Jim Harvey's compound angle box joints

Jim Harvey sent me a link to his Flickr photo set about making compound angled box joints. With his permission, I have copied a few of his images, but for the full story, check out the Flickr photo set.

When joining the corners of a pyramid or splayed box together with box joints, there are two ways to orient the box joints. The simpler, easier method is to make the fingers perpendicular to both pieces. The more difficult, but stronger, and more pleasing to the eye approach, is to make the fingers all horizontal with the box. This is the technique that Jim Harvey explores in his Flickr photo set

Jim uses his own version of the screw advance box joint jig to cut these joints. Note how the work piece is mounted at a compound angle. The dado blade in the saw is also tilted at an angle.

The cuts between the fingers need to be a skewed cut, but a dado blade at an angle will make a cut that is square to its angle of cut, not to the edge of the piece of wood

So some manual chisel-work is still necessary.

But the results are quite pleasing.

For a lot more pictures and detailed description of how Jim Harvey made these joints, check out his Flickr photo set on these box joints.

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