What DOVETAIL RATIO is the BEST?

dovetail ratios hello everyone today I am going to be getting some knickers in a twist most likely because I'm going to be talking about the subject of dovetail ratios so dovetail ratios are one of the many things in woodworking where people like to get quite opinionated and passionate about and like telling other people that they are wrong even though the only evidence that they have is supported by something they read on a forum once and I made to tell you that if something is working for you and someone tells you that you're doing it wrong the only person that is wrong is then we work out the angles of dovetails by using ratios instead of angles so the way we do this is measuring one unit across and in the case of this six units up that could be one unit across and five units up one year across and seven units out that could be one centimeter six centimeters it could be one mile six miles it would give you exactly the same angle so why do we have these different ratios well usually it's grouped into one in eight for hardwoods one in six for soft woods or at least that's what Veritas sell they're dovetail markers as however in the book that I recently recommended Colin's complete woodworkers manual it says one in eight four hardwoods one in seven for soft woods now you can already start seeing where the lines being blurred sometimes you'll read that you can use one in six for constructional DuckTales so if you were doing a joint like this housing joint for example a one in eight ratio it might not be steep enough in order to lock that in place so you'd have to widen it to a one in six but it's hardwood you're not allowed to use one in six the hardwoods are you have to use one in eight it's a load of rubbish do whatever you think looks good and do whatever you think is going to fit the application the best the reason these rules have come about is because hardwoods are generally quite brittle they'll split along the grain a lot easier than soft woods will so this is where the concept of short grain comes in wood is a lot stronger along its length so this is about a five millimeter component look how much I can bend it however across its width like this it's a lot weaker so look at this component still five millimeters thick but I can split it a lot easier that's what happens that's that ratio is increased say from one in eight to one in four on the corners here you start getting short of grain where the grain isn't as strong a next example of this is a 1 in 1 ratio all the grain along here is short grain it's gonna be incredibly easy to snap in fact I will show you get hammer it's not much of a dovetail if it can do that you can smash it off however if you've got the one in 8:1 for example those corners are a lot more solid on there now short grain is the only thing you actually need to look out for with ratios there are tall chefs that have lasted hundreds of years through lots of abuse that have dovetails cut to a one-in-four ratio this works perfectly fine the only thing the craftsman needs to be aware of when they're making it is that these corners are a lot more fragile than they would be for a one-in-eight ratio this means that when they're making the joint they need to look out for these fragile corners when they're assembling this into the opposite component they need to watch out for those corners because if it's slightly too tight these corners are gonna be easier to break off and that's about it really one in four is nowhere near steep enough to start self-destructing over time if it was a draw site for example constantly being pulled in and out however that is probably about as low as I would go if you started going to a 1 in 1 ratio these corners are like I said incredibly incredibly fragile and if they wear on the draw side you know these corners might start breaking off so take what I'm saying in within reason so guys there are no rules in woodworking just do whatever you think looks best I wouldn't advise to go much steeper than 1 in 4 because you will start getting problems like you do with this one in one a much shallower than 1 1/8 it doesn't become much of a dovetail anymore if you want like a safe all-round boundary to work in one in 6 1 in 7 1 in 8 you can pretty much use for any woods you want one in five one in four will work for most words the only thing you've got to watch out for is when you're doing things like oak for example where it's quite easy for it to split along the grain that's where these corners will become a little bit fragile get to know different types of wood do a bit of research and start understanding what words are hard soft brittle and make your judgment on that and there we go there is dovetail ratios in a nut shell so as a conclusion do what you think looks best do what you think fits your design the best if you want to do 1 in 4 ratio do a 1 in 4 ratio don't listen to the guy in the forums or on YouTube reading out these woodworking rulebook because it doesn't exist you can do what you want and what works for you the best if you start going to these steeper angles just recognize that the corners on here are going to be a little bit more agile than they would be for one-in-eight the only thing I would say is don't go to one in one because you saw what sort of damage if you get from that so there we go see in the next video [Music]

Channel: Matt Estlea

Views: 59,064

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Id: Yue6GKRa3Ak

Length: 4min 57sec (297 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 14 2017