Dovetails on angled boards

[Ben Beckham]

To join two boards together at any angle other than 90 degrees, still co-planar along the edges, is it as simple as angling the shoulder of the tails, marking the pins, and angling the floor of the pin board to match?

I have cut a ton of dovetails by hand, but somehow never at any angle other than 90.

[Jim Koepke]

Not having yet tried this my thoughts match yours.

For the first set my plan is to do a trial set.

jtk

[Maurice Ungaro]

I did this recently. What you are describing sounds like "compound dovtails". A common use for that is to make a traditional tool tote, where all four sides are angled. The best way to accomplish this to to cut the finished angles onto your boards first. Then, you need to set up two bevel gauges: one for the left side of each board, and one for the right side of each board. No, you can't just flip one around and use it for the other side. Be sure to mark with tape the proper side to use for each of the two bevel gauges. After that, go ahead and mark as usual. Understand that the base line will be based off of the mitered edge of the board.

Just to be clear, no, I did not figure this out by myself, I'm not that smart. I would have gotten frustrated and scraped the whole thing long before completion! I took this course: http://www.woodwrightschool.com/compound-dovetail-w-tom/

One trick that helped immensley was the use of a paring block cut to the same angle as the dovetail end of the board. This made paring to the line MUCh easier.

[allen long]

Any pictures of the process. Unfortunately, the class you linked to is a 16 hour + drive from Cedar Rapids IA! Otherwise I would sign up in a millisecond.

Many Kind Regards . . . Allen

[Maurice Ungaro]

Ah, jeez! I forgot to take pictures! Heck I was doing good to get all my DT's cut and fitting good before the end of the day. I actually roughed out the handle, and only had to put the fiinishing touches on the arched handle when I got home. I've got some practice pieces I did before the work piece was started. I will try to take some photos in the next day or two and post them.

[Brett Robson]

One trick that helped immensley was the use of a paring block cut to the same angle as the dovetail end of the board. This made paring to the line MUCh easier.

This is an excellent suggestion! I've been building drawers for a Bombe' chest, which are all compound angle dovetails and have been using a paring block as an guide.

Also I've been using this site to calculate the bevel angle you'll need on the end of your pieces.

http://www.pdxtex.com/canoe/compound.htm


Use the compound angle/butted joint calculator. Plug in the angle of the side, angle of the front/back and it'll tell you the proper bevel angle to cut the ends.

[lowell holmes]

Tage Frid had something about this subject as well as Roy Underhill.

I've never cut them accurately, I quit because of being distracted to another project.

There is somethong out there where they cut a solid wood model to measure the proper angles for the joint. When I finish a current project, I intend to revisit it.

[Hilton Ralphs]

I'm not sure what you specifically mean by 'co-planer' but watch this video and I'm sure you'll learn something. I certainly did.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9h9maJNFAc

[Ben Beckham]

This is all good for compound angles, like a splayed box or something, but I'm talking about "simple" angled dovetails, for lack of a better term. Make the box for a simple cabinet, then push on one corner to make a parallelogram. Dovetail it. Hopefully my crude drawing below will help. Any thoughts?

281785

[Maurice Ungaro]

Ben,
It's half of the compound angle equation. I would start by mitering the ends of the boards, and proceed as usual. Should be a piece of cake.

[george wilson]

Google George Wilson harpsichord and look at the #1 installment of making a spinet. I just did it by eye.

[David Weaver]

Google George Wilson harpsichord and look at the #1 installment of making a spinet. I just did it by eye.

And the commentary while you were doing it is valuable also, "one rarely wants to see such joints" or something to that effect. Unless someone is building grosser and grossest style furniture with hobbit style joints, there's good reason to make them structurally sound instead of visually perfect from all zoom settings on a camera. If someone is building grosser and grossest furniture, they should probably refer again to the comment the narrator makes.

[george wilson]

In the 18th. C.,joints were regarded as looking unfinished or ugly. They were covered where ever possible. Now,everyone wants to see the joinery everywhere. Just to prove it is there,or someone was tricky enough to make the joints? Things have changed. The spinet only allowed the joints to show on the side of the cabinet that was against the wall. Boxes,like pistol cases,were made with what looked like mitered corners. Concealed inside the wood were the dovetails.

I'm not condemning it,just saying things have changed. Probably due to the long years of moving away from craft in general. Now people want to see that the craft work was done.

A while back,I turned down a (nearly) nice wall cabinet for hand tools. The reason was,there were several drawers. at the edges of each drawer were the large rectangular shapes of through dovetails. It looked so bizarre,I decided not to get it for the few dollars offered. The yellowish looking drawer fronts with the brown rectangles just did not make it. I'm sure it had been someone's pride and joy.

[Brian Holcombe]

There is so much plasticized furniture out there for the past 60 years or so that I think people want to see the joinery, especially when hand cut.

That being said I think there are ways to do it and ways not to, the above sounds like it would look cluttered. I assume that was one of the reasons you passed on it.

[Maurice Ungaro]

George, sounds like those drawer fronts needed some veneer!

[george wilson]

The original spinet had a strip of molding over the dovetails on the cabinet.. If you mean the tool cabinet,it just looked strange. Yes,it could have used some veneer!

[Ben Beckham]

That video was great! I learned the answer to my question in the first few minutes. Then, the dogs, the phone, and even my girlfriend remained silent as I watched through an hour of glorious hand-tool woodworking porn. Excellent work.