Thread: Dovetail Oddities

My first thought was that the drawer turned out like that because the wood set aside for the drawer sides was tapered, & instead of thicknessing them, the cabinetmaker used them as-is, & planed the end piece down to match. From the torn-up fibres, it appears the dovetail baseline was laid out with a marking gauge (& a pin gauge, at that, used cross-grain, tch, tch! ), so that back piece must have started out with perpendicular ends. Either it was just some lazy coot recycling a couple of (large) weatherboards for drawer sides (), or there is some perceived advantage in making drawers like this with tapered sides - reduced binding, perhaps?

Cheers,

I can't remember where I've seen this before, but I'm pretty sure the tapered drawer side is a Shaker affectation.

There is a picture of a drawer side tapered that way in The Workbench Book , by Scott Landis. Shaker as well.

I think it's just a case of "May as well use the tapered bit rather than throw it away" If it's not weather board stock It could just be the first or last board cut off at the pit or mill ?

I worked on a Mahogany chest of drawers ci 1790 once where both sides were tapered like that , I didn't notice till the top was off and I could look down at the ends of the sides.

The whole thing was square and true on the outside , the smart builder had put in drawer runners that took into account the sides getting thinner as it went towards the back, and had fixed the drawer guides in square off the front so the drawers worked as they should. The sides were 3/4 inch at the front and abut 3/8 at the back. he got away with it .

I had another chest in front of me once , Aussie Red Cedar ci 1880.
I was wondering why every drawer front was like a propeller , twisted, but when in the chest it all seemed to work and I hadn't noticed the twisted fronts .
I finally realized I was looking at a chest where the builder had got the carcase totally out of square at the start and then had to build every thing from there on way out of square, every drawer had a 12mm twist to the front, every drawer side out of square .

I was laughing at this poor guy over 100 years later looking at all the extra work he had created for himself . Laughing because I knew how he felt , I did the same once, fitting three doors to a cabinet that was out of square in a big way , and I was faced with his same problem when I discovered it . "Do I start at the beginning or continue on ?" I did the same as he did .

Never again have I made that mistake.

Rob

Thanks Rob, that's exactly where I had seen it.