How is this mystery dovetail done?
Chita
there was a "wood puzzles" book which included this novelty joint. (Was
it a book sold by Woodcraft?) Anyway, it's a curiosity. Check it out
and tell all.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6976867662
Lowell Holmes
news:1129166813.5...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Apprentice".
I couldn't begin to tell you how to do it without illustrations. :-)
I've never attempted the dovetail.
--
Lowell Holmes
Morris Dovey
I'd have to guess that there isn't much wood between the two dovetails
:-)
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html
mywebaccts (at) PLUGcomcast.net
wood until it got soft and pliable, positioning it, and then letting it
dry. The one I remember is a wooden ball inside a cube that has square
holes through each side (but just slightly too small for the ball). The
cube is soaked and then "squeezed" around the ball.
Don't know if this is the trick for the dovetail, but that would be my
guess.
Jack
mywebaccts (at) PLUGcomcast.net
that you could do this with solid pieces of wood without needing
'pliable' wood.
In the picture, there are brown and red woods dovetailed together. If
you look at the red piece, imagine that the small strip of red wood at
the top of the puzzle is in fact just that ... a small strip of wood.
That is, the two sides of the red piece are pretty much what you see,
but the section between the two dovetailed brown pieces isn't there ...
just a triangular "rod" connecting the two sides of the red piece.
Then ... you can easily "pivot" the red piece up around the brown dovetails.
The red rod connecting the two sides would need to be cut inwards to
allow for the pivot, as would the bottom ends of the red piece that butt
up against the brown piece.
Can you envision what I'm describing?
Jack
Mike Marlow
"Lowell Holmes" <lh...@hal-pc.org> wrote in message
news:Rwj3f.23810$wm3.18096@trnddc01...
I've seen it as well. Both pieces are cut on a diagonal but when put
together they look like a dovetail - though they really aren't (if memory
serves...). I'd have to find the web page that breaks it all down too. I
couldn't explain it any better right now than what I've just said.
--
-Mike-
mmarlo...@alltel.net
Toller
"mywebaccts (at) PLUGcomcast.net" <"mywebaccts (at) PLUGcomcast.net"> wrote
in message news:v46dnbFxC5C...@comcast.com...
> Ah .. wait! I was staring at the picture and I just figured out a way
> that you could do this with solid pieces of wood without needing 'pliable'
> wood.
>
> In the picture, there are brown and red woods dovetailed together. If you
> look at the red piece, imagine that the small strip of red wood at the top
> of the puzzle is in fact just that ... a small strip of wood.
>
> That is, the two sides of the red piece are pretty much what you see, but
> the section between the two dovetailed brown pieces isn't there ... just a
> triangular "rod" connecting the two sides of the red piece.
>
> Then ... you can easily "pivot" the red piece up around the brown
> dovetails.
>
> The red rod connecting the two sides would need to be cut inwards to allow
> for the pivot, as would the bottom ends of the red piece that butt up
> against the brown piece.
>
> Can you envision what I'm describing?
>
unless it was cut really really loose; and it doesn't look that way.
brianlanning
the end grain of the piece with the tail cut in it, it's a square cut
which creates the illusion that it's a square cut all the way back to
shoulders like a normal dovetail would be. That's impossible though.
What's really going on is that the sides of both dovetails are beveled
so that where the dovetail attached to the rest of the board, the sides
of the tail are at a 45 degree angle. The board simply pushes straight
in from the back. Between the two dovetails is sort of a V-shaped
valley with a matching one on the other piece. It's difficult to
describe, but easy to understand once you see it.
brian
Gordon Airporte
other trick dovetail (where the tails appear on all four faces of the
joined pieces) this one required heavy clamping to bend the pieces when
it was assembled. Other than that I can't recall any details. It is
really secure, though - he used it for a mallet head.
Bruce Barnett
>> > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6976867662
>
> I've seen it as well. Both pieces are cut on a diagonal but when put
> together they look like a dovetail - though they really aren't (if memory
> serves...).
That's a different puzzle. I doubt this one was by cutting on diagonals.
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Mike Marlow
"Bruce Barnett" <spamhater113+...@grymoire.com> wrote in message
news:dio4v9$rlp$0$208.20...@netheaven.com...
> "Mike Marlow" <mmarlo...@alltel.net> writes:
>
> >> > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6976867662
> >
> > I've seen it as well. Both pieces are cut on a diagonal but when put
> > together they look like a dovetail - though they really aren't (if
memory
> > serves...).
>
> That's a different puzzle. I doubt this one was by cutting on diagonals.
>
Could well be. Was pretty cool the way the effect worked though.
--
-Mike-
mmarlo...@alltel.net
Bruce Barnett
>> That's a different puzzle. I doubt this one was by cutting on diagonals.
>>
>
> Could well be. Was pretty cool the way the effect worked though.
I haven't seen the actual mechanism. But one poster said clamping was
needed, so perhaps it's a combination of sliding and clamping.
So you may be right....
fredf...@spamcop.net
mywebaccts (at) PLUGcomcast.net wrote:
> I've seen puzzles like this before that were accomplished by soaking the
> wood until it got soft and pliable, positioning it, and then letting it
> dry. The one I remember is a wooden ball inside a cube that has square
> holes through each side (but just slightly too small for the ball). The
> cube is soaked and then "squeezed" around the ball.
>
I thought the ball and cage was typically done by carving both
from the same block of wood, carving the ball _inside_ the cage.
--
FF
Greg O
--<fredf...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:1129331067....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Not wood related, But I once worked for a CNC machine shop. To prove what
the machines could do one of the owners machined the "ball in the cube" out
of aluminum, about 2 inches square. It was surprising to see the end result.
The ball was smooth, and measured with in .001 of round. All machined out of
one piece, the ball inside the cage.
Greg
Greg O
"Mike Marlow" <mmarlo...@alltel.net> wrote in message
news:9531a$434e4680$a2270060$21...@ALLTEL.NET...
I have seen it too, just as you describe.
The end result is an illusion, so to speak. Our minds are trained to think a
typical dovetail, but the wood is cut in a way to simulate a dovetail, when
it is really a form of slip joint.
Greg
bri...@all.costs
don't confuse 'em, fred...
bri...@all.costs
wrote:
it's a good illusion, then. I can't see how it could be assembled, no
matter what it looks like inside.
what are the dots for?
why won't the ebay vendor let us see the underside?
Mike Marlow
<bri...@all.costs> wrote in message
news:h2i0l1t7s61ckjbde...@4ax.com...
OK - I'm going to give this a shot from memory. What you see is a box with
apparently two dovetails - on adjacent sides. What's really there is a
sliding joint. Imagine that the dovetail end you are seeing on one side
runs to the other one you see. What makes the illusion work is that the
ends of the dovetails are cut on an angle - even with the plane of the side
of the box. If you looked at the box straight on, but looking into the
corner instead of at one of the sides, you'd see the dovetail profile with
the ends cut off-square. The top has the dovetail slot to match. It slides
together.
Damn - I don't know if that made one bit of sense.
--
-Mike-
mmarlo...@alltel.net
Mike Marlow
group.
--
-Mike-
mmarlo...@alltel.net
A. D. Coby
cuts to be circular arcs. The sort of thing that would result from
a rotated (turned) piece which then has been cut with flat sides
The axis of rotation would be along a line on the surface between
the labels A and B.
If so then there would be arc shaped cut inside (under) the
arms of the T. This view is not given in the pictures.
mywebaccts (at) PLUGcomcast.net
(oak or something) inside a cube made from some different wood.
Bruce Barnett
I've seen one in Popular Science from the 1960's that had an arrow
going through a glass. The drinking glass has two holes in it - the
same diameter as the shaft of the arrow. The Arrow head and feathers
(fletching) were twice the width of the glass hole.
This one was done, AIR, by soaking, squeezing the head in a clamp,
pushed through, an then soaked again do it swells. I think it was
balsa wood.
alexy
It does. But it falls into the category of "if you don't know the
answer to the question that was asked, give an answer you do know to a
question that was not asked" <g>. I like the puzzle you are referring
to, and its deceptively simple solution. But I'm pretty sure that is
not what the OP is asking about. Look again at the cited ebay page,
and see if there is any way you can see the puzzle you are talking
about morphed into this one.
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.
A. D. Coby
Another possible way to make this joint is to make the strip of wood across the
top of the joint between A and B thin enough to be easily bent. Then the piece
which is labelled A B would be flexed open and the moved pass the tails in the
other piece and then first piece would then be bent back closing the joint
around the second piece.
Mike Marlow
"alexy" <nos...@asbry.net> wrote in message
news:3001l11nunmhrku1d...@4ax.com...
>
> It does. But it falls into the category of "if you don't know the
> answer to the question that was asked, give an answer you do know to a
> question that was not asked" <g>. I like the puzzle you are referring
> to, and its deceptively simple solution. But I'm pretty sure that is
> not what the OP is asking about. Look again at the cited ebay page,
> and see if there is any way you can see the puzzle you are talking
> about morphed into this one.
>
Argh! You're absolutely right. My bad. A mind is a terrible...
--
-Mike-
mmarlo...@alltel.net
John Briggs
Here is the definitive source:
It's from E.M Wyatt's "Wonders in Wood" (1946).
Jerry Slocum's and Jack Botermans' "Puzzles Old & New" (1986) provide this
information and an illustration.
John
charlie b
>
> The picture looks familiar but I can't recall the details. I think
> there was a "wood puzzles" book which included this novelty joint. (Was
> it a book sold by Woodcraft?) Anyway, it's a curiosity. Check it out
> and tell all.
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6976867662
Think "slight taper", "notch" and "rotation".
What I think is a solution, posted in alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking
as '"Impossible Joint?" - solution?, should make my hints a lot
clearer.
charlie b
(If this seems like the solution to you
send half of the $2.95 US I saved you
to your favorite charity)'
bri...@all.costs
wrote:
this is so far the only explanation that fits the situation...
fredf...@spamcop.net
Well, that is much cooler than the other one.
--
FF
fredf...@spamcop.net
Now who is confusing whom?
--
FF
Limey Lurker
Yep, that's how it's done!
charlie b
But where's the fun in that? I mean it doesn't even use
- a lathe
- a block plane
- a shoulder plane
- block rabbet plane
- skew chisels
- bench chisels
- paring chisels
- micro belt sander
- drill press
- 20 special router bits
- a precision router lift
- precision router table fence
- oscillating spindle sander
:
:
:
Where's the fun?
Guess there really is more than one way
to skin a shop cat push stick. Who'd've
thunk it?
bri...@all.costs
<steve....@tesco.net> wrote:
that particular joint would have to be flexed a _lot_....
Doug Warner
The leg of the "T" is split down the middle, then glued back together.
Since splitting follows the grain, and no material is lost to a kerf,
the split is nearly invisible after gluing and sanding.
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Nate Perkins
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
I used to carve the ball and cage that way when I was a kid. I remember
being about 10, and having my grandfather teach me how to do it. We carved
a variety of little things like that. That's more than 30 years ago, and
still one of my best memories of grandpa.
Bruce Barnett
> The leg of the "T" is split down the middle, then glued back together.
> Since splitting follows the grain, and no material is lost to a kerf,
> the split is nearly invisible after gluing and sanding.
Bzzzt. The eBay page says:
"Only two pieces of timber are used, and there are no hidden splits."
bri...@all.costs
<dwar...@ccharter.net> wrote:
>
>The leg of the "T" is split down the middle, then glued back together.
>Since splitting follows the grain, and no material is lost to a kerf,
>the split is nearly invisible after gluing and sanding.
the guy says no hidden splits.
Tim Douglass
Somewhere I have a bunch of ball-in-cages and chains that I carved
sitting in various classes in High School. Now they would haul me out
and shoot me for having a knife in class. I didn't learn much of the
subject matter, but I got pretty good at carving!
--
"We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"
Tim Douglass