Quiltingboard Forums - SWMBO Results.

Even though there are a lot of dovetails showing on this particular piece, They were done that way because my wife loves to see lots of dovetails on anything I do. That said. If I were to do it the "Traditional way", IE: the17th-19th century cabinetmaking way, there would have been fewer exposed dovetails, and many more hidden ones. Things in that era were put together with dovetails and mortise and tendon joints, in a hidden manner, so as to leave a finish that didn't show how it was assembled. The one type of furniture that often broke that rule, is the furniture produced by the Shaker sect, which was around and flourishing during those years. They used and featured those effects, so as to demonstrate the commitment to well made work. But I have also done a lot of research on existing Shaker pieces in various museums, andhave found less than stellar examples of woodworking skill, buried within the pieces. Lets just say that they had some workers in their shops who were at best, carpenters, and at worst, wood butchers. The best pieces that are extant, and sold for high figure bids, are the outstanding work of some of the highest skilled masters of those workshops and not the average worker within those shops. Those men, and they were always men and boys, were relegated to the prep work of the furniture building experience. A long and tedious part of the process, and part of the apprenticeship duties. An interesting tale of that era is one about the person who came up with the circular say blade. Her name was Tabitha Babbit. She was a Shaker woman who was born in the late 1700's and died at age 65 in the mid 1800's. She watched the men of her community working with pit saws, which were the only way that board were made out of trees in that era, and came up with the idea of making a circular say whose teeth were on the outside edge of the metal circular blade and that blade rotated at high speed and cut through the tree length, thereby producing the board. She cut a piece of sheet metal into a circle, notched the teeth in the edge, and mounted it onto her spinning wheel and then demonstrated that to the head of the wood shop and a "light bulb" went off in the master woodworkers head, and the circular saw was born: (Even though the light bulb had not been invented yet). So Guys, that just goes to show you that it is not entirely a male domain.

John