When were machine cut dovetails first used?

[Steven Peters]

I am currently repairing an antique walnut buffet that supposedly dates to around WWI, however on closer inspection the drawers are built using dovetails that were apparently cut with a router. My question is when did machine cut dovetails replace hand saw dovetails?

[Chris Rosenberger]

From what I remember from Jr High shop class. Machine woodworking started in the 1860's.

[Chris Giles]

We currently use a Dodds 15-spindle dovetailer in our shop that was made somewhere in the 1880's to early 90's. It has a 3hp motor which replaced the original leather belt drive system. The machine has 38 babbitt bearings in it which are ingenious in concept; most are tapered cylinders that can be adjusted with wear. I got the thing cheap at an auction, and after about 20 hrs of fiddling with it, we get excellent results. But it isn't like a modern machine where you flip a switch and run it all day. All those babbitts require lots of TLC and proper oiling to keep it running ship-shape. The cutters are identical to modern ones, so are easily replacable. I believe Alexander Dodds is often credited with inventing this type of machine, which is remarkably similar to its modern counterparts. There is more info available on OWWM website.

[Steven Peters]

It makes more sense that they were made with a large free standing machine than a hand held router. Just out of curiosity, when was the hand held router invented?

[Mike Wenzloff]

You could always try Google. It's your friend.

A Wikipedia entry [good site for a lot of info btw] is ehre:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_router

Take care, Mike

[Phil Pritchard]

From what I remember from Jr High shop class. Machine woodworking started in the 1860's.

Nope, much earlier! The first automated machinery woodworking factory was actually the Royal Naval Dockyard block making works (where sheave blocks were produced) in Portsmouth, England (1803 to 1805). Some of this machinery was in use until the 1960s! The machines were built by Henry Maudsley to the designs of Marc Brunel (father of the famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel), although the invention of the circular saw is generally attributed to Samual Miller of Southampton, England (1777) and the first recorded example of a circular saw in use in a workshop was in 1781 at the premises of William Walton Taylor also of Southampton although there are unconfirmed references to what may have been circular saws in use in Germany and the Low Countries as early as the 17th century.

The earliest references to machine dovetailing I can find appear in a paper read to the Institute of Civil Engineers in London by G. L. Molesworth in 1857 which mentons patents "lately taken out by Mr. Wimhurst" and other by a Mr. Burley for smaller work. Wimhurst's machine used cutters with a dovetail cutter not unlike a modern router cutter. The same paper also refers to dovetail machines recently introduced in America.

Probably the earliest effective patented dovetailer, however, was the Armstrong dovetailer (see below), exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1867 by Mr. S. T. Armstrong of New York. This machine was actually manufactured by Thomas Robinson & Sons of Rochdale, Lancashire, England (established as woodworking machinery manufacturers in 1847) and exported to the USA). This design was still being listed as late as 1930 by Robinsons. Records show that the dovetailer was a great success with some 2,000 of them having been sold into the American market by 1868.



Phil

[Mike Wenzloff]

"17th century" or was that the 1700s?

And obviously machinery for making woodworking tools was earlier as well.

It's sort of ironic to me that while Britain and France were of the first to invent and manufacture woodworking machinery, they also held out the longest at the medium to smaller shop level in adopting machinery for making furniture. Both Britain and France sold more machinery to America early on I suspect than within their own countries. Even Disston traveled to France to bring some of the first bandsaws to America.

The picture is a cool one, Phil. Old machinery just has a class about it to me.

Take care, Mike

[Phil Pritchard]

"17th century" or was that the 1700s?

It was 17th Century (i.e. 1600s), Mike.. There are some references to sawmills powered by watermills or windmills in Europe as early as the 14th century although these would have been frame saws. It is documented that the first powered sawmill in Norway opened in 1530, so they were around for a long time. Band saws, however, only became possible because the Frenchman M. Perin of firm Perin-Penhard figured out how to make reliable bandsaw blades about 1850 (although Englishman William Newberry had patented the modern band saw as early as 1808 - British patent #3105 - however he could not make reliable blades). The British firm Robinsons were still advertising bandsaw blades "of the best French make" as late as 1889 - a bit like Disston's advertising for many years that they used only the finest Sheffield cast steel in their saws.

And obviously machinery for making woodworking tools was earlier as well.

I don't think so - the primary users of woodworking machinery would have been the large high-tech industries of the day - shipbuilding and construction. My understanding is that planemaking only became a separete trade in its own right during the 18th century and that firms such as Joseph Gleave in nearby Manchester continued to hand make with the exception of a couple of power saws and a planer until they ceased making wooden planes in the 1940s

It's sort of ironic to me that while Britain and France were of the first to invent and manufacture woodworking machinery, they also held out the longest at the medium to smaller shop level in adopting machinery for making furniture.

Britain led the world with the Industrial Revolution (the Watt steam engine dates from 1705, for example) and by the time of the Great Exhibition (1851) was probably pre-eminent in the woodworking machinery field simply because of that early lead, but until the 1870s most of the European machinery manufacturers were more concerned with breaking down and heavy working of larger timbers, partly because the "closed-shop" system meant there was a ready supply of skilled and semi-skilled labour to manufacture furniture. Britain in particular benefited from the migration of Eastern Europeans to the East End of London as the result of various mass movements of sectors of the population in the period between the Napoleonic Wars and end of the American Civil War (i.e. 1815 to 1865). The biggest changes in Europe seemed to come about after the emigations to America accellerated at the end of the Civil War and started to produce a skills shortage, and hence greater willingness to accept new technology in the form of woodworking machinery by the medium and smaller shops. The situation in America was completely different with a general shortage of skilled workers seeming to drive the need to find mechanised solutions for the lack of skill, and the great need to produce goods for settlers travelling west.

One thing worth noting is that by the 1880s American woodworking machinery had a very good reputation here in the UK for ingenuity and attention to detail and were being imported - so perhaps not a one way street at all

Phil

[Mike Wenzloff]

One thing worth noting is that by the 1880s American woodworking machinery had a very good reputation here in the UK for ingenuity and attention to detail and were being imported - so perhaps not a one way street at all

Didn't mean to imply it was a one-way street. We took what we perceived as of value and expanded from there early on. But the innovation began outside the US.

Disston began with using Sheffield steel, as did all the other US saw makers of the period. It wasn't until it was both getting expensive to bring in the blades from Britain and refining the steel in the US grew that it was a viable option.

Post Civil War was when Disston took advantage of then new laws governing steel importation and tarrifs that his near-monopoly in the tool trade as regards steel gave him a distinct advantage.

All interesting stuff. Thanks for the clarification on the times. From a too casual a read I didn't know which you meant.

Mike

[Phil Pritchard]

We took what we perceived as of value and expanded from there early on. But the innovation began outside the US.

In fact I believe that the USA led the world in woodworking machinery design from before the 1880s until some time after WWII. Certainly many now commonplace innovations came out of the USA, such as the rotary thicknesser (first American patentee: William Woodworth, 1828). Somewhere in the 1950s, however, development in the USA seemed to stall, possibly under an onslaught from the revitalised European machinery industries after WWII (with their "export or die" mentality), possibly in the aftermath of mass conversion of automobile manufacture to all-steel bodies, the rise of air travel with the consequent demise of the railways and of course the affect of a strong dollar. Whatever it was there is certainly a large amount of European equipment in use in your industrial sector whilst here in Europe American machines just stopped arriving in the mid 1950s with remarkably few exceptions.

I just couldn't resist popping this in as an endpiece though:



American Baxter D. Whitney thicknesser c. 1857

If only Delta could make something which looked as good

Phil

[Gary Keedwell]

At one time, not too long ago, I read an article about the 1st hand-held powered router and when they actually started production on them, but for the life of me I can't find it. I know ( I think) it was sometime after the Great War ( WW1) but as far as I know, nothing really took-off until the boys came home from WW11. There was a big surge of woodworking in the mid to late 50's and then pretty much died down until the real late 70's.
The real boom was started in the 80's. When the information highway took off, it was very benificial to the home improvement and home shops industry. People relied on the tradesmen because there wasn't alot of instructional information for people to learn from.
There wasn't any "how to" shows on T.V. and very few books. The internet wasn't invented by Al Gore yet either. I think all the information that seemed to come out in such a short time, was the driving force for manufacturers to produce these toys we all enjoy.

All of a sudden there was a huge demand for power tools. Even desk jockeys were and are, getting in on the fun. lol

Oh well, enough reminicing. Time to go to the basement and play with my toys!

Gary K.

[Phil Pritchard]

Gary

There's an article about the Carter router over on Wood Central. Was it that? I know that Alan Holtham was working on something a while back, but I don't recall seeing it in print

Phil

[Bill Simmeth]

Actually, George Kelley of Buffalo, NY pre-dated RL Carter's machine by a decade or so. He applied for his patent in 1906 and it was issued in 1908. Carter really didn't get going until the 19-teens.
http://www.datamp.org/displayPatent....877894&type=UT
http://www.owwm.com/MfgIndex/detail.asp?ID=987

RL Carter certainly enjoyed much greater commercial success as his business was acquired by Stanley in the late 1920's. This, of course, is the direct lineage of today's Bosch router line since Bosch acquired Stanley's power tool business later on. More interestingly, after selling to Stanley, it seems that Mr Carter was instrumental in designing Porter-Cable's first router offerings. All said, while RL Carter didn't actually invent the router, he most certainly made it what it is today.

In fact, if you look at a Carter catalog from the late 20's, the product line included dovetail jigs, template bushings, router tables of varying sorts, fence attachments, etc. that we seem to assume are more modern inventions.

[Gary Keedwell]

Phil & Bill,
Thank-you for the info...I spent a good part of the day today looking for that!!! I knew it was around WW1 but not certain when it was mass-produced. Of course, only the professionals probably purchased them back then. What I would like to know is the 1st mass-produced router that the homeowners actually bought in great quantity. I'm willing to bet that it was in the late 40's after WW11. Don't tell me it was Craftsmen!!! lol

Gary K.

[Phil Pritchard]

I just went and pulled out a copy of Patrick Speilman's blook "The New Router Handbook" (Sterling ISBN 0-8069-0518-2) and right near the front there's a historical overview which mentions that Kelley's router was first sold in 1905 (even has a line drawing - must be getting old as I didn't remember seeing that) and confirms that Carter started up during WWI. He also says Porter-Cable started up router production in 1940, Unit Electric Tool Co. (taken over by P-C) started in 1946 and Skil in 1954 so maybe you can draw some conclusions from that

Bill, do you happen to know what happened to Kelley's firm? BTW, thanks for posting the patent reference - amazing! I was really surprised to find that Carter had applied for a patent on the plunge router as early as 1915 (granted 1925) - some 34 years before Eugen Lutz introduced his plunge router

Phil