovetails can be made with a $20 saw and a $8 chisel.

I think box joints are strong and ugly. I think dovetails are strong and attractive.

What is a Knapp joint?

[Leon]

DT joints are stronger than box joints. They will hold with out glue, not permanently of course. A big advantag of the DT over the bok joint is that on many of the better jigs you can adjust spacing and the tails and pins to fit the project. Bokjoints dictate that the project be designed around the joint length.

[Lowell Holmes]

I googled a Knapp joint. It is unique, but it looks difficult to me. I like dovetails better.

[Chris Friesen]

It's true that dovetails will hold without glue.

However, box joints can be can be cut to any finger width desired if you have the right jig.

Also, box joints can be made as strong as or stronger than dovetail joints because you can easily cut narrower fingers thus providing more glue surface. (See

for one test of this.)

Chris

[Tanus]

Leon, granted that a DT will hold without glue over a box joint, and the DTs would also give mechanical resistance over a box joint.

However, would it not also be a consideration that a box joint has more glue surface and that would counteract the mechanical advantage of a DT?

Regardless of the answer to that, my opinion is that dovetails are much prettier than box joints, and as someone also pointed out, neither an Akeda nor Leigh jig is necessary to make them. I've made them with a cheap saw and cheaper chisels - not Akeda quality and uniformity, to be sure, but passable and sssstrong as hell.

Tanus

[Leon]

Snip

A box joint could have more have more glue surface or less depending on whether the box fingers are smaller than the tails and pins.

I used to make a bunch on a Sears $39 DT jig back in the early 80's. ;~)

[Leon]

That is also correct, I was looking more at the aspect that they would need to be all the same size, "any" size needed might be difficult.

Chris, Ill give this one. ;~) I was mostly thinking through DT joints which are certainly stronger than a blind DT and not totally not unlike box joints.

[RicodJour]

Learn to chop them by hand. DAGS "Frank Klausz dovetail" to see how fast it can be done.*

Dovetails will _absolutely_ stop being used...as soon as we run out of wood, wood-substitutes and people who appreciate quality.

R

• Your speed may vary by -0/+1000%

[Tanus]

I'm doing a follow up to my own post. While my dovetails are now passable, it was not without a certain amount of pain getting there. I made a vow to make a set each day for 30 days and document how each one didn't measure up until I got it right. I made it til about 15 days, and then real life interrupted. Tage Frid taught a trick of using veneer to cover up mistakes (his example was one piece of veneer for 4 gazillion dovetails - I ended up using 14 pieces for 14 joints)

I've also had wood split when I was a bit too judicious in driving the joints home with a mallet.

I once made pins for both sides of a joint (Gawd, don't ask me how I managed that)

I've overcut and undercut, and made the tails too wide. I've made SURE that one side of the board was to be outside and then cut pins that meant that side had to face inside.

I've forgotten about glue squeeze-out on the inside of a joint until it was the hardness of dried concrete and impossible to reach without a team of ants with scary-sharp (­?) micro chisels (available from Lee Valley at $98/set)

Damn. After reviewing all those little issues, that Akeda is starting to sound pretty good. How can I get one again?

Tanus

[Leon]

LOL. thanks for the laugh!

[Lew Hodgett]

When you figure out a way to use a box joint to replace a half blind dovetail for attaching a drawer front to a drawer side for example, come on back and we'll talk some more.

BTW, built my box jigs for maybe $5 and that's pushing it.

Box joints have a lot of applications on a boat and can be very attractive; however, when you need a dovetail..................

Lew

[Leon]

Actually I built a dozen small cubby boxes to hold little stuff in the kitchen. I used a veneer on the fronts to hide the box joints.

[Lew Hodgett]

The operative word above is SMALL.

Lew

[karmstrn]

[Lee Michaels]

"Leon" wrote

It is hard to imagine that.

Was this before or after you got the Laguna, Festools, etc?

[Morris Dovey]

It'd just an opinion, of course, but I kinda like half-blind box joints. /Pinned/ half-blind box joints can be interesting, too - just leave the pin standing when cutting the "blind" recess...

:)

[Leon]

Long long long long long long before the spensive stuff.

[Leon]

6" tall and about 6" wide out of 1/4" thick stock.

[Mark & Juanita]

... and the above is the operative word. I could work to do the dovetails by hand, but one mis-cut and I've wasted a lot of time. Once a jig is set up, while there is potential for error, it is minimized.