Intro to Joinery 2: Dovetail Joints: 2 Day Weekender

The dovetail is the signature joint of fine woodworking: strong, beautiful, and unmistakably handmade. In this two-day weekend course at POW Workshops in London, you'll learn to cut dovetails by hand with real precision.

Where Joinery 1 covered the joints used in frames and structures (halving, bridle, mortice and tenon), Joinery 2 focuses on the joints used to make containers of all kinds: boxes, drawers, cabinets, and chests. These are the joints that let you start building real furniture.

Here's what you'll cover:

• Through dovetails: the classic, with its distinctive interlocking pins and tails

• Half-lap dovetails: a refined variation used in drawer construction

• Mitred dovetails: the most challenging, where the joint is completely hidden from view

• Precision layout and marking, because dovetails demand accuracy

• Sawing and chiselling to tight tolerances, developing the fine motor control that makes hand-cut joints fit perfectly

• Understanding grain direction, and why it matters for joint strength and appearance

This course builds directly on the skills from Joinery 1. You'll be expected to be comfortable with basic sawing, chiselling, and marking before you arrive. If you've completed Joinery 1 or have equivalent experience, you're ready.

Taken together, Joinery 1 and Joinery 2 give you the complete foundation for furniture making. Frame joints for structures, dovetails for containers. From here, you can start building real pieces.

What you'll get

A set of beautifully hand-cut dovetail joints and the skills to incorporate them into your own projects. All tools and materials are provided.

What's next?

If you want to put your new skills into a real project, try Make a Three-Legged Stool, a two-day weekend build using traditional wedged through tenons. Or continue developing your skills with our workspace memberships, where you'll have access to the full workshop to work on your own projects.