This Simple Joint is Stronger Than a Dovetail!
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- Опубліковано 21 лис 2024
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MY OTHER JOINERY TEST VIDEOS:
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@WoodcraftBySuman's GLUE & CLAMP DURATION TEST VIDEO:
• you are clamping too long
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What im struggling to see are the tests. All i see are you talking about them. Maybe therapy could help me with that?
if all your here for is numbers, then just skip to the end of the video
Time to drop this channel because of lame sponsors that have nothing to do with wood at all
@@Yraensblah blah blah blah
@@Yraens Ridiculous that you're willing to watch something and not support the creator by sitting through a tiny ad section without throwing a tantrum...
You forgot to test the most common joint: 1/8" pressboard tacked with one tiny staple, later repaired with clear tape.
... and later still re-repaired with duct tape
ROFL, truth.
Then gorilla tape@@trueriver1950
I tested this and SUPRISINGLY it failed at over 8,000 lbs.
Exactly 😂
I did some experimenting of my own years ago and found that a simple modification of technique made a massive difference when using white glue on joints where end grain is involved.
I found that simply moistening the surfaces with a damp sponge a minute or so before applying the glue drew the glue just a little further into the wood fibres and when the joint was broken it would draw more of the fibres from both sides of the joint, as opposed to the clean break at the glue/wood interface.
This was 50 years ago and I have always moistened the surfaces since.
I like that idea specifically for end grain gluing. This makes me think about using primer before using paint. It would be interesting to see what the results would be if a 50% glue 50% water mixture applied to the end grain and allowed to soak in for say 5 minutes or so. Then full-strength glue used on both the end and flat grain parts and clamped together. This would be interesting for sure. From my perspective, modern PVA glue is so good that of a joint is properly fitted, glued, clamped, and allowed to cure completely, the joint will be reliable for most uses. I have always liked this topic.
@@Mark-EFMB-Combat-Medic
Hi Mark. Your notion might well be an improvement over mine, although intuition suggests to me that you might be introducing too much moisture this way. I used a damp but not wet sponge to dab the surface, figuring that if I used too much water the glue would be overly diluted. It is easy, cheap and fun to try different ‘formulas’ with small pieces of wood and see which hold best. This is particularly relevant for mitred corners.
I was wondering the same thing. Thanks for your input!
Thank you so much for sharing this. By far, will be my best upgrade since springing for titebond vs elmer's white.
I've never heard this, thanks for sharing!!
it makes me so happy to someone challenging their preconceptions
Fantastic video. It’s clear that you’ve stepped up your filming game and that you also put tons of time into this single video. It pays off. Excellent content and incredibly well presented. Hats off to you!
Thanks so much!
Interesting results with a different testing setup than most. I'd like to see you expand on the theory of glue starved box joints. Compare box joints with varying amounts of clearance to see if a "sloppy" fit is actually stronger than a tight fit.
I'd totally love to, but it might be too far in the weeds for most people. I'll think on it some more.
Edit, I think Matthias Wandel did a similar test
@@ScottWalshWoodworking Matthias did similar joint tests and also speculated on glue starvation, but as far as I know he didn't compare different clearances to see if it had any effect.
@@steveyork4173 i think this is the video I was referencing, it's not exactly the same, but it does touch on leaving a gap in a joint: ua-cam.com/video/14Mkc63EpMQ/v-deo.htmlsi=nXc_Etpwpn-30U4J
The reason why dovetails became the gold standard for drawer boxes is because the forces drawers experience are where the dovetail is mechanically advantaged. You don't even need glue, so the fact that hide glue sucked didn't matter. The harsh truth is that any joint made with modern glue is going to be strong enough for a drawer box, including glue-less dovetails and glue starved box joints. So it's interesting, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter in reality.
@@ScottWalshWoodworking 10 years back. No wonder I didn't remember that one. 🙂 He does seem to show that having a looser joint could be stronger. Still think it would be interesting to know the point of diminishing returns. Where's the "sweet spot".
I have repaired lots of furniture over the years. Never saw a really old box joint that did not fail. Sort of. They look sloppy and loose and the glue turned into grit. I think the gritty flakes of glue tend to hold the joints together. Dovetails loosened up too but the mechanical advantage worked for them. A friend and I worked our way through college building kitchen cabinets and he continued making them until he retired. Made hundreds (Maybe a thousand) of drawers with butt joints and a couple of 1/4" crown staples. Over the fifty years he was in business he never got a call back for a drawer failure. Also important to consider the application and the loading. Drawers get pulled and pushed in one direction over and over. Some joints may suffer shock loading. Drop a box with glued miters and the shock may break the joint but it the miter were reinforced the shock might be dissipated by the reinforcement before the glue failed. Enough questions to keep Suman busy for years.
He is an idiot.
point one: he used titebond 3 which is good for percussion. i wonder if, mentioned in video, a glue that would swell and shrink with temperature and the wood would be a better choice (like hide glue)
point 2: your drawer making buddy has taught us an important lesson. dont think about it just do it
I really question the validity of these tests. Tests like these need to be conducted many many times to get valid results. There are options for avoiding glue starvation, every hear of using a swipe of coarse sandpaper (60 grit) over the mating surfaces. This creates areas for the glue to sit in. One could also peen (press) indentations into the mating surfaces, that way the glue will expand the peens once the joint is assembled making for a really tight bond.
thats a suvivorship bias i think "Never saw a really old box joint that did not fail", however the other "not really old box joints" failed before you could see them maybe :). Although i'm not really a wood worker so i could be wrong.
Excellent video and a great testing machine. Also, your findings were consistent with what I have confirmed in practice, in my own field which is beekeeping. Back 50'ish years ago when I started, bee boxes could be purchased in dovetail, box joint, or rabbet. I assumed dovetail would be the best but my boss who was an old guy and been a beekeeper all his life only used rabbet. A bee box has a hard life. It is exposed to damp then dry then damp, and is outside in the sun. They get loaded up with honey and in a commercial situation are then banged around on a truck and through the honey extraction process. They are expected to give many years service. Through many years of using all types it had become plain that rabbet joints were the hardest wearing of the three options. Another factor, beehives have to be made from untreated timber. The dovetail and box joint corners will rot much faster than a rabbet joint.
corners always look like the weakest link. I wonder how various joints would perform if they had all rounded corners. When you said the rabbets were the hardest wearing, did you mean they wore the most or the least?
@@itoibo4208 I meant they lasted the longest
That's an interesting observation
Because rabbets don’t leave end grain exposed to the elements like box joints and dovetails do?
@@grimmWednesday Good thought, probably part of it 👍
My son and I made very lightweight (2 lbs all in) "battlebots" for the Midwestern "Critter Crunch" competitions. I used "Reinforced Mitre #2) with aircraft plywood as the splines, and never had a frame get destroyed in all the competitions. Love that technique!
Oh man. So much work! Thank you for the dedication! Definitely one of the best joint test videos in existence
I think you have missed the point. There's a reason you see very old furniture with dovetail joints. Longevity. Most draws are never going to have breaking point loads placed on them. They will however have the stress of constant moisture changes and the resulting cupping effects and differential expansion rates. That's what dovetail joints are about.
With modern drawer slides you can build any joint you want and it will be fine. I can close and open my kitchen drawers with one finger. There is almost no stress on the drawer box because of the operation of the undermount slide. This includes a tray that I built to hold my stand mixer which weighs 40lbs. Very cool test Scott. Some of the drawers in my kitchen are not even actual boxes. They have metal sides with melamine back and bottom screws into them attached to a wood drawer front. It is impressive engineering.
yeah that's so true, but you can also use these joints for other things besides drawer boxes too. I thought my friend was crazy for making a media console with simple rabbets without reinforcement, but it turns out it's much stronger than I thought.
Great point. Sorry I have been building custom pantry cabinets for my wife for about a month so that is the only place my mind has been going for too long.
This is true even without drawer slides. The laws of physics dictate that you can't, under normal use conditions, put that much force on a drawer box. The drawer doesn't take 700lbs of force to move it, and you don't weigh 700 lbs. so YOU would move first. And you can't even pull that hard because you're not strong enough anyway even if you braced your feet against the cabinet and tried to "deadlift" the drawer open. And 700 lbs. was just ONE corner, not a completed four corner box.
All of this is fascinating for us wood nerds but a drawer is something you just don't have to worry about breaking due to force applied to it. People make shop drawers with butt joints and brad nails. It just doesn't matter.
@@Aaron-nj4ou Just wait until you catch her standing on a pulled-out drawer to reach a high shelf. Then you'll be glad for both the glides and the strong joint.
Long time woodworker and home builder here. LOVE that you do this stuff and your presentation is fluid, clean and entertaining. A few comments on the joints;
I have 240 drawers in my shop. Most of them made with butt joints and #8 wood screws (they're shop drawers..) and the early ones made with 1/8" dowels. I have not done any testing like you have, but with that many drawers, some holding a couple of hundred pounds of tools or hardware, I feel I'm in a good position to make some claims about these joints.
1/8" dowels have not failed yet and one of these drawers is only 2.5 inches deep and holds 120# of galvanized bolts. Of the screw joints only one has failed, also with more than 100# load, and it failed because of glue starvation (my opinion) and being slammed too often by a gorilla (AKA new employee). If you ever revisit this, I'd be interested in the 1/8" dowel joint and how strong it is. Seems it might be stranger due to less material being compromised...?
Like you implied, there are a number of difference forces acting on a joint over its life. I’m in the same camp that a box joint seems to be the best due to modern glues. That said, this vid was incredibly informative. I would have loved to see pocket holes just to see what the haters would say.
Hey Scott, nice work! In your final test, where the splines slip out of the joint without breaking - it's my belief this is caused by glue starvation. Hot hide glue is the solution that works for me.
I make hardwood art frames. Over 2000 frames (8000 joints) in the last few years. 3/8 x 1.25 mouldings, where each miter only has 0.675" of surface area for the glue. I use two 1/8" thick hardwood splines across each joint, placed 3/16" in from each edge. The miters use Titebond I, which seems fine. But when I used Titebond on the splines, they failed by slipping out, not by breaking, just as you found.
The majority of the frames have been made using 315 gram strength hot hide glue for the splines. While I can break a Titebond frame with my bare hands, these are nearly impossible to break either by pulling, levering, or twisting. When they do fail (when I use tools to break them), the splines are cracked or pulled apart with the grain. Usually there's other damage to the mouldings / miters as well. The difference from my perspective is night and day. Much, much stronger.
Without even knowing if one glue is inherently stronger than the other, I believe hot hide works so well because the warm water in the glue swells the wood components, making the joint immediately tighter. Then the glue dries, and the surfaces can't come apart. It's telling that I need to make the splines about .003" thinner than the slot. With Titebond, I was able to make the splines the same as the slot. If I left slop to avoid pushing out the glue, I'd have an unsightly glue line outlining each spline. With hide, if I make the spline as thick as the slot, I can't push it in fast enough to bottom out before it begins grabbing. The glue doesn't set up quite that fast. That's the wood swelliing. There's no visible glue line because ... there just isn't. Hide glue dries clear, and accepts finishes.
If you ever re-do this test, it'd be great to see an objective measurement of what I see anecdotally day after day.
Your logic doesn't seem right. Hide glue may swell from moisture, but over time and low/changing humidity, such joints always seem to loosen, and really old furniture just has amber dust remaining because the glue never penetrated the wood, where adequate Titebond type glues soak in, swell the fibers, and then harden without further changes. I have an 8" wood sculpture made from 1" hardwood glued with original Titebond, clamped, then drilled, carved, and tooled before finishing with Watco oil. After nearly 40 years, the layers are rock solid with zero gaps or cracks.
Antique conservationists want reversible processes for convenience in restoration, but if a piece has no deficiencies, such work is moot.
This is actually a very well devised testing setup, and that seems to be especially rare among joint strength tests. My only nitpick is that I wish there had been an equal number of samples for each joint so that half of them could be placed in reversed orientation in the test harness. Doing that would indicate how much the asymmetry of the joint design translates into asymmetry of joint strength and also produce more generalized overall averages.
Nevertheless my hat's off to you for really adding something useful to a discussion that often thrives by instead exploiting hidden subjectivity and manufacturing pointless controversy for engagement or self indulgence.
The almost pure shear load testing he did is the other problem. When do boxes get loaded primarily by forces directly at the joint? The answer is they are primarily loaded by bending forces. So this test is basically useless when comparing joints for making a box/drawer. A box joint or dovetail has significantly more surface area to deal with bending than a miter joint does. No one should follow the results from this video because they are completely wrong. My masters in mechanical engineering is crying out from my soul at how wrong this testing is. This video is a great example of disinformation.
@@miices Do you have any insight to speculate around what the best joint is for making boxes and cabinetry? From where I'm sitting at my kitchen table without a mechanical engineering degree hanging anywhere in sight, it looks like I'm going to be making unreinforced miter joints for pretty much everything (though they're a pain to align when gluing.)
@@miicesI hadn't noticed that, but now that you said it, I do. It is definitely important to note the difference in real world applications. In the case of where bending fatigue is less of an issue, these results should be applicable. But when bending creates fatigue, the results will be significantly different.
@@miicesExactly. And Said much better than I could have.
However, I would also add that the percussive test itself is invalid. Drawers are typically subject to repeated, steady stat loads - not a load from jerking on a chain. A myriad of other conditions were also not considered such as aging, wood movement, glue thickness, etc.
Just found this channel and I really like the content and probably the best delivery to date. I have a medium sized well appointed shop going into retirement and information like this is paramount for success 👍
Very informative and entertaining. From my memory of my degree course, 50 years ago, failure on wood glue interfaces is complex and is not as simple as looking at the strength of the glue and the strength of the wood, if I recall the thickness of the glue layer is very important. I now wish I hadn't failed that part of the course! A lot of this science was developed in WW2 when they were building wooden airframes in furniture shops e.g. de Haviland Mosquito. From a statistical point of view comparing averages is not a good way to say whether one method is better than another, you need to look at the spread of the results for each test. If there is a big variation from minimum to maximum on a test, in simple terms it could overlap with the range of results of a comparative test and would mean that no statistically significant conclusion can be reached. You also need to know whether the results for a series of tests on a particular joint are what is called normally distributed i.e. equally, randomly spread about each side of the average.
you can see the deviation if you pause the vid where I show the stats near the end of the video
Mr. Walsh, this is one of your best yet! The tests were great, but the way you told that potentially boring story was so entertaining! Congrats on your growing channel.
glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much
@@ScottWalshWoodworking could we see some tests of those japanese style connections that use wedges to keep them tight?
Great stuff! I have two comments. Regarding glue-starved joints, even the winning joints could be glue-starved with overly enthusiastic clamping. Second, there are a pair of wonderful books that I learned about some 50 years ago that vastly informed my understanding of such things. They were recommended in The Whole Earth catalog, and a few years later I found paperback copies and grabbed them immediately. Both were by J E Gordon. They are:
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down
and
The New Science of Strong Materials: Or Why You Don't Fall through the Floor
Amazon has them, of course. I guarantee your intuition will be better informed by them.
Now we need a video on ideal clamping force
I need to start thinking outside the box joints.
Booooo!
@@ScottWalshWoodworking Scott, you should look up the term "bond line thickness." For any combination of bonding agent and substrate, there is some ideal bond line thickness, and it is never zero. Some of the weaknesses you're seeing would be mitigated by leaving a thicker layer of glue within the joint. In fact it would be very useful to make a video in which you sweep this parameter from a super-tight dry fit to a super-loose dry fit and show the effect on joint strength.
Separately, also consider the effect of stress concentration (aka stress risers, stress raisers). The dowel pins and the single splines set perpendicular to the stress act as stress concentrations, whereas the three splines set in line with the stress do not. If you were to investigate this issue, you might find that softer splines lead paradoxically to stronger joints. (You might also consider the difference between the terms "stronger" and "tougher" in this context.)
There has been a lot of good science done in the mechanical engineering of epoxy joints in metal, plastics, and composites, where the stresses are higher but the principles are the same, that could usefully be transferred into the field of woodworking by someone who can make that science accessible to a non-engineering audience. You could be that someone.
One relevancy to glueup times is ... humidity vs. glue. The two most obvious wood glues to use are Titebond II and Titebond III.
**These glues work completely differently.**
And it's not just that TBIII is "water resistant", hence good for use on outdoor furniture.
I live in Florida, typical humidity, even in winter, is probably not less than 50%, and runs up to 70%. Higher at other times of the year... Titebond II takes FOREEEEVER to cure in FL (probably true anywhere along the gulf region). Why? Because Titebond II cures by GIVING OFF MOISTURE. So clearly, if it's in high-humidity locations, it is generally not going to cure fast. I tried to do a joint with TBII and literally 48 hours later I pulled it apart by hand and a lot of the glue was still "thick fluid", not curing at all.
In THESE locations, you're better off with Titebond III. Because TBIII uses a different chemistry to cure -- it ABSORBS moisture from the air. Right, the exact opposite from TBII. So it's GREAT in humid locations. Note: Downside, it "foams", so you typically have to do some cleanup after to smooth the area around your joint. But it is what it is. It will actually cure, which TBII might not. On the other hand, if you live in Arizona, you almost certainly want to use TBII and not TBIII.
Thanks! I didn't know this. It's going to help my limited woodworking immensely.
So what happens if you mix TBII and TBIII in some ratio to make a TB2.5? Will the moisture given off by TBII be absorbed by TBIII, allowing it to cure faster/more thoroughly by exchanging moisture internally where it is less exposed to air?
So TB3 is actually an urethane glue as those start to cure by the introduction of water - and TB2 is a PVA glue that cures by dispersion? I guess I'll Google it
Nah, TB3 is still a PVA glue and it cures by giving off moisture. Like all PVA/PVC glues.
I use TB1 almost exclusively because I rarely ever build stuff for outside and I like the fact that TB1 washes out. As for strength, all PVA glues have the same strength: plenty strong enough. It's kinda like your neighbor claiming their sportscar is faster than your minivan. Maybe so, and yet you both get to the supermarket in the same time.
spared me a lot of time and money, will just use box and simple miter joints for everything - thanks!
I'm so curious how not as tight dovetails and box joints would compare. Great tests!
Very thorough and convincing. I never even knew about the the 2nd reinforcement technique; so I'm making off like a bandit here. Thank you!
When I make drawers for shop furniture, I don't even glue them. I use butt joints and screw them together. If they fail (and none of them have yet in over 20 years), I replace the plywood panel and go on with life. Goal is cheap, quick and effective. For fine furniture a more visually pleasing joint is used. But even on some of my closet organizer drawers I use the same technique and am happy. Those drawers are rarely seen and they work great, cost little and last forever. The whole joint craziness is largely due to UA-cam phenomenon and talented woodworkers on YT displaying their skills. That is great and I have hand cut dovetails just to do it and to enjoy the process, but as a joint it is obsolete in a modern drawer. I still love them and I love the box joints and all other classic joinery and woodworking in general. What I don't like is to be made to think that a certain joint is absolutely the best. It all depends and it all evolves with materials, glues, etc. Thanks for the fun video.
Noob here. Butt joints meaning, in this case, end grain to face grain right?
Great data and sharing. The term, "mechanical advantage" means something different than how you were using it. I think you meant dovetails are mechanically locked.
Thanks Scott. Really good video. Just what I needed. I am a hand tool woodworker and don't have access to things like a Domino or a 45 deg. Dowell jig. So I have been avoiding Long mitre to joints on cabinetry because I worry about their strength and therefore have resorted to the lengthy process of dovetailing. This gives me more confidence to try using nice long miter joints in the future.
BTW: I would love to say this same joint strength test tried with 3/4" ply Cheers David
I love how the test results did NOT reflect our instinctive assumptions - THANK YOU for this; after over 40 years of woodworking I have learned something special here.
Wow, what timing. I just finished making a spline jig for my table saw for mitred picture frames. And used it for the first time not 1 hour ago. Thank you so much for your brilliant joint test video. So glad I used the strongest type of splined mitre joint for my picture frame, because, yes, you need all that advantage in something so structurally important 😂
To be fair, a picture frame has the miters oriented the opposite way than the ones in this video, so it's arguably more advantageous to spline your picture frames because of the wood movement issue. Although picture frames aren't very "wide" boards so movement would be minimal. Wood movement is really what we need to think about with joints, not "how much excessive force does it take to rip it apart." Because it's not going to experience that force in daily use. But wood movement forces are enormous and will snap your glue line easily over time
Singer sewing machine bases around the 1950 had a simple joint with one small 4mm wood peg on each corner + a corner block glued inside for the machine to sit on.
I have just had one in the oven to kill woodworm and make the glue fail, it is now ready for renovation.
These cheaper wood bases usually had canvas / cotton material wrapped around that hid the joints. They cope with quite a lot of stress from a cast iron sewing machine even when the glue starts to give up with age.
Many thanks for showing the strength of a Rabbet. I think the peg in the sewing machine base was for alignment while the glue set.
It’s amazing what old timers like us can still learn! Keep busting the myths! 🤘
My biggest take away was that no matter which joint I use, it will never be under this much stress. LoL! Great video and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Great data. Thank you for sharing. A plywood box I made when I was a teen, 40+ years ago, with butt joints, glue, and brad nails is still holding together after all these years. Mostly. Wood movement, the plywood warped and bowed on one side, caused the most likely glue starved joint to fail. However the nails kept it together. I merely squeezed more glue into that joint and clamped the crap out of it for 4 days. It will probably bow again in the future, but I'll probably be dead and IF any of my kids keep it, they will be the one gluing it back together again. LoL
Great video Scott. I have a video suggestion for your test rig. It would be cool to see testing done to compare fluted dowels, spiral dowels, regular dowels, and maybe miller dowels too for the fun of it. I'm curious if the friction of a regular dowel causes glue starvation, or if the different types of dowels cause any significant difference in strength in the joint. I've never seen anyone test this before and many woodworkers use dowels in their joinery.
Great idea! Also, should we score pegs for use in larger builds like work benches to take advantage of glue, or is the physical size of the peg providing a significant part of its strength. Got my money on fluted dowels for that test.
Go check out Suman, he just did this.
You really put in the work for comparative and measured testing.
This is very valuable. Thanks
Now I NEED to see these tests with joints no self-respecting woodworker (schlups like me) would use: pocket holes, butt joints with drywall screws (in sheer), and butt joints with 16 gauge brad nails (in sheer). I LOVE these kinds of tests!
What do you mean "no self-respecting woodworker would use"? I use glued butt joints with a few 18 gauge brads in them all the time. Not sure if I'd use them in real furniture because of the aesthetics, but for shop furniture or cabinetry and such they work great. I have a nice filing cabinet built from baltic birch plywood with the drawer boxes built this way. They've held up great for years and were amazingly quick and easy to put together.
That was a very informative video, Scott. Thanks, man ! Butt joints it is. Think of all the time I'll save not having to watch dovetail, box joint and miter videos that I can now spend in the workshop. Or spend watching your other videos while the glue dries.
"Crossed the border with a trunk full of joints". The scripting on this is incredible
Crude as the testing is, the info remains very useful. Thank you. I will stick to using the humble rabbet for most of my joinery needs.
Hear hear! Rabbets and dadoes FTW!
That was really interesting so thanks for sharing your results. I must admit I didn’t think the miter would do so well. Maybe the lock miter joint cut with a shaper/router would be stronger although the setup is such a pain. Cheers
Yeah I'd love to do more extensive testing, but after a while I had to draw the line somewhere because the video would end up being an hour long, and it'd take me three months to produce.
This test was awesome. Many thanks for sharing
I use the splined miters like the last one you tested on all of my picture frames - looks great, good to see that it's actually good.
For my boxes/humidors, etc. I actually use a mitered dovetail - do a miter joint, glue it up, then do a dovetail through the miter. Those look awesome as well, and have to assume that it'll make those joints even stronger than the splined miters - would be interesting to test that.
I've never attempted a single woodworking project in my life, and yet this video was more entertaining and enjoyable to watch than any video about woodworking joints has any right to be.
Would have loved to see how the mitre lock joint holds up given the newfound knowledge of mitre joint strength and glue ups!
I second the wish to see a locking miter tested. Solves the clamping challenges of std miter and appears to prevent glue starvation of many joint types. Also increases glue surface area.
I liked that you did 5 tests of each. Makes the results more believable.
Nice summary of joint options. I think that they don't matter if you're making drawers, which don't get stressed much, but it seems likely that other types of boxes -- for example, the box used to make a large 8'x10' book shelf -- might be stressed more than your typical drawer-box would. So I think the vid, and your tests, does provide real value.
Oh, congrats on the new cute puppy. Just adorable.
Do I have a woodshop? No. Have I ever built a wooden box? No. Did I watch the whole video? Yup. It's like @ProjectFarm for woodworking. Loved it!
😂 - joining the club
loved your video. loved the presentation, the humor, the striving for accurate testing methods, and the lack of claim that you know and have proved it all!
Interesting test and valuable despite the very limited amount of samples. I'll definitely be using more rebates and miters! As a point of interest; discarding your top and bottom samples as "outliers" isn't a good idea. Statistically speaking, outliers can be calculated from quartiles (Q1, Q2/Median, Q3) and the interquartile distance (IQ). Top outliers would be >Q3+1.5IQ and bottom outliers
Excellent video, thanks for posting.
My typical joints (just dowels) are strong enough, so no need to change anything. I do like the look of box joints and splined mitered joints, so I still use those occasionally too. Dovetails are all but extinct in my shop.
So i just have to hope you are not making drawer.
@@ABaumstumpf I've made plenty of drawers with just dowels. Some exposed, most not. Never a failure.
@@NWGR That's because people don't understand how strong the configuration of a drawer box is and how little force you need to, and actually could, apply to it. People who think the worst joint in this video (700 lbs to break one corner, not even a box) isn't impressive have obviously never picked up a barbell before. As if a 150 lb. person is going to be able to tug on a drawer with 700 lbs of force and instead of the drawer simply moving, or pulling themselves into the cabinet the drawer is going to rip itself apart? People are weird.
@@CarlYota I'm still not following why you said you hope I'm not making drawers?
100% of the time, I'm skipping the ad. But that cute doggo convinced me to sit through it. Nicely done.
Haha I’ve been making most of everything with miters and I had some older woodworkers busting my chops about it. Thank you for the testing video and I’ll send it to him 😂
Conclusion: make the joints how you want them to look 👍
Great video
What an excellent set of tests. I never thought much of a butt joint until I saw your tests. Never would have guessed they are so good. Thanks.
Could have just asked me, Granpa told me that back in 76 i think. He was a cabinet maker/carpenter and at the end of his working life would trim out track homes. He mitered all the sute built cabinets and drawer box fronts using carpenters glue and nails. Ive been in many of those homes and his work was still going strong 45 years later.
I am a big box-joint person, and one thing I have found is that using the swelling action of water based glues is a great way to close the joint without starving. If you make them just a hair looser, so that only one mallet tap puts them together, they swell within minutes to the point where you can no longer pull them apart, without all of your glue squeezing out when you clamp them.
Very interesting results, Scott. Potentially a dull subject, but as I sat here at 3:20 am, feeding my 5 week old foster baby, it was more than interesting enough to keep me awake at this ungodly hour. Loved the content, and it shall be very useful in my shop remodelling.👍
I loved your statistics at 11:57 and that you provided all the raw values. Thanks!
Snoop Dogg: I was expecting a different type of joint testing...😂
Comprehensive and fun! Nice work. Someday, if you get around to it, I would like to see the locking rabbet tested.
I think, as you mentioned, that the main call for dovetails in drawers is not brute strength. it's long term resistance to wiggle and thousands of tugs.
Dovetails are kinda a cool looking joint too.
@@steveweinbeck1968 I agree, but the box and reinforced (2nd type in the video) are also visually appealing.
Thanks so much for this impressive video! Used last method many years as the most simple to do, but did not realize the it the most durable in addition! I used plywood for inserts, by the way 😊
Ok - statistically there is no good reason to throw away the top and bottom values. They are important contributors to the estimation of your standard deviation. If one is miles away from the others then you may consider removing it but you do have to be really careful about biasing your results.
Yeah he pretty much just cut his sample size in half by doing that but whatever. These tests don't even matter as experienced modern woodworkers already know that pretty much anything you do these days is overkill in reality.
@@CarlYotaNo he did not cut his sample size in half because he tested all five. What he is doing is taking the mode of his samples and then taking the mean of that mode. For large sample size taking the median would have been better but for low sample size his method is good approximation.
Amazing amount of work went in to this! Even more strength to be had when you glue your plywood drawer bottom in.. plywood glue, solid panel don't glue
You dont need better help if you have a doggo like that❤
Wow! Amazing work! Thank you!!!
Have you tried adding a single dowel down through all of the box joints?
I would think that if you pulled on a drawer more than 754 lbs you should stop going to the gym and start working more on your brain and start thinking about removing something from your drawer.
😂 I think if you pull more than 754 lbs you should start fighting crime! 😂
I figured out previously that mitre joints are best because the glue goes deeper into the end grain, like deep roots of a tree.
He talks a lot without saying much and takes forever to get to the point.
There was a video a few years back from bourbon moth woodworking that pretty much came to the same conclusions. Great job on the setup, testing, and everything else. Finally answered the age old question.
This video was very informative as well as entertaining. You hit a great mix of detail, analysis, presentation.
Fantastic test! Very eye opening. I would be interested to see how a 1/4-1/4-1/4 joint holds up, as well as a stepped dowel (Miller dowel). But this test has convinced me to not spend the $ (and time) on a dovetail jig for making my shop furniture.
I mean, at the end of the day, it would be pretty cool if your shop drawers were all dovetails
Great stuff! Very impressed by your knowledge and good presentation. I learned something new today🤸
Yes just use the joint you are most pleased with..they are obviously all strong enough for furniture making.😊😊
Great idea of including a video of you manually doing a dovetail while the ad was going on. Kept me from jumping forward!
this is a fun test! I am glad you did it and not me though! thank you Scott! now I know what kind of joint to make, plain and simple, Miter joint!!
That was really interesting to watch. Thank you. I would love to see a box joint with a looser fit to see the effect of scraped glue.
Fantastic video. Unfortunately this now raises so much more questions 🙃It's like you opened Pandora's box. Glue types, glue times, tightness of the joints, wood thicknesses, dovetail ratios, ... the list goes on and on!
Btw I just had an idea, what about the test with mechanical advantage joinery only, no glue at all? Like dovetails, screws, nails, dowels... That would be very interesting although I know it probably doesn't mean much for real world applications
Very interesting tests. One thing no one pointed to I think is that "reinforced miter 2" is also more repetible, they fail at a more regular force and look therefore more predictable.
Thanks for the video. I've been messing around while out of work for health issues. But, I just did a butt joint for some drawers for pots and pans. Way harder than what I thought. The cabinet I put them in, opens up real wide inside. So I had to basically build the framing for the drawer slides to be mounted to. So the only measurement I had to go on was the spacing between the cabinet doors. First one wasn't perfect. I tried to keep a slim profile but due to an uneven shelf, the back of my drawer rubs on the bottom. On the second one I gave myself a few more inches and raised it up a bit. They are both pretty sturdy drawers though. It was challenging, but I'm very excited they work. I have hand me down saws with extremely worn blades and shaky hands. Next project, I will buy new blades since I got to experience a very painful kickback. I might look into some sort of cross cut sled. I don't know if it'll work on mine but worth a shot. I Would like a bigger surface for table saw so that might be my next project. I've looked at a few. I just need something simple though. Like I said I have no training just trying to make things a little more organized in the house while I'm home. And I had extra wood lying around for the drawers. It was fun, though. I enjoyed doing it, just wish I was better at straight cuts. If I do build a table to put next to my table saw stand, does it need to be the exact height or a hair lower to push the boards being cut onto?
Love your comment about the time it takes to set up the stupid dovetail jig. I've got one, works awesome, but it takes me forever to get it actually set up correctly; most of the time it's just as easy to make the couple of joints I need to make by hand.
Ive got a whole covered patio with glass and doors to make and i plan to use mostly rabbits.....wow looks like its doing well too!
You hit the nail on the head at 14:00. Suggest testing them for fatigue, what actually causes furniture joint failures.
THAT was a VERY well done, and SUPER interesting take on wood joints. Great Stuff.!.!.!
Great use of scientific method to disprove a common misconception. Please continue to make videos like this.
Brilliant! Thanks for testing. It makes my life as a noob wood worker a lot easier 🙂
What if you add some internal dimples in the miter for the glue to flow into?
It's awesome that better help was able to match you with that puppy for your mental health. :)
Wow! Thanks for all the effort and money spent.
It would be interesting to see these same joints but made with plywood (as many drawers and cabinets are). The plywood may react differently to dowelling, and its mix of grain direction could allow the glue to bond better instead of one side being entirely end grain.
I just found this channel the other day, thought it was interesting so I subscribed. Glad I did. I love stuff like this.
A key feature in mechanical joints is the mode of failure. Our buildings for example are not only designed to be the strongest, rather an important design consideration is to have a ductile failure, meaning that the structure does not fail catastrophically suddenly, but allows a considerable strain prior to failure. If you've ever sat on an old chair that was falling apart slowly under your weight you can appreciate the heads up a forgiving joint has. I you were to load a structure that feels strong until the very moment it breaks you'd be frightened to use it again. the mechanical interfering joints are the ones which sustain strain and fiber compression before snapping, making them a safer joint to use. As said in the video the strength is enough even with the weakest of the bunch. the mode of failure is key.
Thanks great video. I always use mitred joint with dowels at an angle if I can.
Just came across your channel. great content! The splash of humor is the added touch that makes your stuff really great! Thanks
The last 2 seconds of this video was a giant red bow on a fantastic video. Had me laughing aloud, thank you!
with end-grain to end-grain the glue travels down inside the joint, instead of just having the surfaces grabbing the glue you have the inside structure of the wood allowing more area for the glue to cure into i would love to see and end-grain to end-grain but join vs end-grain to long-grain vs long-grain to long-grain comparison to verify my thoughts though
As a picture framer of 40 plus years....45 degree mitre joints while being fast, are also extremely strong. We used to pre drill and put in a finishing nail on opposite sides. Some of the high end frame mfrs sold metal clips pounded in from the bottom. None are necessary. Suggest you use a light coating of glue...wait a couple minutes then glue as normal. Square clamping is essential. After that they are stable. Movement of a joint like drawers, requires the right pull push joint. If you look at cabinet doors that are 45 mitres...they last forever without any other reinforcement. Try to refurbish a 150 year old piece and study the joinery. You'll learn.
"Mechanical Advantage" at 1:18 (and throughout) is incorrect. MA is basically leverage. If you spin a 1/2 size gear twice, while next to a full size gear, the full size will apply twice as much force, but spin half as fast. Or if you apply 10 lbs force at the end of a 5 foot pry bar, with the pry end 0.5ft long, you get 10x5/0.5 = 100 lbs force at the pry end, but it moves 10x slower. Mechanical advantage.
You're thinking maybe of "normal force" or "mechanically located" or even "resists moment."
Thanks for doing this work. I’ll refer to it when I’m choosing which joints to use on future projects.