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Dovetail Bracket Feet Design Tips
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Lancaster Dovetail Feet are perfect for uncomplicated, clean-lined projects.
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Featuring the most beautiful of all woodworking
joints, dovetail bracket feet are a winning combination of quality and convenience. These dovetail bracket feet are the perfect size for use on
kitchen base cabinets and on your furniture projects too. Each foot is joined the traditional way and hand-detailed. |
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At 4 1/2" high, these feet are the perfect
size for base cabinet toe kicks. Click to order. |
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| Lancaster Left Foot with Cove Moulding (sold separately).
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| Queen Anne Dovetail Feet are perfect for projects
requiring a modest amount of formality. Ogee Trim Moulding sold separately.
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On the left is a Lancaster left foot, with
its delecate pins towards the front. On the
right is a right foot, pin to
the front and blocker tails
our of view around the side.
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| Inside corner feet show no dovetails, but
extend the look to where the cabinet runs intersect.
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The Lancaster style is ideal for projects
requiring simpler forms. It’s perfect for clean-lined work, like Shaker-style. It is an excellent choice for more primitive projects.
Paradoxically, owing to the purity of the curve and the honesty of the joinery, the Lancaster foot is also a fine choice on
contemporary projects as well. The dovetails just sing when clear-finished with oil.
The classic Queen Anne feet are dressier. They are well-suited for projects needing a bit more propriety or formality.
The companion trim moulding is an ogee profile, so it too is a bit fancier than the simple cove moulding that is
paired with the Lancaster.
If you are looking for an even more high-style foot, be sure to
compare these dovetail bracket
feet with ogee bracket feet carved
in two styles, including Chippendale
(shown right).
Lefts and Rights
Please note that dovetail feet are left and right specific,
and you need to be aware of how we orient them. The key is to look at the parts of the interlocking tenons
that form the dovetails. The more slender projections are called pins and we orient them towards
the front to showcase their delicacy. The chunkier ‘tails’ are located on the subordinate face
or ’side’ of the cabinet. See photos at left.
Back to the Wall
In many applications you will
want to consider installing a
right or left-footed ‘return.’
As an example, consider the
kitchen base cabinet that
does not ‘die’ into a wall, but
ends out in the room. If you
choose a dovetail foot with a
‘return’ on it, you are able to
wrap the outside corner with
a dovetail foot that returns to
finish cleanly scribed against
the baseboard or wall surface.
Our returns come with a stan-
dard front foot in either style
dovetailed to a 28" long return.
See photo at right.
In the Corners
Where an inside corner exists in a run of
cabinets, consider using the ‘inside corner’ dovetail foot. These feet carry the shape and style of
outside corner dovetail feet to the inside corners of the cabinet run. Although they show no dovetails,
they reinforce the look you are working to achieve through repetition of size and shape. They also unify the
composition by helping to support the trim moulding that runs around the top of the feet and base of the cabinets.
Final Details
All feet are sanded smooth. They even feature
really fine chamfers along the scroll-cut face of the foot. The backside is precision-milled with a horizontal
dado slot into which you can affix a biscuit or plywood gusset that will hold the weight of your base
cabinet box. Trim the base out with the companion moulding and you are finished. Those magnificent dovetails
will have people thinking you’ve been slaving over the joinery, but when you use our precision-cut dovetail
bracket feet, the truth is you’ve been freed up to sort out all the other details! Enjoy.
Click here to view Ogee Bracket Feet for your most formal projects.
If you are wrapping a base cabinet, consider ordering a foot with
a 28" 'return' to trim out the base cabinet along its depth towards te wall.
Click to order. |
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