# Marblewood wine bottle holder...how do I join these two pieces of wood?



## Cory (Jan 14, 2009)

I'm building a wine bottle holder as a Christmas present and I need some help. I've got two pieces of Marblewood that I'm going to join together. The problem is that the wood is incredibly hard (it laughed at me when i tried to shoot a brad nail into it) and I'm trying to join a piece with end grain to a piece with face grain. I'm sure that glue alone won't hold up. I got the design idea from a project here on LJ, but I can't find it now. It's going to be able to hold 3 bottles of wine, so I need the base.



















Should I try to use dowels? Screws from underneath? I put it into some clamps today to hold it in place, but it's at an odd angle and I'm afraid I'm going to ruin some pretty lumber (not that that has ever stopped me before, but I'm on a deadline!).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


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## ropedog (Mar 26, 2008)

i would use a sliding dovetail , the joint will give a lot of strength plus you would have some long grain to long grain for glueing. good luck.


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## Cory (Jan 14, 2009)

I found my inspiration project:


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## croessler (Jun 22, 2007)

The sliding dovetail is a great idea if you don't mind the exposed joinery. Other options might be floating Mortise & Tenon, (A Festool Domino wood work great for this if you know anyone that has one) or a through mortise and tenon or dowels.


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

Looks super Cory 
Ropers suggestion is a good one or you can dado and then glue and screw from the bottom.


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## Cory (Jan 14, 2009)

Those are great ideas, especially the sliding dovetail. Thank you. The angle on the piece is what's getting me. I've never cut a mortise on an angle. Would I just match my table saw blade to the angle of the piece? Same thing on the sliding dovetail: how do I actually make the cut with a router table? Should I build a jig to hold it 90 degrees to the table?


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## Cory (Jan 14, 2009)

I went with the sliding dovetail idea….thanks, again, Roper. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. My brain was just barely big enough to figure out how to make the cuts. I'm glad that is over! Some finish and I'll be good to go. Santa's list is getting shorter!


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## Ken90712 (Sep 2, 2009)

Look fwd to seeing it! Your work is always impressive.


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## Cory (Jan 14, 2009)

Here is what the sliding dovetail looks like (Sorry for the camera phone pics):



















I had to make a jig to hold the vertical piece square with my router table fence. After scratching my head for a while, i came up with this out of the scrap bin:



















Getting the angle was a bit tricky, but it worked. I just attached it with 2 sided tape.

My dovetails didn't turn out as great as I would have liked. There was some small ship out on the sides even though I was backing up the cut and going slowly. I thought about ripping a thing piece of walnut and gluing it to the edges. Is there another fix that I can't think of? Maybe rub some saw dust into the gap when finishing?

Thanks for all the help and the comments. I really appreciate it.


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