40 Joinery joints
bulk of the waste with a coping saw. Then cut back to
the deeply incised shoulder line with a wide bevel-
edged chisel, by vertical paring onto a hardwood
chopping board.
Gluing up
Some joiner/cabinetmakers reckon that a set of
hand- made dovetails, once finalized as separate
components, should not be put together dry to test
the fit, but should only be joined when being glued
up. And whilst it is true to say that once you lock this
type of joint together dry, there is a risk of damag-
ing it and slackening the fit when you take it apart,
I believe that – as with all joints – there should be
a trial fit prior to gluing up. However, to eliminate
the risk of shearing the short grain on the sides of
the tails and/or spoiling the fit, it is essential to keep
each component at right- angles to each other when
the joint is being knocked apart with a hammer and
a hammering- block (an offcut of waste- wood) and to
avoid seesawing (creating an uneven, lateral separa-
tion) of the tails leaving the sockets.
The actual gluing up – if you have achieved good,
snug joints – should be done with the aid of a hammer
and a hammering- block. Cramping should be avoided.
All squeezed- out glue should be wiped off with a damp
cloth and, before setting aside, the box must be checked
for squareness with a so- called squaring stick. This is a
thin lath with an approx 30° speared end, which is used
to check both diagonals of the box for equal length.
By inserting the spear- point into the alternate inner
corners and marking the other end of the stick against
the other inner- corners, the squareness can be proved
if both marks coincide. But if two separate marks are
recorded, then the structure has to be gently distorted
and retested until both diagonal lengths equal a central
point between the first two marks.
Lapped dovetails
Figure 3.35: There is no rigid rule regarding the size of
the lap (or lip) covering the end- grain of the dove-
tails. On drawer fronts (where such dovetails are most
commonly used – and the fronts are made thicker to
accommodate them), the lap is usually not more than
a quarter of the front’s thickness. However, it is often
seen to be less, as craftsmen over the years seem to
have regarded it as a measure of their skill to make
the lap as thin as possible. Once the size of the lap has
been decided, it is deducted from the drawer- front
thickness to provide a measurement for setting up a
cutting gauge. For example, say 20mm drawer- front
thickness, minus 5mm lap, equals a gauge- setting of
15mm.
Setting out the tails and sockets
The stock of the 15mm- set cutting gauge is then
used against the squarely- shot (planed) front- end of
a drawer- side to prick the inner face from the end.
This prick- mark is picked up with a marking knife
and squared across the inner face. (Alternatively, the
pricking and knifing can be avoided and the inner
face can be marked across the grain with the cutting
gauge). Either way, this shoulder line is then used to
knife- mark both edges. In turn, these edge marks are
squared across the face-side with a sharp pencil. A
pencilled centre line is also established and the tails
are set out and produced exactly as described for the
through dovetails.
Setting up and marking the tails onto the vice- held,
smoothing- plane- on- edge-height drawer front, is also
exactly as described for the through dovetails. The only
difference is that in addition to the tail- slopes being
marked out, the precise ends of the tail sockets are also
established with the pre- set cutting gauge from the
inner face- side. (This being one of the rare occasions
when gauging is not done from a face- side or face-
edge).Cutting the lapped tail- sockets
Figure 3.36: Forming the stopped tail- sockets is started
with a gent’s saw (or dovetail saw, etc) by cutting the
waste- side marked edges of the sockets carefully to
two angles from the inner face, whilst the componentNormal pinHalf pinFigure 3.35 A set of four lapped- dovetails.