Dovetail joint
Wedge-shaped tails drop between pins so the corner locks mechanically along one axis, not by glue alone.
Wood joints, explained in 3D
Scrub any joint from layout marks to a seated fit, and see exactly which material leaves the board.
The 3D viewer stopped.
Mark out (1 of 4)
Construction
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Nothing here is a video: the geometry is evaluated in your browser as you drag.
LIVE 15 · STATES 4 · EVERY CLAIM SOURCED
The 15 joints
All fifteen joints have their own page and 3D viewer. Each page appeared only after its geometry was drawn and checked; home and the hub use the same list, so their catalogs cannot drift apart.
Live: 15
Corner
Box joint
Square fingers alternate across the corner, every one cut to the same width.
Half-lap joint
Each piece gives up half its thickness so the two halves stack back into one thickness.
Rabbet joint
Along one edge runs a square step; the mating board sits into it and the corner registers.
Miter joint
Two ends cut at half the corner angle meet with no end grain showing outside.
Splined miter joint
Slotting a finished miter and setting a thin spline across the line adds long-grain gluing surface.
Bridle joint
An open mortise takes a full-width tenon, so the joint is cut entirely from the outside.
T-intersection
Mortise and tenon joint
The tenon enters a cut pocket; its shoulders land on the face and fix the angle.
Sliding dovetail joint
Tapered tail, matching housing: a shelf goes in from one end and slides home along it.
Dado joint
A flat-bottomed trench across the grain houses the end of a shelf on three sides.
Pocket-hole joint
Screws leave a bored pocket at a shallow angle and bite into the stile through the rail end.
Edge
Tongue and groove joint
A tongue on one edge sits in the groove of the next, keeping boards flush as they move.
Dowel joint
Round pins in matched bored holes register two boards and carry the glue line between them.
Biscuit joint
Compressed oval biscuits sit in crescent slots, swelling with glue to align two edges.
End-to-end
Butt joint
Two square-cut ends meet with nothing but glue or a fastener holding the line together.
How it works
Every joint page runs the same four states.
1Mark out
Layout lines are scribed from the mating piece: gauge lines along both edges, the shoulder squared across the face.
2Remove material
The waste is sawn and pared away. The viewer holds the removed volume on screen in waste orange before it goes, so you can see what leaves the board.
3Test fit
The moving piece travels along its insertion axis. Where the two parts want the same space, an interference box marks it.
4Assemble
The joint seats. Each shoulder lands on its mating face and the assembly closes to a single finished dimension.
Why this site
- The models are built, not drawn over.
- Every joint is parametric geometry evaluated in the browser, so the waste solid and the layout lines come from the same numbers as the boards.
- Load talk stays qualitative.
- The site names the direction a joint resists and the direction it does not, and publishes no strength figures at all. The reason is in the methodology.
- Every page prints.
- The print sheet drops the chrome and the dock and leaves the poster, the facts and the steps on paper you can take to the bench.
Fifteen joints, four construction states each, and no figure the site cannot show you the source of.