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BASIC WOODWORK JOINTS

Corner Joints

 A picture is worth a thousand words

Simple miter (mitre)
Simple mitre
Dowelled miter
Dowelled mitre
Veneer keyed miter

 

Tongued Miter
To strengthen plain miters
Tongued mitre
Butt Joint

The simplest joint of all

Butt
Simple Lap Joint
Simple lap
Bare faced tongue and groove
Bare tongue
Finger Joint
Finger joint
Through dovetail

The strongest and most decorative corner joint.
A hand made joint which must be very accurate for success.

The finger joint, above, is the better joint for power tools

Dovetail
Lapped dovetail

Another hand made joint. Extremely strong.
Not to be confused with the power tool counterpart below.

Lap dovetail
Machine dovetail

Has similar appearance to above but tails and pins are equal in size.
Weakened by the rounded shapes it is still, however, a good choice for drawer construction

Machine dovetail
Narrow dovetails

In a wide board this helps prevent curling

Narrow dovetails

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