Wood Joinery Videos

Dovetail Joint Marking Gauge for Cutting Dovetails by Hand

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Woodworkers are fascinated by dovetail joints and the art of dovetailing. No other joint gets anywhere near the amount of attention as the lovely dovetail joint. There are so many ways of making dovetail joints, by hand, by machine and the numbers of different tools and jigs and assorted accessories to make these joints is really quite remarkable. Guess What ... here is yet another.

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/ip91VtqCA9E

This is a new kind of marking gauge for me, and as one who is not proficient and making dovetail joints, hopefully, it will make things a tiny bit easier ... but I do know that the only real way of making good, consistent dovetails is practice, practice, practice ...

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Reversible Glue Joint Router Bits

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For most woodworkers, the Reverse Glue Joint Router Bit is not one of the more common wood router bits ... in fact, few even know about it. For cabinet makers, this is one their more common router bits and in some shops, there are router tables dedicated to this bit because it is used so often. The setting up of this bit can challenge your patience, but once set will give quality joinery to your project.

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/QW02XiEBo08

In my case, I have not used this bit for many, many years so it was a good chance for me to give myself a bit of refresher in using this bit  ... 

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Better Glue-Ups with Clamping Cauls

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Clamping cauls have probably been around as long as woodworking, but they seem to come in and out of favor. New woodworking tools, attachments, jigs, and techniques come along on old ways are often forgotten.  But not everyone has the latest tools, jigs, and techniques, in fact many, especially in woodworking, like doing things the traditional way and what could be more traditional than Clamping Cauls .... 

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/OZ53CF7Gb1s

At one time, much earlier in my woodworking career, I used nothing but clamping cauls for all sorts of assembly and glue-up jobs. They worked great then and they still work great, I just don't use them much anymore, have fallen to another technique that I like, and that works well for me, the Dowelmax systems ... but that doesn't mean I have abandoned clamping cauls, they are still invaluable for certain jobs ...  

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Joint Testing

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failed jointAs woodworkers, we often seem to be obsessed by how strong joints are, and in many ways this is good. Of course we don't want people to be hurt sitting on a chair that could collapse, but in many cases the joints are many times stronger than actually needed. This is in part because of the way we need to make them in order for them to be secure.

In the associated video, I put together a variety of joints, all of them with Red Oak, just to see how well each kind of joint holds up. All of the joints were end grain to long grain, with the exception of the lap joint (which I will talk about later). End grain to long grain are the hardest joints because end grain does not glue well to long grain, well at least with much strength, so other means of fastening must be adapted.

In order to be fair with each joint, all the end grain pieces are 3 inches wide. This was selected for a couple of reasons, first of all it would accommodate the largest wood biscuit commercially available; the other reason is that by using 3" viewers could use the info to associate it with both 2" or 4". I just don't have time to run all the tests of both 2" and 4" material, so 3" seemed like a good compromise.

The lap joint was slightly smaller because I felt it was unfair to have 3-1/2 inches of long grain glued to long grain so it is slightly smaller at 2-1/2 inches ...

Read more: Joint Testing

More Articles ...

  1. Using a Doweling Jig
  2. Using a Commercial Dovetail Jig
  3. Box Joint Jig - Operational Details
  4. Comparing Box Joint Jigs