Flying Dutchman
2012.04.08
And now back to that knot on the lid. I have decided to remove the knot and replace it with a new piece of wood, often called a “dutchman”.
The etymology of this term remains a debatable mystery… was it an ethnic slur motivated by the Anglo-Dutch wars of the 1600’s, or the frugal craftsmanship of German immigrants (Pennsylvania Dutch), or perhaps the nameless boy “Hero of Haarlem” who plugged a dike with his finger (an American, not Dutch, bit of fiction in an 1865 book entitled Hans Brinker; or, the Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland).
My vote for the origin of this term is the now uncommon phrase “enough clear sky to mend a Dutchman’s breeches” (or similar variants). Seafaring lore held that bad weather would end when two patches of blue in an otherwise stormy sky were large enough for said mending. In the Age of Sail, sailors wore wide, short pants called breeches, and the breeches of Dutch sailors were typically blue.
Superstitious sailors troubled by apparitions on the high seas sometimes claimed to have seen the Flying Dutchman, a legendary ghost ship. The first printed reference was in A Voyage to Botany Bay from 1795; the skeptical author noted the story had apparently originated with a Dutch man of war lost off the Cape of Good Hope.
Anyway, back to woodworking. Dutchmen patches take various forms, but they are often “bowtie” or “butterfly” shapes; the sides angled in different directions help wedge the patch in place. Because the knot extends to the edge of this board, I cannot use the full bowtie shape. Since the patch will be unsupported along one edge, one could say that it is flying… a flying dutchman… (cough).
These patches usually do not go all the way through the thickness of the board; rather they sit in a shallow mortise and are only visible on one face. Unfortunately, since this knot goes all the way though, my patch will have to as well. The problem then is keeping the patch in place, but a couple nails and some glue should take care of it. The patch ended up wider than I would have liked, in order to remove most of the wavy grain around the knot.
I forgot to take a photo of a key part of the process. Once the old wood had been removed, I put a scrap from the same original 1x12 board underneath, moved it around until the grain was similar, and then traced the cutout. Then I sawed out the new patch piece. I pounded it into place with a mallet, and added a couple nails toed in from the edge.
2012.04.15
Although the angled sides were a nice snug fit, the horizontal joint ended up with a gap, especially on the outer face. I masked around it and applied some glue with an accordion bottle. The inner face was better, but there’s still a visible gap. Ah well, at least no knot.
Sliding Trays VIII