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by WillAdams 780 days ago
I've been working on this sort of thing for a while.

For a Japanese spin on this see Tsugite:

http://ma-la.com/Tsugite_UIST20.pdf

which I worked through at:

https://community.carbide3d.com/t/a-study-of-joinery/28492

Traditional joints (box, dovetails, or obscure variations such as Knapp (cove and pin)) require a vertical fixture and 3 setups (at a minimum) --- cut parts to length and machine internal features, mount four board and cut joints in 2 corners, flip boards (with correct orientation) and cut other two corners.

Rabbet joints are simpler --- so simple that they were covered in a video as "The Simple Box":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V93xDM3lXsM

(ob. discl., I work for Carbide 3D)

There have been a number of programs developed for joinery. A current commercial option is:

http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html

(but it requires a vertical fixture)

One commercial option became freely available:

https://fabrikisto.com/tailmaker-software/

and ingeniously has an option where a 30 degree V endmill is used, but to cut boards held at a 15 degree angle, affording a 90 degree cut with a great deal of control and flexibility --- this can multiply setups to 9.

A variation I've been experimenting with is full-blind box joints:

https://community.carbide3d.com/t/full-blind-box-joints-in-c...

They're reasonably easily drawn up, though they do have some rather specific tooling requirements (a narrow 90 degree V endmill, a square tool of that or smaller diameter, and to make things easier, a large V endmill)

One test project was so tight that after putting it together for a dry-fit before gluing I was unable to get it apart:

https://cutrocket.com/p/63781eaf9822f/

I've been working on a programming system to make this sort of thing a bit easier:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

and have some sketched out joints which I've not been able to make using existing CAM tools which I hope I'll be able to do using this system (if anyone could recommend books on conic sections, I'd be grateful --- that's where I got bogged down last time).