Two types of dovetail joinery were typically used in drawer construction – through or plain dovetails and lapped or half blind dovetails. It also reduced the tendency for drawer fronts to be pulled off when the wood split or the nails rusted. A much stronger type of joinery, they allowed for the use of thinner boards which made drawers lighter and easier to use. Dovetails have flared tails like a bird on the end of the drawer’s side boards that interlock into mirroring pins on the drawer’s face board. While dovetail joints can be found on ancient Egyptian coffins from 3000 BC, they were not used in European and American furniture until the mid 1600s. 1 Simple Nailed Butt Joint Diagram (StudyLib) The use of screws or machine-made nails would be a sign of later restorations or of a piece made in a later period.įig. Notice the handmade rose head nails in the example below (Fig. Rabbets were later cut into one or both boards which better secured the drawer sides to the fronts (Fig. When chests of drawers became more popular, drawers were made of thick, heavy wood boards butted up against each other and simply nailed together (Fig. Prior to that, cabinets were used that had doors or tops that opened into which boxes of belongings were moved in and out. We’ll talk about drawer fronts, bottoms, slides and hardware in future blogs.Įveryone has heard of dovetail joints, but what are they? What do they look like? When were they used? And were they the only type of drawer joints used throughout history? Let’s take an in-depth look at drawer joints and how they changed over time in the construction of English and American case goods.ĭrawers were essentially not used in furniture making until the mid 1600s when chests of drawers first started appearing. Possessing the “wrong” type, though, can frequently disprove it. Possessing the “right” type of construction for the period isn’t a guarantee of authenticity. Please note, though, that even contemporary furniture can be made to look old by faithfully reproducing period styling and original construction techniques. In this article, we take a look at what drawer joints, fronts, bottom, slides and hardware can tell us about the age of antique case furniture. And since construction techniques as well as design attributes were pretty consistent during certain eras, taking a look at both can build a stronger case for placing your piece of furniture in its rightful place in history. Drawers have to withstand decades, if not centuries, of rough pushing and pulling, overly heavy contents and a variety of environmental assaults without compromising the beauty and integrity of the furniture’s face. Why? Because they have both definitive styling and significant functionality requirements. Drawers are one of the first places to look when trying to establish the age of an antique chest, dresser, desk, sideboard or other piece of case furniture.
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