[KaiserPro]

I wish I could find the clip now, but with the advent of practical router bits with pantographs, there was a fashion in the late 1800s to replace dovetail joints with dowel and C type joints. They were really hard to make fast by hand, but easy to do with machines.

They could be made to higher tolerances, and had more surface area, and I assume were more reliable to make/hold draws together.

These are very similar to the idea here.

EDIT: thankyou to mikey_p and WillAdams who pointed out the joint I was looking for was the Knapp Joint: https://www.finewoodworking.com/2018/09/26/history-cove-pin-...

[mikey_p]

You're thinking of the Knapp joint which were sometimes called dovetails. The pantograph router version is a modern recreation of how the original was made.

This video has some explanation of the new method and why they were originally popular in the first place (mostly limitations of available machines): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlJjsvph3r8&ab_channel=Matth...

[KaiserPro]

Excellent thank you for the video!

[WillAdams]

Probably you were thinking of "Knapp joints" (cove and pin) which had a currency of a decade or so (their presence is used to date furniture), but which were replaced by machine cut dovetails.

A CNC router affords a lot of new possibilities, e.g., this box which has an integrated lid:

https://community.carbide3d.com/t/as-funny-as-a-3-dollar-box...