Building a wine rack for the daughter. She wants it to fit into a
shelf over their refrigerator. I "designed" the rack to be assembled
inside the shelf facings - put the pieces in and put it together in
place.

Front and rear panels are held together with blind (sliding?) dovetail
joints and horizontal braces. Pics are posted at

http://web2.airmail.net/xleanone/ind...l/Wine%20Rack/

My question: is are the joints' tails strong enough? The wood is QS
Sycamore. The tails measure about 5/16 square at their bases (smallest
dimension) and are about 3/8 in length. The joints are "tap in" tight,
not "press" fit but not a "drive it home" fit either. The pics show
the braces without being tapped in tight for clarity, they are flush
when tapped all the way in. I expect expansion/contraction of the
joints in a controlled environment to be pretty low.

I tend to over engineer things from a strength perspective, but
looking at the tails, I'm not comfortable. My intent is not to glue
these joints (for when she moves one day and wants to take the rack
out), just tap them into place and leave it as it is. Trial fits of
the joints have shown the structure to be very stable under moderate
hand pressure fore and aft. Almost all the stress should be vertical
and minimal racking forces seem likely, unless someone gets wild
pulling (or placing) a bottle. But I'm still not comfortable.

Should I recut the tails and/or pins and tails both to get more wood
in the joints? It'll be a PITA, but I have extra stock for the braces,
so it can be done.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Regards.