Popular Woodworking 2007-10 № 164, страница 24

/"k No paring required here. Just a light ^ Vr tap in the end grain will take these pieces out.

the irregular hand-forged nail heads. Without this strip, the nail heads would quickly wear the runners and drawer divider. Drawer bottoms were sometimes oriented with their grain running front to back. The advantage appears to be that the wear strip, drawer side and bottom all had their grain oriented the same way.

We know shingles were sometimes used for drawer bottoms. They were everything one needed in a drawer bottom. They were cheap, thin, and basically quartersawn. Could it be that the bottoms were oriented to allow use of the stock available?

Nice and clean and square. If I've done ^ ^ my sawing correctly, this joint should just go together on the first try.

Of course the waste is widening as the

^ I cut gets deeper. I use a tiny chisel to follow the angle of the pins and score the fibers my wider chisel can't reach.

regional or date specific. This approach may have obscured the functional or structural issues that influenced or defined these features. By attempting to reproduce even the simplest products of the 18th century, period furniture makers can suggest alternate explanations for features previously consider solely aesthetic. PW

Visit Adam's blog at artsandmysteries.com for more discussion of traditional woodworking techniques.

<y And it did! I don't think of dovetails as decorative. I'm no more proud of this joint than I'd be ashamed of a joint with a shim in it. The trick is to get this done as fast and as painlessly as possible. Working smart and sawing well are the keys to getting tight joints every time.

Conclusion

Eighteenth-century cabinetmakers made drawers in different ways. Collectors have used these features to categorize furniture. But their categories are typically aesthetic,

Wearstrip

Some craftsmen oriented the grain of their drawer bottoms, from front to back. The sides were rabbeted or just left square. Sometimes a groove in the back of the drawer front held a feathered edge of the drawer bottom. Other times the drawer front was rabbeted along its lower edge and the drawer bottom was attached to it with more nails.

London Pattern Dovetails

Modern woodworkers have become smitten with the tiny pins used later in the century and often characteristic of London makers. Despite the fact that this style of the joint is no more difficult than any other, woodworkers have chosen it as a sort of symbol of woodworking excellence.

on period pieces, this style of joint is used almost exclusively at the attachment of the drawer sides to the front. it could be that these joints would be regularly seen when the drawer was accessed. Perhaps the "better" work was reserved for this joint other than the rear joints which would be never seen. Carcase dovetails, when not covered by mouldings, at least didn't include contrasting woods and therefore would be less obvious.

What we can know from looking at the joint is that the tiny pins in a half-blind joint cover more of the end grain of the drawer front. This may have been done to help prevent warping and splitting of the drawer fronts. — AC

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