User:Amoody1/sandbox

A Butterfly joint, Dovetail key, Dutchman joint, or Nakashima joint is a type of joint or inlay used to hold two or more pieces of woods together. These types of joints can be used to reinforce doors, picture frames, or drawers. These types of joints can also be used for aesthetics.

= History =

Dutchman Joint
The term Dutchman is used when a patch or inlay covers a miss-cut or an imperfect piece of wood. A Dutchman can also cover a knot in the wood. A Dutchman can be wood or metal. The origin of the name is from San-Francisco after the fold rush. All types of European craftsmen came to California to earn a living. The term Dutchman is slang given to the woodworking process of inserting patches. The term Dutchman has been found in the literature of John Russell Bartlett’s in the Dictionary of Americanisms and Edward H. Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary.

Dovetail Joint
In 1894, Jacques De Morgan discovered boats at the pyramid complex of Khakaure Senwosret III at Dahshur. Butterfly, or dovetail joints, where recorded as being used. Some archeologist argue that the dovetail joints were not originally fitted for the boats but where a modern replacement. The Dovetail joints look to have been set into the faces of the planks to provide strength, after the excavation, so that it would not fall apart during transport. The craftsmanship of the joints where not what had been seen for the rest of the boats, they were also not fixed in place. Any type of force could cause the joint to fall out. There was also no mention of the joints in the original notes by Morgan taken when he first saw the boats. It is unlikely that if they were present, that he would have missed them. There has been reports of traditional Japanese boats using butterfly cramps but these where held in place by shellac.