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Treasure chest with curved lid part 3 dovetails and glueing up the bottom.

Today I chopped the dovetails of the four corners of the chest. A benefit of using spruce is that you can make the dovetails really tight since the wood compresses very well.
This time I made the tails first like at home, and I do find that I am able to make nicer dovetails that way compared to when I make them pins first.

Last year during the chairbuilding extravagnza, Brian Eve brought some liquid hide glue for us to use.
It stayed at my place, and I found out that it actually passed its "best before date" a little while ago.
For some reason, I have never tried using liquid hide glue for dovetails. Out here I am always stressed during glue ups because my normal white glue will dry very quickly because of the temperatures in the workshop especially during the summer months.

While at home, I decided to bring the liquid hide glue with me on board this time, so I could use it before it gets way too old.

My plan is to try using the liquid hide glue as the only glue on this project. I don't know why I feel all excited and insecure about that, since it is a pretty time tested glue type. The only thing is that it could be too old, but I kind of doubt that the "best before date" means that the glue will not stick to anything as soon as you pass it.

I found some more spruce that could be glued up to form a bottom.
First I jointed the mating sides, and then I discovered that there was a crack in the wide board.
I opened the crack by bending the board a bit, and squeezed some glue into it. I then applied hide glue to both surfaces and pressed the joint together with a couple of clamps.

Adding glue to both sides of a joint is a habit of mine from working with white glue. I have no idea if it is required or even encouraged when using hide glue, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt.

The joint went together as it should the first time, so I didn't have any reason to use the slow setting time to shift the joint around anyway.

After some time the glue had already dried, but I have still left the clamps on, because I won't be working on the bottom until tomorrow anyway. Dry testing the dovetails.

Posted by Jonas Jensen at 2:17 PM