It’s all good fun anyway.
We can already see how modern methods hold up, many of them are over a century old. Very basic modern method can be quite fine, as example I have a small IKEA shelf holding up machine tool parts (a spare 5hp motor, wrenches and aluminum housings). The thing is treated poorly and 15 years old yet no signs of failure. It’s made with screws going into end grain on shelves housed with dado grooves.
Last edited by Brian Holcombe; 07-15-2018 at 10:36 PM.
Here is the blog entry I was writing about earlier
https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2...rench-mustard/
In These dovetailed drawers, the extra nails are probably a later repair. But you rarely see such repairs on 18 th century English stuff. The French menuisiers of that time must have been some serious slackers. Still, in the many brocante shops in France you still find tons of furniture like this despite some devastating wars and shifting fashions in the mean time.
It provides plenty of insight into how sturdy a joint becomes once it is draw-bored.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Unless you split the tenon. Drawboring demands care too.
What a great observation! Two summers ago I had an experience at a museum that sticks with me: I was at a regional (i.e., small, underfunded) museum that nonetheless had several nice objects (none particularly old). One of the objects was an 18th-century style tea table...rectangular, cabriole legs, pad feet. It's a form of the tea table that I absolutely love and intend to build for my own home someday (I've got a long list, as I bet most of you do). As I stood in front of it, I felt nothing...it didn't "sing." I couldn't understand why, as the form was exactly what you'd want in this piece. Next to it stood a style I don't particularly care for; a vernacular work table with drawer that nonetheless grabbed my attention and drew me in. After a few minutes of bemusement over why the work table "sang" but the tea table didn't, I looked at the placard and found the two tables were made by father and son. The vernacular work table was built in the early 1900s by the father using traditional methods; the tea table was built by the son in the 1970s (IIRC) using modern production methods (i.e., machines). As I looked underneath the tea table I saw perfectly finished and polished surfaces. Mystery solved.
My take-away is *not* that machine-made pieces can't sing...plenty of craftsmen disprove that notion every day. But I do think that when making a reproduction (of any era) it makes sense to reproduce it in all aspects as much as is practicable. If they didn't use machines, my reproduction shouldn't appear to either...and that can be as obvious as not finishing secondary surfaces, or as subtle as avoiding any process that leads to a uniform thicknessing of parts. And as Warren's post emphasizes, make no modern-day concessions on the details (moldings, turnings, shaping of cabriole legs, etc).
Mark Maleski
A loose mortise and tenon can remain sturdy and intact for hundreds of years through draw-boring. It says a lot about the practice. Probably a joint far more loose fitting than many would be comfortable with today.
We have a completely different comparison today than they did in the 18th century. The time consuming part of cutting joinery is fitting, so if you have workers making stuff quickly then you have them cut it slightly loose, especially if it’s going to draw-bore tightly in the end anyways.
Today a minor gap is often viewed as a failure, the result is that hand-made work is time consuming. We often don’t want to see gaps or pegs and so instead the time to fit a joint greatly increases.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Brian,
Absolutely. Even a well fitted joint benefits from draw-boring. A draw-bored joint tells me the maker cared about the longevity of his work. In the "art" photography world there was a term "the hand of man". In furniture making I want to see the hand of man.
ken
That's not my experience. Cutting M&T by hand is my standard approach, and I mark the tenon to match my mortise chisel/drill bit and saw to the line. I am typically slightly fat after sawing (not sure why, now that I think of it) and a couple passes with a rabbet plane brings it to a tight fit. Quick(-ish), simple, and tight.
Drawboring is great on casework, but I haven't found a good way to do it on chairs due to their angled joinery. On those you must rely on good, tight fit. And unless you're doing production work, machines are too inefficient for chair joinery (too much jigging required).
Mark Maleski
Time the entire process, including the ‘couple passes’ and I’d imagine the actual cutting will be about 6-8 minutes (mortise and tenon) and the additional time of knocking down the sides will likely be that time again. Since you must check, swipe, test fit and swipe again. Do the same again for a truly and completely zero gap joint, then check the time.
Both western and eastern makers historically insist on accuracy ‘off the saw’ or with just the mortise chisel, this is for efficiency of time. Fitting is time consuming well beyond that of the cutout.
An 18th century shop master is going to triple the time involved in joinery cutout for no practical reason?
Last edited by Brian Holcombe; 07-17-2018 at 8:56 AM.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
In my experience, the actual cutting takes the majority of the time, the fitting is close enough off the saw that it takes just a fraction of the overall time*. But you're right that they worked incredibly fast in that era (they had to...no social safety net and business failure had dire consequences) and wouldn't make anything more stout than it needed to be. I imagine they knew where to take extra care (e.g., visible dovetails; M&T on chairs) and where they could cut corners (non-show dovetails, joinery on slip seats, surface treatment of secondary surfaces {the original subject of this thread}). I'm still doubtful that good casework had loose M&T compensated for by drawboring, but until we take several of them apart it's just speculation.
*what takes a lot of time is taking too many swipes and creating a too-loose fit. The best solution in that case is to glue veneer to the tenon and re-fit after it's dry.
Mark Maleski
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”