Impossible Dovetails

Baffle your friends with perplexing joints Press a dovetailed board into another board with matching sockets, and you’ve created woodworking’s most iconic joint. The dovetails and [...]

Chad’s StepBox

Learn how to make compound-angle dovetails building this handy stool and portable tool box. For my job as a trim carpenter and furnituremaker, I’ve always needed a sturdy stool to stand on. I’ve [...]

Folding Bookcase

Though not as lightweight as an eReader, this portable library is far more stylish. Bookcases that fold up like a clamshell were common among British travelers of the 19th century. Soldiers, [...]

Universal Drawer Holder

Universal Drawer Holder When I make dovetailed drawers, I usually plane the sides to even up the joints and fine-tune the drawer’s fit. Years ago, I found that you can’t accurately [...]

10 Tips for Using a Dovetail Jig

1. Paraffin Lube When you rout a dovetail joint, your sense of feel is important. Your router should slide easily around the jig’s fingers, without hesitating, so you can tell which [...]

Hannah’s Inlaid Chest

Router and hand tools combine for line and berry inlay on this 18th-century piece. In 1746, at the age of four, Hannah Pyle stored her prized possessions in a small three-drawer chest with line [...]

How to Make a Cabinet Drawer Box

As a woodworker, what’s the first thing you notice when you open a cabinet’s drawer? The way it’s put together, of course. A drawer made with half-blind dovetails really stands [...]

Compound Dovetails

Discover how to join oblique sides with through-dovetails. As an avid sailor and full-time furniture maker, I’ve always wanted to make a proper sea chest replete with rope beckets and a compass [...]

Dovetail Station

Cutting dovetails by hand is supposed to be an orderly, precise process. But when you’re in the thick of it, it’s all too easy to end up with a bench littered with stray tools and [...]

Line & Berry Chest of Drawers

Though not traditional, router patterns make quick work of the inlay. In southeastern Pennsylvania, just northwest of Philadelphia, is Chester County. It was one of the original three counties [...]

Dovetail Marking Fan

Equally-Spaced Dovetails Every Time When laying out dovetails, I always start by marking the centers of the pins so the distance between them is approximately the same. I came up with this trick [...]

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