Thread: 1:4 1:6 1:7 1:8 Dovetail Saw Guide Magnetic Joinery Cutting Guide Angle Saw Guide

I saw one of the American writers talk about the angles, years ago, and the 'supposed' reasons for them. He had done some objective strength testing which showed little difference. His final call was 'do what looks right'. That is what I have done ever since, with the proviso that I use shallower angles if the corners of the tails are likely to spit off - which I have found some woods are prone to do.
One last thing and back to Adam's angle calculations, I think of them in degrees from the vertical rather than from the horizontal, so I ave markers set up at 8, 10, 12 and 14 degrees. I think my 12 degree marker gets the most use.

SD, your comments reminded me of thoughts I have shared with Joel Moskowitz, from Tools for Working Wood (in Brooklyn). He wrote a couple of blogs on the topic of how and why furniture design has evolved in the past century …

Silhouettes

Silhouettes 2 (This Time It's Personal)

The theme of the two blogs is about the rise of minimalism in furniture design, which is a world away from the ornate carvings and mouldings common 100 years ago. One of the reasons I believe why minimalism took hold, especially at its height with Mid Century Danish and Ikea(!), is that life has become so busy … a sensory overload. As furniture began to divest itself of its busy decorations, there was the parallel growth of manufacturing by machine. The latter meant that it took no extra time for finishing both sides of a board, and in fact massed construction is easier (more predictable) when working with known thicknesses. Now ornamentation takes on a different focus: simple mouldings which silhouette a piece, and dovetails assume importance since they are indicators of handwork, now becoming less common.

So, dovetails develop into a saleable fashion object among higher end makers, and this is now a point of focus of hand tool skills among woodworkers on forums. I fully expect a forum to be added here for “wives seeking therapy after the constant discussion of dovetails by their woodworking spouses”

Regards from Perth

Derek

Dovetailing drawers today. I took these two photos ...

This is how the dovetail diagonals are marked along with the line across the top edge. Two-in-one ...



Flip the marker around and it becomes a saddle square for the pin board ...



Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

SD, your comments reminded me of thoughts I have shared with Joel Moskowitz, from Tools for Working Wood (in Brooklyn). He wrote a couple of blogs on the topic of how and why furniture design has evolved in the past century …

Silhouettes

Silhouettes 2 (This Time It's Personal)

The theme of the two blogs is about the rise of minimalism in furniture design, which is a world away from the ornate carvings and mouldings common 100 years ago. One of the reasons I believe why minimalism took hold, especially at its height with Mid Century Danish and Ikea(!), is that life has become so busy … a sensory overload. As furniture began to divest itself of its busy decorations, there was the parallel growth of manufacturing by machine. The latter meant that it took no extra time for finishing both sides of a board, and in fact massed construction is easier (more predictable) when working with known thicknesses. Now ornamentation takes on a different focus: simple mouldings which silhouette a piece, and dovetails assume importance since they are indicators of handwork, now becoming less common.

So, dovetails develop into a saleable fashion object among higher end makers, and this is now a point of focus of hand tool skills among woodworkers on forums. I fully expect a forum to be added here for “wives seeking therapy after the constant discussion of dovetails by their woodworking spouses”

Regards from Perth

Derek

Certainly some interesting thoughts but I think it's much simpler than that. In the early 90s I was fortunate to know an extremely accomplished furniture maker and restorer. His name is Gregory Brown. He specialised in antique reproductions and restoration. His work went all over the world and easily topped 75k plus back in the late eights and early nineties. He retired from the craft soon after I got to know him in his early fifties. I can remember him saying: He made the decision to retire when he realised all his clients were in their 70s or more. The younger generations simply didn't like the antique styles. Thier parents were dying and they would dump the furniture on the market and move on. In my work I recently met an older couple that have a lot of English Georgian furniture dating from the early to mid 1800s that her father collected of his life. They were telling me that their kids don't want any of it and will probably sell it all off when they die.

In my experience I've also found that. I'm a bit of an odd duck in that I have always loved the antique style. Since I was 12 or younger Chippendale has been my favourite style. I have reproductions in the Chippendale and Georgian style I've made around the house and for the most part people that see them can appreciate the effort that goes into making them, but they don't like the styles. It seems the younger they are the less they like them.

I also think, it's because of the industrial revolution. As we moved away from making things by hand and trying to get machines to do it, it drove to factors. Style was driven by the limitations on what machines could do, and we progressively lost the skills to create such detailed furniture anymore. From what I've seen over the decades, often the skills, or lack thereof, of the designers and craftsmen/women dictate their style and what they make. I.e. You don't see a lot of turning or carving in furniture anymore. I think it's because most furniture makers haven't had the chance to develop those skills and avoid incorporating them in their work.

However. That may change in the near future. With 3D laser scanning and 5 axis CNC machines and lathes getting progressively better at producing products, it won't be long before anything can be churned out by a geek on a computer, with literally no woodworking, or hand tool skills at all. On a side note: I'd love put a modern spin on the antique world and scan my Chippendale desk and chair set and mill them out of polished aluminium.

YMMV

Originally Posted by The Spin Doctor

Certainly some interesting thoughts but I think it's much simpler than that. In the early 90s I was fortunate to know an extremely accomplished furniture maker and restorer. His name is Gregory Brown. He specialised in antique reproductions and restoration. His work went all over the world and easily topped 75k plus back in the late eights and early nineties. He retired from the craft soon after I got to know him in his early fifties. I can remember him saying: He made the decision to retire when he realised all his clients were in their 70s or more. The younger generations simply didn't like the antique styles. Thier parents were dying and they would dump the furniture on the market and move on. In my work I recently met an older couple that have a lot of English Georgian furniture dating from the early to mid 1800s that her father collected of his life. They were telling me that their kids don't want any of it and will probably sell it all off when they die.

In my experience I've also found that. I'm a bit of an odd duck in that I have always loved the antique style. Since I was 12 or younger Chippendale has been my favourite style. I have reproductions in the Chippendale and Georgian style I've made around the house and for the most part people that see them can appreciate the effort that goes into making them, but they don't like the styles. It seems the younger they are the less they like them.

I also think, it's because of the industrial revolution. As we moved away from making things by hand and trying to get machines to do it, it drove to factors. Style was driven by the limitations on what machines could do, and we progressively lost the skills to create such detailed furniture anymore. From what I've seen over the decades, often the skills, or lack thereof, of the designers and craftsmen/women dictate their style and what they make. I.e. You don't see a lot of turning or carving in furniture anymore. I think it's because most furniture makers haven't had the chance to develop those skills and avoid incorporating them in their work.

However. That may change in the near future. With 3D laser scanning and 5 axis CNC machines and lathes getting progressively better at producing products, it won't be long before anything can be churned out by a geek on a computer, with literally no woodworking, or hand tool skills at all. On a side note: I'd love put a modern spin on the antique world and scan my Chippendale desk and chair set and mill them out of polished aluminium.

YMMV

I think we overthink why something is popular and then something else is popular and trying to attribute reasons why is a matter of human nature but often we don't navigate variables too well.

We see 18th and 19th century furniture pieces that were owned by few, and we see that style of English or Philadelphia or Boston furniture that takes enormous skill to build, and it's later replaced by mid century modern that takes far less skill and most of it could easily be mastered by one good maker. Like really mastered. To make something like a late 1700s chest on chest with finials and carved mouldings and superb finish work that's not just sprayed or wiped on is a much taller order.

it was status by ability to afford and sold to a smaller group of people who had more classical education and less of a grasp for modernity.

But the time factories started to take over, classical education was on the wane and technical education and convenience was more of a thing. My grandparents grew up during that era and eventually ended up buying stripped down versions of classic pieces because that was what local makers made, and they could afford it (as farmers, but at the time "big" farmers, I guess - like 10-15 employees at various times of the year - not a guy walking behind a horse). They started out with backbreaking labor in the early 1900s and chased modernity and moved from a two floor house to a sprawling one floor house. they became the more typical customer vs. a large land or company owner or a church official.

But the why is a slippery thing to guess at due to not considering a lot of variables. I'm laying a big part of the change aside from wider distribution of good quality furniture (moving down to lower classes than just the upper class for good furniture) on chasing modernity (factories, quantity over quality, etc) and a disregard for classical design in general that goes along with that.

The accumulation and work done on the finest furniture never really waned here among the very wealthy, but it did wane among the folks who would rather show off their upper-mid wealth level with country club memberships and cadillacs (back when cadillac was actually something more than just an extra cost brand of a common platform).

In this part of the world, it's not really the case that plain furniture wasn't around. Probably throughout the northeast, too, though this style is often called "pennsylvania" here. Same time as stuff like chest on chest pieces with a lot of curves.

Collection | Carnegie Museum of Art

Collection | Carnegie Museum of Art

No shortage of shaker stuff, either. These two types weren't vanity pieces, or proof that you had scraped the most from the poor as a church official. protestant mindset was pretty strong where I grew up - if a church official had fancy furniture, they would've been fired by their congregation and sent packing. Same with a doctor if a doctor had been the current equivalent of a hematology practice owner scratching out $2M a year from the local population.