Fancy Dovetails

[cabinetman]

Thought these dovetails were interesting. From left to right they're called - "Key", "Clover", "Bear's Ears", "Wave".



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[BigguyZ]

That is slick. I couldn't imagine how you'd do that. Then again- I've never done dovetails at all....

[RayintheUK]

They're called "Isoloc" joints and are made with a router and the appropriate template on a Leigh D4 Dovetail Jig. The templates have a sliding offset, set with a pin.

The socket boards (drawer fronts) are done vertically, the sides horizontally, using the offset. Amazing amounts of glue surface and neat-looking with contrasting woods (as shown above).

I use them where I want strength, even if the look is to be concealed, as in this example (6th. post down the page).

There are six patterns in all, "Mirror" and "Ellipse" are the other two, as shown here.

Ray.

[cabinetman]

Ray

You had some project there. How was it to run those? Do a lot of sample set-ups, or did you get it right the first time?



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[stav]

Woodline sells a router jig that makes those dove tails as well. I saw it at the Wood woodworking show in Kissimmee last year. The guy let me try it out. It was really easy to make. The salesman's sales pitch usually involved getting a guys wife to try it out and then she would tell her husband to buy it. I saw it happen three times.

[RayintheUK]

Ray

You had some project there. How was it to run those? Do a lot of sample set-ups, or did you get it right the first time?

The joints are cut using a spiral cutter running inside a guide bush. The tightness of the joint depends on extremely fine adjustments of the way the guide bush runs in the template and Leigh chooses to do this with its Variable Guide Bush system.

It's basically a slightly cone-shaped collar that can be turned on a very fine thread, so for a tighter joint, you screw it down - this moves the cutter slightly further away from the template, because the shoulder of the guide bush has become wider as you screwed it down - if you see what I mean. The settings don't move, as they run against a nylon locking piece and a special tool is used to turn the bush within its outer collar.

You run all the sockets first, then if you need to, you tune the joint by varying the size of the connecting sides. Usually, one test piece is enough. The ideal relationship is where the cutter is set so that it cuts both parts of the joint without need to adjust for the second step - perfect balance.

Sounds crude, but it works extremely well. I've been using it for a while, which means that I have just the right, perfectly set, guidebush collar waiting to go. If you buy spares, your all set for different amounts of play in the joints. All Isolocs use the same size cutter (unless you're doing inlays), so once you're used to it, away you go.

So, although my answer is "It was right first time," at least you now know why I could say that!

Ray.