On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, Bailin' Wire wrote:

> I was just marking up the Dovetaling Doc. for the Web and I came across this
> little tidbit in ref to making sloppy dovetails fit, that I _THINK_ was
> shared bt Jeff (over ther in England).
> 
> There is one technique, somewhat more subtle than shaving shims or glue and
> dust mixtures or even veneer, involving the pane of a warrington hammer, but
> one must not sully a pure-minded group such as this with descriptions of
> such obscenities.
> 
> 
> Does anybody recognize this?
> Would anybody care to elaborate?
> John A. Gunterman
> Apprentice Neanderthal
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John,
I believe what Jeff was referring to is a practice referred to as 
"bishoping" dovetails. This is usually referred to as an undesirable 
practice and considered to be a "fault."  It consisted of using the peen 
of a Warrington pattern hammer to "mushroom" the end grain fibers of a 
tail which wound up being a little loose.  I've always suspected that 
the various admonishments to avoid such a nasty practice means that it's 
more commonly done than anyone would care to admit.  And, of course, I've 
never resorted to that myself! Of course, this would work best if the 
ends of the tails were slightly proud of the pin section so that one 
could subsequently plane off the evidence of one's misdeeds.

Don