Tuesday, December 30, 2008

dowel corners

The photo shown above is a doweled corner for a mitered corner box. The dowels are held in place by friction, and they intersect to lock the corner even if the glue holding the joint were to fail at some point. But how can a person cut so many dowels to precise length? Small pieces tend to fly when cut with a table saw and a hand saw would take too long and the teeth of a handsaw can be disaster on such small dowels. What you see in the photo below is my method. Use tape to secure lots of dowels into a tight mass, then cut using a stick for hold down and stop block to control length of cut.
On another subject, I have been contacted by the principal of a high school in New York City about visiting the Clear Spring School program and I have been reading in the Proceedings of the Eastern Manual Arts Training Association Conventions, 1904 and 1905. Back then, there were very clearly developed ideas about the scope and sequence concerning the brain development potentials of Manual Training at various ages. I like to think that this old volume saved from the dumpster and placed in my hands will offer some use as we reconsider American education and redesign it to offer greatest benefit to our children and our society. Also, I have been asked to help with the review and editing of Hans Thorbjörnsson's History of Nääs, which I may do just a few pages at a time to make it manageable. I hope that I will have some interesting things to share from that in the coming year.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:30 AM

    Great looking box. As far as the doweled corners, what sort of jig to you use for drilling the dowel holes?

    Mario

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  2. Mario, I just use stop blocks and a fence on the drill press. A series of two stop blocks, giving left and right positions allows 4 holes to be drilled from one set up. Then those are changed for the second set-up, giving holes for the 8 dowels that lock the corners.

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