angled hand cut dovetails

[Carlos Cabrera]

Does anyone know where I can find a step by step guide on how to cut angled or compound miter dovetails ? I have the Tage Frid book and it has a section on " Hand Dovetails with Compound Miter" that I just cannot figure out. Basically I want to make a box with a pyramid shape using handcut dovetails. Any help appreciated.

Carlos

[Robert Rozaieski]

Roy Underhill's "Woodwright's Apprentice" has a project like that called the Sailor's Sea Chest. It's basically a pyramid shaped chest joined with dovetails. If you don't already have the book you might consider it as it's worth every penny and then some. If you don't want to buy the book, you can probably get it from your local library or interlibrary loan.

[Carlos Cabrera]

Robert,

I have that book and I just read up on it. I am looking to do a much smaller box and frankly there must be a simpler explanation out there somewhere. I do appreciate you letting me know about that section of the book.

Thanks,
Carlos

[David Gendron]

Hi I made a serving tray a few weeks ago that uses compound angles and I got the best info in "machine and hand joinery" Taunton pres, ISBN 1-56158-856-3. I look at different books and this one is the one I understood the best.
I have a picture of the tray, I will try to find it and post it.
David

[Mac Houtz]

I would submit based on a recent experience that what you need to know depends on the angle of bevel you desire in the finished product......Last spring I built a traditional sea chest for my brother-in-law who was graduating from the Naval Academy. The bevel was 6 degrees. I made a template of the end piece and used that to ensure that the bevel on the ends of all my panels were uniform. Then I cut all my dovetails and assembled it, easy as pie, and it is probably the best set of pins and tails i have ever made.

Fast forward eight months.....

I decided to build a cradle for my soon to arrive daughter. I used some beautiful cherry I had been hoarding. As I was laying it out, I dug up the sea chest template and after some consideration decided that the scant 6 degrees was not nearly enough bevel for the cradle I had pictured in my head. Somehow I decided on 20 degrees. Somehow I convinced myself that in theory it should work fine.....

Long story short, assembly night was a very bad night. At one point towards the end, I was using a framing hammer and a walnut block to drive the things up, and promising said workpiece that if it did not straighten up and go together posthaste that it would soon be engulfed in flames on the front lawn....I got it together, and the cradle actually looks really nice, but the twenty four handcut tails on the headboard and the eighteen on the footboard have a stranged recessed look about them(at the thick end of the pins), and there are a few stress cracks to be found by those with an eye for detail, leftover from the horrible beating I gave it. If it had been a square box with no bevel, those pins and tails would have been the best work I have ever done....live and learn.

If you choose to go past ten degrees, get the book.

Woodenboat published a wonderful article on building the sea chest several years ago, and that is what I used, its easier than you think...