Mitered shoulder dovetail layout

[Prashun Patel]

I have been experimenting with mitered shoulders on dovetailed boxes, so the top edges meet in a miter. I have seen a couple ways of doing it and cannot figure what's best. Sorry there are no pictures here. Which do you prefer?

1) Layout the tails and pins normally, Half pins on the ends of the pin board.
2) Layout the tail board with a half tail on the ends of the tail board.
3) Like 2, except you stop the miter early so that the miter does not meet the first pin.

I can see aesthetic pros and cons for each method.

Which do you prefer?

[Jim Koepke]

For me, when it comes to decisions on things like this, it is easiest to make some "practice" samples to view. Then it is easier to judge them on appearance, difficulty and strength.

jtk

[Mike Henderson]

I've done those miters on the secret miter dovetail and I did a tutorial on it. Look here and you can see the way I did it.

Maybe not exactly what you are doing, however.

Mike

[Prashun Patel]

Mike, I see you've done option 1 (half pins on the ends). I've read this tutorial before. Thanks! For a full blind dovetail like this, though, the choice seems moot.

[Brian Holcombe]

I lay them out with a half tail. Best to make that tail short and if you can't then join in a spline to keep it closed during seasonal changes.

[Prashun Patel]

In both of these boxes I have done it with half-tails.

The beech on the left has the miter going all the way to the pin. On the pin board, because the end grain does not extend to the edge, that fat side-grain finger looks odd to me. This is the top of a split box, which is why it's not symmetrical in the picture.

On the sycamore drawer on the right, I also used half tails, but thought to only miter half of that half tail. That still doesn't look right.

[Brian Holcombe]

Do the same on both ends, then it will look right. For instance the beech would be miter, pin, tail, pin, miter.

[steven c newman]

Meh...
opened up.JPG
Finger joint style..
test fit.JPG

[Prashun Patel]

Brian-

Interesting. I would have thought a tiny half tail would be weak.

[Brian Holcombe]

If the miters get too long then you can add a spline to strengthen them, but they're otherwise pretty strong.