An impossible dovetail joint, that's what
I want to make next. Basically, it's two pieces of wood, held together
with one dovetail per side. Which doesn't make any sense. Like how do you put it together? How do you take it apart? Well, there is a trick. But I've never done this before, so I don't
know how difficult it is. Is it a practical joint? Is it worthwhile? Would it be fun to make? I think so. I think this would be a lot of fun to make. So let's make an impossible dovetail joint. So this is a 3" by 3" wood. This is actually bass wood. I wanted something that wasn't too too hard. Of course you could use two different kinds
of wood, if you want a different effect. I'm just going to use one piece, cut in half. The thing about the impossible dovetail is
it looks like a dovetail, and I suppose in some ways it is a dovetail, but it doesn't
go together like a regular dovetail. There's a little bit of a trick to it.
And it's all about the angles. Instead of cutting straight, we're not going
to cut like this, we're going to cut like this. I did it completely wrong. And I just thought to myself, hrm, how does
that fit together? So that's what I'm looking for. So I have my pieces marked out. Hopefully I've done them right now. I'm going to try to be really careful, because
I know any mistake is going to show up like crazy. So now I'm going to remove the waste, and
leave the dovetail parts. I think what I'm most surprised at here with
this bass wood is how hard it is. I mean, I realize it's end grain. so any wood would be hard, but man, I had
the impression that basswood would be pretty soft, but no. I'm
getting a couple of breaks here and there. I don't care too much, because in some ways
you're not going to see it once the joint is put together for the most part.
You can't be too crazy, right? Ok, one side, more or less complete. Like cutting these dovetails on an angle like
this, on the end grain! And I love it, it's really fun. I just hope it's going to turn out halfway
decent., we'll see. I want to take a brief moment and say thanks
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becoming a patron and providing support. I really appreciate it. Ok let's get back to work. Ok, moment of truth here. Let's see if they fit together at all, how
much off I am. It's not tight whatsoever. Is it perfect? No. Is it everything I hoped it would be? No. I kind of think that the whole point with
this is that it should be pretty tight. So you give it to someone and they can't quite
figure out how to do it, and this right now is quite loose. Ok, let's go over everything that I did wrong. Error #1. I marked it out incorrectly, but that's easy
enough to fix. Error #2 I think I used too large of a piece
of wood. It's easy enough to make mistakes, and you
might as well work with a smaller piece of wood, so you don't spend as much time chiseling
and removing material, at least initially. Error #3 I marked out both pieces at the same
time. I think initially, as you're starting out
it's probably a better idea to first work with your first piece, and then use that to
mark out your second piece, just in case your cuts weren't completely perfect, you'll have
a better chance of success.
Error #4 I got a little bit too excited removing
material as I was trying to get it to fit, and you don't realize always exactly where
the issue is, so. I think spending a little bit more time and
being a little more cautious is the way to go. So let's use these techniques on a different
piece of wood and see if I can fix this up. Let's see I have a piece of cherry, that might
be a good option. End grain. End grain is difficult, like by definition
it splits. It's funny, this cherry feels a lot softer
than the bass wood. Which I would have thought would have been
the other way around. Future me here, I just checked this out. Basswood measures 410 on the Janka hardness
scale, whereas cherry measures 950.
So cherry should be substantially harder,
although I've worked with like different pieces of cherry, different pieces of walnut, can
be very different from each other. So, maybe something like that, who knows? Ok, so I've got this cut and now I'm going
to use this piece to measure and mark out on my second piece. It gets to the point where I just want the
damn thing to fit. And I know that it's not going to take much. It's going to be a little bit, and you feel
so tempted to just go at it like crazy, you know? But if you do that, you're going to mess up
big time. I was looking at this and thinking, this is
never going to work, and it's starting to come together. What's really wild, is when I'm looking at
it like this, I don't think it's going to go in right, but it does. I have to say though, even as I'm putting
it together, I'm like oh how do I take it apart? It's not obvious at all.
Now, it's definitely a better fit than the
larger piece, the basswood that I made, and if I handed this to someone, I mean they would
have a bit of an issue figuring out how to open it. It's not obvious. Not like the other piece that's literally
falling apart as you're doing it. At the same time though, there's a lot of
holes, it's not perfect.
Now the question is, do I continue making
another one, and another one, trying to get this just perfect? Over time that's probably what I'll do. But more like quiet work in the background. I'm not going to like this is my mission in
life to get this joint absolutely perfect. But what I think I might do though, is move
on to power tools. So let me know if that's something you'd be
interested in seeing. Otherwise, thank you so much for watching
I had a lot of fun working on this little joint. So if you're just looking for something fun
to do, make a little puzzle, I would recommend it. If you're looking to do something very practical,
I would not. Although when you think about it, what is
this? It's a sliding dovetail joint, at the diagonal,
that's all there is. So maybe there's a little too much fuss about
this when in reality it's quite simple. Thanks so much for joining me.
Let me know if you have any questions in the
comments below. Remember if you want to provide support, patreon
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