Lost Art Press

Dovetails in the Real World

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While there have been too many words written about dovetails, there has been far too little written about using wood compression in the joint.

The only time I hear it discussed is on the woodworking show circuit, when a demonstrator is dovetailing a purpleheart board to accept a white pine one. The demonstrator has a wide margin of error when he assembles the joint because of what Glen D. Huey calls “the mash factor.” You can compress pine – a lot – when it is dovetailed into a stout wood.

In my shop, I use wood compression when cutting dovetails to keep things tight without splitting. Here’s how.

After I cut the first half of the joint I show it to the other half and use a knife to mark the shape of what I want to remove. Then I saw out the joint, but I stand off a tiny wee little itsy bit from the knife line.

How far I stand off depends on the wood. With soft woods, such as white pine, it might be 10 thou or so – I’m just guessing at the measurement. With hard woods, such as cherry or walnut, it’s less. With oak or teak or maple it’s almost nothing. I leave the knife line and the tiniest sliver possible. But I still leave something. Everything compresses.

— Christopher Schwarz

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To Make as %$@*&$%^ Awesome as Possible – The Roubo Bench Project

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I don’t need a workbench. I really don’t need to build another French workbench. And I don’t need to spend a week in the Deep South in the middle of summer hoisting thousands of pounds of ancient oak with a bunch of (for the most part) middle-aged, hairy-backed sweaty dudes.

And yet that is exactly what I’ll be doing starting on July 15.

The lovable nutjobs at Benchcrafted have, with some help, put together a bench-building event that made me clear my summer calendar, forsake a family vacation and pony up some serious cash to be involved.

The benches will be massive, built like the simple French versions shown in “L’Art du Menuisier” by A.J. Roubo. The wood is ancient, thick and French. The hardware? Authentic – with metal bits being made by blacksmith Peter Ross. And the machinery we’ll be using to make the benches is big enough to handle it.

I’ll be there to lend a hand with students, talk about the history of workbench design, build a bench for myself and try not to inhale too deeply the inevitable body odor.

All it takes is money. So head on over to the high-IQ sperm bank. Get a paper route. Sell off that bottle of fingernail clippings you’ve been hoarding. This is the bench-building event of the decade – if not a lifetime.

I could prattle on about all the details, but you should instead head over to the Benchcrafted blog page here, see all the photos, read all the text and try like hell to make it.

— Christopher Schwarz

Marqueterie Mysteries

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Craftsman W. Patrick Edwards recently made an interesting video on marquetry in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago. Patrick discusses the video, which you can view at his site, and also explores the history of the “chevalet” – a saw guide that assists the craftsman.

Very good stuff and worth watching.

Read about (and watch) the videos here.

Read about the chevalet here.

— Christopher Schwarz

‘With the Grain’ Ships; Showers Blanket the Midwest

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Thanks to a 60 percent chance of rain today, we received our shipment of Christian Becksvoort’s “With the Grain: A Craftsman’s Guide to Understanding Wood.”

John Hoffman and family are boxing up the books now and the parcels will enter the mail stream immediately.

“With the Grain” will be carried by Lie-Nielsen Toolworks (plus a DVD hosted by Becksvoort), Lee Valley Tools and Tools for Working Wood.

— Christopher Schwarz

Unsung Hero: My Drill Press

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For me, the hardest part of making half-blind dovetails isn’t the sawing. It’s chiseling out the waste between the pins. So when I have a crapload of half-blind dovetails to make, I use my drill press and a Forstner bit to bore out the bulk. Then I finish up with a regular bench chisel.

I’m in the midst of a sea of half-blind and full-blind dovetails for my latest campaign chest. All together, I have 16 half-blind corners, two full-blind corners and 10 through-dovetail corners to make. In my book, that’s a crapload.

I set my drill press so that it bores just shy of my baselines – I don’t trust its depth stop. (The stop has bent many times; I should replace it.) So there’s still some chopping and paring I need to do with each joint.

With any luck, I should have the lower carcase of this chest glued up this afternoon. And thanks to my drill press, I’ll have saved several hours I can devote to editing some upcoming books. That’s also removing waste, but it’s a process that my drill press can’t help with.

— Christopher Schwarz