In the next few months AFD will review the most important woodworking joints used in furniture building. We will start with the basic doweling techniques followed by splines, dados, stop-dados, rabbeted, half dovetail, full dovetail, cross lap, t-lapped and dovetail lapped joints.
For any joint using dowels it is important to own two tools. A set of dowel and tenon centers will last a lifetime along with a self-centering doweling jig. Using these two tools will assure perfect dowel joints in almost all applications. Compare the cost of biscuit joiner at $150 to $200 and a self-centering jig and the dowel centers are a bargain.
In a face frame application two ¼” dowels in the
rails and stiles make a perfect joint. This technique is best done with a
self-centering doweling jig. Align the pieces and make a pencil line a ½” down
from the top of the stile and rail. Be sure the line is across each. Using a brad
point bit, align the jig to the pencil line and drill 2 holes in the stile. Register
the jig on the end of the rail on the pencil mark and drill two more holes. Install
the dowels with glue and join the pieces together with clamps. Be sure to check that
the face frame is square.
The corner butt joint can be made with the
self-centering jig for the rail, but it will be necessary to use the dowel centers to
align the holes to the stile. Start by marking the location of the dowels for the
rail and again use a ¼” brad point bit to drill them to the proper depth. When
finished install the dowel centers and align the boards. Tap the stile with either
your hand or a wooden mallet and the resister points on the dowel centers will mark the
board perfectly. This is an impossible task without the simple dowel centers.
The mid
rail butt joint follows the same procedures and assures a very strong joint. Based
on the size of your material it maybe necessary to increase the size of the dowels that
you use in all three of these applications.
Brian Murphy
American Furniture Design Co