Funky looking dovetails

Dec 19, 2005 20 Replies

While watching an episode of "Router Workshop" (yeah, I know...), I saw something that sorta blew me away. He was routing some dovetails, and I expected them to come out looking pretty much like dovetails, but they came out looking a lot different.



They ended up all rounded, almost like interlocking keyhole shapes. I recorded the episode (PVR), but deleted it to make room for other stuff. I now wish I'd kept it and looked at it more carefully.



Anyone see that episode that could tell me how he did that? I figure he probably used a straight bit, following a template with dovetail-shaped slots in it, but what do I know?



Leigh calls them "bear's ears".

A little too gimmikey for my taste.

Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD. Turning a wooden cowboy hat just seems plane dumb.

charlie b

There's a pretty cool "dovetail" from the late Victorian era - a sort of scalloped edge with round pins. Reminds me of lace. Haven't looked at the Leigh site to see if they have replicated that design, but ya gotta have respect for those Industrial agers with such an attractive method of joinery.

A show full of splendid technique and jigs. The old bird knows more than a lot of "fine woodworkers," beyond a doubt. The little asides he makes demonstrate his depth of knowledge of material and furniture engineering, not the photography of the repetitive cuts, nor the craft-show level projects.

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Just because you can, maybe you should. A demonstration of new/different stuff is always good. Bob Rosendahl has been around for a long time demonstrating routing techniques and homegrown jigs and fixtures. While the show's editing and choreography are not at the level of New Yanky Workshop (it is a mom and pop production), there are better demos and explanations to the process.

Turning a wooden cowboy hat is the other show with the guy using a lathe.

Pete S

same Woodline that makes most of the woodworking shows? I know the guy that owns it and what an asshole. The guy is so full of himself it makes me sick everytime I run into him. You would not believe the war stories involved with that company.

Woodline also has a jig saw it at the wood working show looked pretty easy Joe

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"Cope and pin" joints. They look quite cute but there's a lot of short grain and they break out if you thump the joint.

Here in the UK I've mainly seen these on sewing machine cases (American imports) underneath veneer. You get a peculiar line of damage in the veneer surface if the case has ever been dropped and if you take the veneer off to investigate, there's a split-out cope and pin joint underneath it.

The Joe Barta entity posted thusly:

I didn't th> A little too gimmikey for my taste.

Some of them, yes, I agree. However, I really like the simple ones (on the Lee Valley link, I1A and I1C, left hand ones only). As well, the 'Heart' pattern available from Oak Park or Woodline would be a great choice for a children's chest or box.

Larry

The charlie b entity posted thusly:

oops! Attributed this to George in another post. Sorry.

The George entity posted thusly:

Lots of mixed feelings about that show. I am constantly amazed by the little gems of wisdom sprinkled in between those repetitive cuts and the irritating use of the phrase "in it". I love it when I run across one of those "Aha!" or "Of course!" techniques. I am a real fan of techniques that are best described as "can't miss automatic", for centering, measuring, fitting, etc.

Yeah but the guy in Colorado that does it gets upwards of $1500 per hat!

Two hundred for a hat seems to be the going rate at the shows I attend. I assume it's $1300 for the name on it.

i would certainly never take anything by the way it looks from the Router Workshop. They mangle all the rules of aesthetic design all the time, they don't seem to understand grain matching and their stuff in general is the most hideous of design with the best workmanship. What a weird combination. I have seen the curby dovetails and esthetically they seem tacky kind of like 70's shag carpet. MBR

Do they still do the "remove the watch and put it in box my grandson made" ritual before starting to work? That used to drive me crazy.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

The Mark & Juanita entity posted thusly:

Yes, but I always fast forward over that part. It's harder to skip parts once they get into the main part of the show, as I don't want to miss any of the tidbits of good information.

Larry

You'd rather the interminable disclaimers of the DiY Network?

This is a litigious society.

I've read that joint was developed to demonstrate that machinery was capable of joinery that could not (readily) be done by hand.

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