In dovetails in fine furniture I’ve often see craftsmen use very small pins along with large tails, but I don’t ever recall seeing small tails with much larger pins.
Would the reason be aesthetic or structural inadequacy of small tails? It would seem that if small pins are adequate to support the dovetail joint, then small tails also should be adequate to support the joint.
Replies
Just Aesthetic
In his book
http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Dovet...
Ian Kirby very briefly addresses this combination. See page 28.
He says it is very rarely done. He has seen it occasionally on soft wood country made chests. He says " Very small tails simply lack the visual impact of very small pins ".
From the drawing he provides to illustrate this comment I would leave out the "verys" in the sentence. The ones he shows are only smaller; not very small.
Great book by the way. I learned a lot from it and enjoyed reading it.
Large Pins, small tails
Very interesting response. There must be something to Kirby's observatiion since large pins, small tails are so rare. I did a quick mockup of a half blind dovetailed drawer front and was surprised by how similar it looked to its opposite of large tails, small pins. IU'm making a dining room table for a daughter's birthday and have decided to try out the large pins, small tails because it will simplify removing the waste in the half blind pins.
Thanks for your response.
If one put the "Verys" back in the description
I could see how it might be a problem if the tails were too small because when "hammering" the joints together the tails might be so weak they could break off. Partly because they are often on the secondary, weaker wood, side of the joint. The traditionally smaller pins are under compressive loads when hammering the joints together rather than the side loading that the tails undergo.
The strongest set up is to have the pins and tails about the same proportions.
Pins
"IU'm making a dining room table for a daughter's birthday and have decided to try out the large pins, small tails because it will simplify removing the waste in the half blind pins."
Aesthetics!
I would argue you will save little time with your plan. You will compromise the work, large pins are butt ugly. You will probably regret it later.
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