Compound Angle Dovetails
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Mike Ryan.
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Does anyone have a simple but effective method to layout compound angle dovetails? I found an article from Popular Woodworking Magazine but found it dizzying. I’m looking to make a serving tray something similar to the link below but with lower angled, shallower sloped sides.
https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/compound-dovetails/
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This topic was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
Mike Ryan.
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This topic was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
Mike Ryan.
9 February 2021 at 12:00 am #700405http://jansson.us/jcompound.html
Here is a miter gauge calculator. Once you have the angles you can cut the jointHi Mike, I assume what you want is a way to figure out the miter and bevel angles for the boards given a particular slope for sides of the box (or whatever) you are making. For example, if the sides are slanting 15 degrees, what is the correct miter angle and bevel for the ends of the boards? I have not tried the sort of calculator deanbecker mentions. It might make things easy, but I have done two things. First, Bob Rozaieskiu has a good video for how to get those angles without actually using any numbers. What he does is hold the sides of the box at the proper slant, say 15 degrees, and then projects the proper miter onto the adjacent boards. The correct bevel is then more or less automatic. This works okay, but it does involve some juggling to keep all the boards stable at their correct angle while you do the projection. It does have the advantage that (once you get all the juggling down) it works just as well if you want different slants for different sides. Say, front and back slanted at 20 degrees and sides at 10 degrees. Second, I actually have a chart of correct angles I got from Tag Frids book on joinery. Something like that might be available somewhere else as well. It it designed to tell table saw users how to set their miter gauge and the angle of their saw b lade to get the correct cuts for these compound angles. They can be easily used with handwork as well — just set your bevel gauge to those angles. Probably those are the two numbers that deanbecker’s calculator will give you. I will have to look at that
Hi Sanford, thank you for taking the time to provide a detailed response. You correct in that I am trying to achieve what you have described. I will watch Bob Razaieskiu’s video. That sounds like my kind of approach. I’m not big on numbers if I can find another. Just lazy I guess. Thanks again.
11 February 2021 at 8:12 am #700746One additional thing you may want to do is to make a test joint, and when that is OK, make a gauge block and fit it to the inside of that test joint. It may make it easier to mark subsequent joints (and if you keep the offcuts, they will help you to clamp the gauge block to each part), and if the project works well and people ask you to make more, then the repetition becomes easier.
Or you might want to make the gauge block first, then cut the test joint (or make a cheap and cheerful prototype)and see how it looks.Colin, Czech Rep.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
Colin Scowen.
I checked out the calculators that deanbecker mentioned above. They are very cool. I have seen such calculators before but never paid any attention for some reason. They allow you to generate the angles for such things as boxes or pyramids (and other things) with any number of sides. The calculations are designed to be used on table saws (miter gauge and blade tilt) but can easily be used by hand tool folk. Very useful if you want to make any thing with more interesting angles, whether architectural stuff or just boxes. Hm . . I wonder how hard it is to make dovetails on a box with 10 sides!
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