[louieatienza]

I'm impressed and intrigued by your 3D shaped dovetails Louie. I found this thread through a link in your router thread as I don't normally browse the woodworking forum.

From an engineering point your dovetails will be enormously strong in one direction. Maybe you could cut more complexity so they "lock" something like a wooden puzzle block, to give strength on both directions.

Here's an idea! What about putting some round holes on the side where the 2 pieces can slide apart, so the holes are half in one dovetail on piece1 and half in the dovetail on piece2.

Then putting some small wooden dowels pins in place in the round holes? After that action, it is fully interlocked and cannot slide apart in either direction unless the dowel pins are removed. Just a thought.

Thanks Roman! Yes there is no mechanical strength is one direction. The tapered tails means precise fitment is crucial. However, there is more joint surface area than on a typical dovetail, which means more glue surface.

There are many ways of adding wooden dowels or pins to lock the joint in the other direction; a favorite of mine is to drill from the top corners after glue-up; your idea is another.

Another option, though a bit mroe difficult, is to make the dovetail in such a way that it slides together in a 45 degree path. This gives it very good mechanical strength in both directions, especially when glued. I propose that with some maneuvering, this cold be done "on the flat" a s well...

In more traditonal cabinetry, the drawers were made to pretty exacting tolerances; in fact, they were made so well that pushing them in caused a "piston" effect, as it was slowed down by a pocket of air. The case sides helped support the drawer sides as well. The stuff was handmade and not cheap, and people took care of their furniture.

Nowadays, most drawers employ drawer slides like Accuride or Blum or similar; and people typically slam their drawers shut. There usually is a 1/2" gap on each side of the drawer, whic to me looks horrid, but is the norm now. Only exception maybe would be the undermont slides. The "soft close" slides have become more popular now/