"What about Dovetailing? nobody has written a really authoritive article on that for ages". There are times when our editor can be pretty perverse. When he made this suggestion I didn't react, simply nodded and muttered something about "thinking about it" but inside I got that terrible sinking feeling. After some thought, I came to the conclusion that this was because dovetailing can symbolise all that is best and all that is worst about the craft of cabinetmaking.

At it's worst, dovetailing can be a conspicuous display of woody skills, clever, clever craftsmenship creating cabinets bristling with dovetails. I really wouldn't mind this, but it's not that hard to make a set of dovetails, it's even less hard to make them if you don't phaff and quibble about paring the pins or even worse, attacking them with a file as I've heard is the prctiee of some college students. The thing about skill, is that it must first be acquired, and only then can it be ignored and forgotten.

However, in this age when woodcraft skill is neither taught in schools, practised to any depth in colleges nor conspicuously valued at the Crafts Council, I would hesitate to decry dovetailing or any other technical skill. I think the point is that skill as typified by this simple technique is only a means to an end, and not an end in itself. The fine cabinet bristling with dovetails is perhaps more acceptable if the dovetails are an integral part of an otherwise excellent design. As a conspicuous display of skill, it can however

2. be just that — a pointless and rather fatuous display of technique.

I believe that it is a criminal waste of time to just make things beautifully. The skill that is invested in any object should only be appropriate to the design. It would be foolish for example to dovetail up a whole load of kitchen carcases, though it would be quite possible to do so. The object under consideration should always be worthy of the skill. This is the essential thing, the woody cabinet bristling with dovetails may not qualify if this is all it is about.

This concept, which I believe is right, is however used by some prominent lecturers in furniture design, to encourage their students not to adopt traditional craft skills. The argument goes something like this: "No, don't bother with fitting those drawers like a piston in a cylinder, there are lots of other ways to hang a drawer that are just as good. No, don't spend all that time on carcase joinery, modern techniques use biscuit joints and twinfast screws. No, if you spend all day phaffing about with a dovetail saw you 11 never get that finished and never earn a living."

In this way, a valid concept is turned to assist in a process of deskilling. The deskilling is at all levels. In schools, where old fashioned manual dexterity is now less valued than the intellectual pursuits of design and technology. The deskilling is occurring in the colleges, where furniture craft courses are now, of necessity, seeking degree status. The effect of this is to broaden the

3. syllabus, and effectively further demote workshop practice to modular status. The colleges will of course howl that this has little effect on craft skills. I can only judge from my limited experience of employing former students of most of the major colleges, and I'm worried. It seems almost to be part of our mate British class system, our national snobbishness to under value manual dexterity, and professional educators seem particularly prone to this.

The deskilling process has also, until very recently, been a consequence of the cultural stance of the Crafts Council. There, stylistic innovation has seemed to become the sole objective. Rather sadly, our arts administration has confused stylistic innovation with creative expression, when any fool knows that style has nothing to do with beauty. The end product of this process is that at the very time when craft workshops appear to have a place in the market, the competence necessary to enable practitioners to function economically is no longer being taught. This I find unforgiveable, for technique should be something that is learnt to a stage where it becomes mate and then forgotten. Without it you will always be restricted in your creative expression, and perhaps just a little jealous of those few woody's who do know how to do it.

So enough of the theory, what about the practice? I'll begin by discussing those applications when dovetailing is a valid contructional technique, I'll then go on to describe the different types of dovetails that can be used, and where they would be most appropriate, I'll then go on to describe the tools used in

4. their production and finally, the bit you're all waiting for — the workshop techniques used in the production of dovetail carcases and drawers.

Although I have seen carcases dovetailed up in MDF and plywood, generally dovetailing is restricted to solid wood, and is particularly useful where the corner joint has no overlap, see Diagram No. 1.

The wonderful thing about a dovetail joint is that it is very largely a mechanical joint, it doesn't rely upon glue alone. For this reason it is particularly useful for joints that will be put under considerable stress, for example, the joint between a drawer front and a drawer side. In this case the mechanical action of the dovetail joint is put to greatest use. Imagine the load imposed upon this joint in a sideboard drawer loaded with the family silver, see Diagram No. 2. As well as mechanical strength gained from the design of the joint, there is good old fashioned general strength. A dovetailed carcase doesn't easily come apart, even if you throw it down the stairs. There is a considerable glue area and mating surfaces to a dovetail joint, both giving strength and solidity to the construction. Because of this, a dovetail joint can withstand forces such as racking or tension, enabling the designer to take some liberties with the piece.

5. The angle at which one cuts a dovetail is a direct expression of this mechanical function, it should not be too coarse or the corners are liable to crumble where the grain is too short, but as a general rule, the angle for cabinet work is finer than that for joinery work. In my workshop we generally cut dovetails at an angle of about 8 degrees, see Diagram No. 3. I suspect this is because of the set up of a steel dovetail guage that we use rather than any particular lore or wisdom.

Besides carcasing and drawer making, the other occasion one might use dovetailing is the attachment of carcase rails to side cheeks, Quite often a fillet is jointed on to the end of the rail to increase the dovetail area, see Diagram No. 4. Here again, the mechanical action of the dovetail is brought into most effective use. Although I've no reason to mistrust glue when properly applied, I do always like if possible to combine a glue joint with a mechanical joint.

There are three basic types of dovetail joint to consider, and one or two variations upon those types. The first and most common type of dovetail joint is the "through dovetail"; this is shown in Diagram No. 5. It's most commonly used for carcase joinery. Where a large carcase would be used it would be common for narrow dovetails or a cluster of smaller dovetails to be used on the outside of the carcase with more widely spaced pins and tails in the centre. This is to counteract the natural tendancy that timber has to cup and twist, it also gives greatest strength where it is required, at the corner of

6. the job. This feature of through dovetails can be used to greatest advantage in that it allows you to space out your pins and tails attractively across the edge of a cabinet or box. Mechanically cut dovetails are usually regularly spaced, so if you are going to the trouble of doing hand—cut dovetails it makes sense to space them out properly, and tell people that these have been done by a human being, not a machine.

Next comes the mitred front corner, as shown in Diagram 6. This is an optional extra. You don't have to mitre your corners, but there may well be aesthetic reasons that you would want to do so. Mitred corners also have the advantage of allowing you to run a groove around the inside of your cabinet, and run that groove through on each of the components before assembly. The presence of the groove is concealed by the mitre. Just think how difficult it would be to run that groove were the mitre not there.

The second type of dovetail joint is a lapped dovetail joint. The most common application of this is the drawer front — See Diagram No. 7. A variation of this is the double lapped dovetail, and shown in Diagram No. 8. This is occasionally used for carcasing, where a small amount of end grain is showing top and bottom. This can often be concealed by a cornice or plinth. I must admit I've not had a great deal of call to use this type of joint, but it's a useful one where maybe you don't want to show dovetails, but do need the mechanical strength that a dovetail joint gives you.

7. The final type of dovetail joint is a development of the double lapped dovetail, this is the secret mitred dovetail. This perhaps is a favourite of mine for all of the strength is present whilst there is no conspicuous display of woody skills. Although it may look complicated, it is not a great deal more difficult to make than the through dovetail.

This is a basic range of types and applications most commonly used in my workshop. There are all sorts of other kinds of dovetails for special applications such as canted drawer fronts. In an effort to avoid confusion, I have chosen not to include everything but to suggest that when these special situations crop up you dive for the reference books like everybody else.

Next month I will be talking about the tools used in this technique, how to prepare and use them and some of the techniques we use to produce hand dovetailed carcases and drawers.