Joinery layout

Dovetails — through dovetails across a board of width W with the pin board’s thickness T as the baseline. Half-pins and pins are measured at the narrow end (the end of the tail board); each tail is (W − 2·half-pin − (n−1)·pin) ÷ n wide there and narrows by 2·T·tan(angle) at the baseline. Slopes: 1:6 (9.5°) for hardwood, 1:8 (7.1°) for softwood. The table lists each tail’s marks from the left edge, and the drawing shows the tail board to scale.

Box joints — finger widths that divide the board exactly. An odd count gives fingers at both edges of one board, a balanced look; the best odd fit nearest your target is flagged.

Mortise and tenon — rule of thirds: a tenon about a third of the rail thickness, rounded to the nearest chisel size, length 3–5× its thickness (no more than two thirds of the stile), and edge shoulders. Warnings flag thin mortise walls and very wide tenons (use twin tenons or a haunch).

Dowels and Dominoes — dowel diameter about half the stock thickness, holes about 2.5 diameters deep in each part, spaced evenly between the edge distances; the Domino size suggested is approximate.

Drawbore — offset the tenon hole toward the shoulder by about 1/16" (1.6 mm) in oak and ash, less in hard brittle woods, more in soft ones; use riven pegs about a third to a half of the tenon thickness.