Dowels vs mortise and tenon, for your amusement

[Terry Therneau]

I was looking at a copy I have of the 1930 Wallace Nutting furniture catalog (modern reprint ISBN:0-916838-09-9), and found a paragraph on the subject.
I'm not looking to start a war nor even a spirited discussion, just thought it of interest and amusement to see that the debate is an old one.

"...Trade furniture was shown to me recently with spurious pins, without tenons under them. Its sales are vast. Disgust with such widespread enacted lies has induced me to open my shop to customers who can see the work go together -- big tenons into big mortises. The dowel is the bane of furniture. To begin with, it makes construction only one quarter as expensive. It is weak from the first, rickety shortly, a disgrace to the maker, a sorrow and shame to the owner, the shoddy symbol of a shoddy age."

His comments on faked antiques (new furniture artificially aged) are just as lively.

Terry Therneau

[John McClanahan]

"To begin with, it makes construction only one quarter as expensive." That says a lot when you have competition in your area.


John

[Keith Christopher]

Krenov would disagree. Dowels are basically loose mortise and tenon joints. They have a much smaller surface area, but in some instances they are perfect for a piece. I use a combination of them sometimes. I've even used them in lieu of biscuits in joining long boards for alignment.

[Gary Breckenridge]

What, me worry? I use dowels all the time; better than nails or screws and I've never heard of a mortise and tenon picture frame or small box.

[Richard Shaefer]

If he thinks dowels are 1/4th the cost of M&T, then he's doing something wrong. They're more like 1/10th the cost for me. If you have a Domino and you bill for your time, they're like 1/100th the cost. That being said, I still prefer to do M&T

[Peter Quinn]

I agree with him completely in the context of his time, but we have better glue. He made mechanical joints reinforced with hide glue, which easily fails over time at a high rate and wont tolerate water or even high humidity over time. We have PVA, plastic resin. Epoxy, PL and other more advanced adhesives which so far ImE tend not to fail over time. So for my best work it's still pegged mortises, dovetails, things that stay together on their own. But I also use dowels for budget minded work. Shoddy? Probably, we will have to wait until these things fail to know.

[Brian Kincaid]

I am against dowels, even with modern adhesives. I've just seen too many of them fail, I think because of the way a dowel expands and contracts with moisture breaks most of the wood to wood bond. I haven't seen a domino fail yet, and I have been using them a lot. By the way, failure to me is not necessarily shear. If a tenon becomes 'unplugged' that is considered joint failure.

All things said I think the perfect joint for many types of furniture would be one that is mechanical, tight, hidden, easy to create, and needs no adhesive.

-Brian