Dove tail joint's revisited

If you skip the "degrees" thing and just go with triangles with the base being 1 inch and height from 4 inches to

have another one. I have been practicing hand cutting some joints at 15*. They seem rather dull. What angle do you folks prefer or is it just an " Up to the individual" thing ?

The guy who taught me got me into setting the bevel gauge by eye. I usually have no idea of the exact angle I'm using.

Barry

I bought an old workbench a while ago. Obviously home-made, but well-done work. The top was encrusted with paint spills and allsorts, so I scraped the whole thing clean again.

Underneath all the mess was revealed a pair of triangles, marked out with what looked like a knife cut and india ink - one for 1:6 dovetails and one for 1:8. You place your sliding bevel on the bench and set it off them.

Thank You Charlie. That's useful info for me...

It should be noted from some experimenting yesterday. The thickness of the stock being used plays a role. On paper I layed out a 1:8 to look at it. If your using 1/4" stock it looks more like a box joint, on larger stock it looks like a dovetail.

In some case, you may want to use a higher angle to get the look for cosmetic reasons.

Pat

I use 1:8 for hardwoods, 1:6 for softwoods.

Some Japanese work uses "dovetail shaped tenons". A chest end might be made from two flat wide boards, joined by a small number of roughly square tenons, set in from the edge of the morticed board. For these I find that 1:5 looks better.

Thank you all for your input I will put it to use asap Puff