Back in August, there was a discussion on Miller dowels that evolved into some opinions on whether exposed dowels were consistent with fine woodworking.
Recently, I visited The Art Institute of Chicago, which has a first-class exhibit of furniture 1700-1880. The attached photos are of “Desk-and-Bookcase 1710/1735 Boston, Massachusetts Walnut and white pine.” Dowel joinery is clearly visible on the door corners.
Can we agree that exposed dowels are a matter of personal taste?
On another topic, of the fifty or so case pieces in the collection, all made prior to the mid-1800s had solid sides. Only after 1850 are sides paneled.
Replies
What is not entirely clear is whether the dowels were part of the initial construction, or an artifact of a subsequent repair/refurnishing. Apparently some conservators have questions about when some old pieces had the dowels applied. If so, is one heck of a better repair than putting a couple of nails in the joint.
You can read a lot about this subject in this thread.
I believe there was a period where exposed pinned joints were very important, though today it has lost its value.
Personal taste, yes. Also I guess the level of work, a lot of Sam Maloof's work has dowels showing. There are not a lot of people that would argue that his work is not "fine woodworking."
Donkey.
Looks like these are pinned mortises and tenons. Seeing as these are so ubiquitously used in fine furniture before modern glues became available, I don't think it's a point of contention whether they're fine woodworking. They're still great for avoiding glue-up panics (where the hell is my wet rag and 18th clamp!) :)
Then again, I didn't follow the originial discussion, so we may be talking about different things here...
I think James Krenov uses a lot of straight dowel joinery (as in butt joint) in his caseworks for non-load-bearing purposes.
IMHO, there is a huge difference between pinned mortise and tennon and a doweled butt joint. Pinned M&T, like what you posted a phot of, are fine joinery, doweled butt joints are not. Why? Because fine joinery needs to have a time tested pedigree. Doweled butt joints came standard in all the finest particle board and plastic laminate crap that was produced until someone discovered you could staple even easier. Pinned mortice and tennon on the other hand can be found in fine furniture for the last three or four hundred years.
No, I don't think it's a matter of taste, dowels are an ingredient of inferior joinery. The key to picking which joint is best for a particular situation should involve one question. What is the best joinery? M&T trump dowels every time.
That said, I use dowels for face frames, because they are fast, and the life span of a set of kitchen cabinets is what, 15 years? I want that secretary to last 400 though, so it has M&T's and dovetails.
I believe I drank a bit much of that new Austrailian shiraz, so if this post is out of whack...., cheers.
DS -There's no such thing as too much Shiraz be it Aussie or Yakima Valley. I think your post is spot on.
LOL, no, the headache said I did have just a little to much Shiraz. Worth the trouble though. Haven't tried the Yakima valley stuff. Gee, I better find out if its OK though!
Steve
It is not out of whack-the Australian stuff must be alright.Philip Marcou
Yup, not half bad. I have had some really lousy Aussie Shiraz, but this was OK.
Steve
Your post was much better than an Australian, Shiraz.
Just curious about your method for drilling the dowel holes??
Now about red wine, 1 = best, 2 = second best, etc.
1) French.
2) South African.
3.) Italian
4.) Spain
5.) Germany
6.) Chile
7.) Portugal
8.) Hungary
9.) USA - California
10.) Australia.
Note the Aussies are the worst, when it comes to making good wines. Then, one cruises Napa Valley to visit all the small wineries, and watch them tasting out of the same glass, from one variety to the next, without rinsing. Ouch!! They sell so fast, that all the wines are young, rough and not ready for tasting.
Willie
PS. Does anyone have good plans for a fancy wine cellar, I'm running out of space.
What about Oregon? They have some of the best Pinot around--Burgundy is good, but all too often, it's a crapshoot. And as far as Australia goes, it's true that here in the states, most of the Ausie wines are crap, but that's because they keep and drink all the good stuff for themselves...
Peter
jpswoodworking.com
You guys want a laugh, try one of our Nebraskan vinos. There is one that is OK, but every other one I've tried, very similar to sweetened mineral spirits.
Steve
" You guys want a laugh, try one of our Nebraskan vinos."I thought the only thing that came out of Nebraska was Everclear?! (grin)We recently spent some vacation time with some friends in southcentral France. In turn they took us to meet some of their friends who live in their ancestral farm house that must be a coupla hundred years old. Huge thick walled stone home. All the doors and other millwork that required tenon type joinery was all doweled.Secondly, while visiting Hadrian's wall in NE england we walked through a farmer's wood gate, probably a hundred years or so old as well. Mortice and tenon joinery.I don't think you run the risk of criticism using dowel pins in morticed joints.
Nope, we make another very similar product, ethenol. I hear it tastes like Everclear.
Those are excellent examples of joinery with a pedigree, sounds like a nice research trip as well!
Steve
Some time back I saw a TV thing on French wine.. They were pumping it in a HUGE barge to send to America.. Sort of like a small oil tanker..LOL... LOL.. Really!
Oh the glories of the free market.
Most of our local wine distribution has now been taken up by discount chains owned by Coles-myer and Woolworths supermarket chains. They need reliable bulk wines. You can see where this leaves the smaller wineries with the distinctive style.
Every now and again you will get a French wine that is good, and they make enough of the stuff that there is always good stuff about if you can afford it. What Australia has done is get its production processes and technology down to produce a consistent high quality year after year.
In the end, I just like wine, some more than others.
Well Sir, your frame of reference is much more expansive then mine, although I'm trying to catch up. I can't say that I've ever met a French wine that I couldn't find any redeming characteristics in, I've only tried a few South African and Italian wines, I don't remember any Spanish, a few German, one or two Chilean, no Portugese or Hungarian, and a fair lot of Californian. I believe I have some work to do....
That Shiraz I had the other night was not bad really. Certainly not something I'll go for if I have options, but in a pinch... Problem is, around here, not many options. I've noticed the Californian stuff can be hit and miss as well as the Aussie . Can't help but thinking of that movie when we talk of Napa, I'll never think of merlot the quite the same.
You know, I could help you out with the storage problem. I've got plenty of room...
As for the dowling, I wanted an excuse to try out a Ridgid drill press, so I bought one to attach a jig to. Just a fence with a lip for dowling the sides of the face frames, and a perpendicular stop block supporting appendage to bore the ends. A Destato clamp hold the frame parts tight to the fence. I just mark like you would for biscuits. Works really well actually. I like the drill press as well. Have a good evening,
Steve
All the great wines in all of those places have one thing in common: The viticulturalists and the enologists studied at the University of California at Davis. In the '60s and the '70s, California's ag school put grape growing and wine making into a scientific profession. First, they helped Napa and Sonoma growers beat the french and italian wines to gold medals in their own countries. They developed rigourous science that helped vintners grow the varieties of grapes that grew best in their own micro climates and helped the winemakers make wine that was great each time and everytime.Over the years, students from UCD went back to Virginia, New Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and even France and grew grapes suited to their climates and learned to make great wine reliably through science. Wine lovers the world over owe a debt to UCD for its contributions to wine, fine, and not so fine, like the workaday stuff in my glass as I type.By the way, I don't agree about France. Their wines can be great at best, but they vary all over the board and some years, they could lose the gold metal to cider vinegar! But, don't worry, some French students have graduated from UCD and their wines will again be some of the best in the world!
Tele,
I have actually been through the little winery here in Fresno California, which is under the UC Davis umbrella. They also sell their wines on campus.
I am in the food business and we have two Phd's, both from Davis. It's good to understand the theory at molecular level and to know how the enzymes and all the other gizmos work, but it's like woodwork. The true masters were not taught at school, they had the talent and developed their own skills.
It's a pity the US is so strict about importation, when I worked in France, we were a group, spread all over the world and we use to send each other cases. So, when we visited, we could taste from many countries.
You have to really know where to tour, to get the real good French wines as most are from the small wineries in the Bordeaux region.
I don't agree with you about the good wine education at UC Davis, the US has a long way to go when it comes to pure wine culture, so do their wines. Geographical location and climatic conditions has a lot to do with growing wine grapes and the two best locations in the world are in the Bordeaux region and Cape, South Africa. The French already had the empirical part developed in the 18th century and the French Huguenots, took their skills and knowledge with them as settlers in the Cape.
Anyway, we are way of topic, so I'll quit.
The only people with more opinions than woodworkers are wine drinkers. Unfortunatly I am both as I sit here having just finished of a glass of Italian red. In all honesty if the food is good the wine tastes better. Kind of like wood if the wood is pretty the end result looks better.Troy
dowels are an ingredient of inferior joinery?? I saw some doors on China about 5 inches thick and had dowels in the through tenons,,Doors had bronze castings inlayed in them.. I asked the guide how old they were? She said not sure.. This building is 400 years old AND they came from another much older building!
Hi Will,
I agree about the doweled mortise and tenon, and that's why I drew the line between them and doweled butt joints. Dowels as joinery are bad, but dowels can have a purpose.
Steve
exposed dowels were consistent with fine woodworking..
I would say ANYTHING goes if other folks like it!
A lot of interesting discussion here. As someone already said, pinned mortise and tenon joinery is a long standing practice pre-dating modern adhesives.I'm sure you'll find examples of that joint in very fine work as well as less refined examples.The fact is (was) it is more of a structural necessity first, aesthetic second.
So what the heck is fine woodworking anyway?What I might define it to be, may not fit your description.I doubt any two people would agree entirely.
To me, fine woodworking is work that is pleasing to live with, will out last me many times over, and does what it was intended to do.
John, those are pegged m&t joints. This style was quite common in years gone by when glue was of marginal utility. The pieces survived well. aloha, mike
You know Mike, some would disagree about the inferiority of hide glue. I like my Titebond, but I know there is at least one hide glue advocite still out there.
Steve
I like hide glue. its the first real glue I ever used when I built reataurant booths in Omaha Nebraska. The heating and maintaining the glue was a pain but it worked really well. A lot of pegged joints didnt use any glue. They used an offset in the drilling technique to pull the joint tightly together. Very smart.... aloha, mike
Omaha to Maui, don't you miss Nebraska? :) It's cold and windy here now, probably snow tonight.
I saw Norm, of all people, use that offset hole method for something once. Thats the joinery method I used for the base on my bench as well, but there was glue involved. No clamps required that way.
Did you mix anything with the hide glue, like urea? Something to make a longer open time would make it better in my shop. A better heater probably wouldn't hurt either.
Enjoy that weather out there,
Steve
from:American Furniture of the 18th Century; Taunton, 1996, page 126:
"The key to maintaining a secure joint is to retain a compressive force between the shoulder of the tenoned member and the mating surface of the mortised part. A peg driven through a cross-drilled hole accomplishes this perfectly."
dlb
.
Anyone who says otherwise is a wood working snob......... come on. Is the piece well proportioned and finished properly? Does it exhibit toght joints? what else can you ask for, for cryin' out loud? This forum sometime makes me think about people who buy Harley Davidson Motorcycles. I own one now and I have owned 2 others so I speak from experience.................. biggest bunch of snobs on the planet. If you dont have a Big Twin Bike with loud pipes you are not cool. Own a Sportster?.too bad, that to them is "1/2 a Hraley"....Own a V Rod.......? Nope" thats a porsche". These guys in here who dictate what is fine wood working are in the same mold.....looking for elitism......pure and simple
Wicked Decent Woodworks
(oldest woodworking shop in NH)
Rochester NH
" If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy........yessa!"
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