December 10, 1915 



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The Inventor of the Dove-Tail Joint 



A recent number of the London Timber Trades Journal contained 

 an imaginary account of the invention of the dove-tail joint in 

 woodworking, and the credit is presumably claimed for some early 

 English carpenter. The article is illustrated with a picture which, 

 it is said, suggested the invention to the carpenter "who was out 

 of nails" and wished to join boards together. Two rows of 

 pigeons, facing in opposite directions, with their outspread tails 

 interlocked, furnished the suggestion which the carpenter is said 

 to have put into practice and thus discovered the well-known joint 

 in wood-working, according to the story in the London trade paper. 



The story is very nicely told, but it is not sufficiently ancient in 

 its setting to meet the requirements of the case. The perfect 

 dove-tail joint was in use thousands of years before any carpenter 

 in England had occasion to puzzle over the proposition. The 

 English story is on a par with Pindar's account of the invention 

 of the violin. 



There is in the Field Museum, Chicago, a boat 4,500 years old 

 made of cedar of Lebanon. A similar boat is in the Carnegie 

 Museum, Pittsburgh, and three others a:re in existence on the 

 other side of the sea. They were dug out of the Nile mud a few 

 years ago, where they were buried in some funeral ceremony 2700 

 years before Christ. 



The point is that those boats, which arc large enough to carry 

 forty or fifty people each, were made without a nail or metal 

 fastening of any kind. The planks were dove-tailed together. The 

 modern carpenter is usually satisfied when he has dove-tailed 

 boards end to end; but the Egyptians knew how to dove-tail edge 

 to edge, and make a water-tight joint of it. The modern joiner 

 makes the dove-tail joint with two boards only, one fitting into 

 the other. The Egyptian was able to use a third piece to fit be- 

 tween and into the other two which it held together. 



The art of dove-tailing was not confined to Egypt in ancient 

 times. The Assyrians joined blocks of stone in that way. Old 

 dams in the Euphrates river, connected with irrigation works which 

 long antedated the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, may be seen to this 

 day, with blocks of stone dove-tailed together. In some instances 

 the third piece was used, after the manner of the ancient Egyptians 

 in their woodworking; but in the case of stone structures the third 

 piece was some metal, usually lead, which had been melted and 

 poured into the milled groves of the stone and thus held the two 

 blocks together. 



No human being knows when the Chinese first employed dove- 

 tailing in carpentry. They have been using it since a time 

 "whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." They 

 use it today. Take a walk through the Chinese quarters of Chicago 

 and notice the boxes being unloaded from wagons in front of 

 stores. They have just arrived from China and contain merchan- 

 dise of every sort from firecrackers to the finest silks, and they 

 range in size from a peck to a barrel, and the lumber varies in 

 thickness from a quarter of an inch to an inch and a half. 



Dove-tailing is the usual method of this box making, though some 

 nails are occasionally used. It is not uncommon for a box to be 

 further strengthened by wrapping it with rattan hoops. In these 

 Chinese boxes doubtless the same workmanship is seen that was 

 in use in China in the days of Confucius and Meneius, and the 

 Chinese methods today probably are much like those employed by 

 old boat builders of Egypt. At least, the finished work looks much 

 the same. It is, therefore, interesting to know how the Chinese 

 saw out the cuttings for their dove-tailed joints. 



Some use modern tools, of course, and do the work as others 

 do it; but in some parts of China every groove and every fitting 

 tongue is cut separately. The saw is nothing more than a piece of 

 wire five or six inches long, hacked with a knife to make notches 

 to serve as sawteeth. This wire is stretched in a frame, like the 

 string of a bow, and with it the Chinese carpenter mills his wood 

 for the dove-tailed joint. 



The evolution from the earliest handwork in dove-tailing up to 

 the present perfected machine milling, has taken thousands of 

 years. Vast improvement has been made in the method and speed 

 of working: but the finest machine of today in the hands of the 

 best mechanic could not teach anything to the old Egyptian boat- 

 builders who were able to make joints that would hold during 

 4500 years. 



Nature in Technical Terms 



Architects have copied nature since the pyramids of Egypt and 

 Yucatan were shaped like mole hills, and since the Greeks patterned 

 their decorations after leaves and vines. Chinese roofs are modeled 

 after the concave tent roof; Gothic windows copy the arch made by 

 the branches of parallel rows of trees that grow close together. 



Details in architecture follow the same rule as the larger sttuc- 

 tures, and names of natural objects have been given to many of those 

 details. The fourteen commonplace figures that follow wiU illus- 

 trate this: 



When building was of a rougher kind, and imworked pieces of 

 timber were used in house building, naturally the word ' ' tree ' ' would 

 come to be used for any piece of timber, hence we find "roof- tree," 

 "gantry," and so on. Then crooked pieces used in half -timber 

 work were called ' ' knees ; " see Fig. 1. This word suggests ' ' kneel- 

 ers" (Fig. 2), as applied to solid pieces of coping used to give bond 

 and support in gables. "Threshold" calls to mind the time when 

 thrashing was performed at the house door. 



Birds evidently must have been favorites with the old workmen, 

 for we find " bird 's-mouth " (Fig. 3), used for a particular cut in 

 woodwork, as well as "feathered;" see Fig. 4. Then there is a 

 "wing" of a house, and a certain joint in joinery is named a "dove- 

 taU," as Fig. 5. 



The farmyard comes in, too, to supply a few terms, as "bullnosed" 

 in bricks, and also "frog" in the same, see Fig. 6; "dog's hind leg," 

 used as an uncomplimentary description of crooked work, or an awk- 

 ward staircase. In walling the expressions "toe," "footing," 

 "heel" (see Figs. 7 and 8), and other references to the human body 

 come in, not to mention a "squint" quoin (Fig. 9). Trees appear 

 as ' ' leaves ' ' in folding doors (Fig. 10) . Inanimate nature turns up in 

 rooficng, as "ridge," and "valley;" see Fig. 11. 



Some terms have become distorted into nature, aa "dragging tie" 

 into "dragon tie," "rebate" into "rabbet." Even tools get some 

 of their names from the familiar objects of country life. The joiner 

 uses a "plow," and often forms a "lamb's tongue" molding (Fig. 

 12). A "swan's neck" bend (Fig. 13) is to be found in the pipes 

 used to convey water from a roof to the ground, as well as a "head" 

 and "foot." A "mouse" is turned to account in threading a saab 

 cord, and is not a stair tread "nosed?" (Fig. 14.) 



There comes an ideal time for everything — even for kissing youi 

 best girls — and the ideal time for the ecnsnm.6r to lay in a stock 

 of lumber is right now. 



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