1st Hand Cut Dovetails

[Chen-Tin Tsai]

Well, in between the Christmas festivities today, I took a few minutes (90? ) to try my hand at some dovetails. I had just gotten my Veritas dovetail saw and had a small piece of cherry that I had milled up. The cherry was an end of a board that had a split in it so I cut it off, resawed it (with a table saw, though), and then dimensioned by hand. These pieces are about 3/8" thick, 3" wide and the long pieces are about 5" long. My Veritas carcass saws got a nice workout, as did my new shooting board!

Anyhow, without further ado, here are three pics each of my first two dovetails. What do ya think?









After cutting these two, I definitely had some impressions about cutting dovetails.

1. Hogging out the waste with a chisel is kind of a pain. My next purchase will be a fret saw.
2. I need a better marking gauge...mine wandered a bit and didn't leave a straight line.
3. I need better lighting, like a swing arm lamp. It was really hard sawing to the line when I couldn't see that well.
4. I see a 20 tpi Veritas rip dovetail saw in my future for doing these small pieces

[Roy Lindberry]

Well, in between the Christmas festivities today, I took a few minutes (90? ) to try my hand at some dovetails. I had just gotten my Veritas dovetail saw and had a small piece of cherry that I had milled up. The cherry was an end of a board that had a split in it so I cut it off, resawed it (with a table saw, though), and then dimensioned by hand. These pieces are about 3/8" thick, 3" wide and the long pieces are about 5" long. My Veritas carcass saws got a nice workout, as did my new shooting board!

Anyhow, without further ado, here are three pics each of my first two dovetails. What do ya think?









After cutting these two, I definitely had some impressions about cutting dovetails.

1. Hogging out the waste with a chisel is kind of a pain. My next purchase will be a fret saw.
2. I need a better marking gauge...mine wandered a bit and didn't leave a straight line.
3. I need better lighting, like a swing arm lamp. It was really hard sawing to the line when I couldn't see that well.
4. I see a 20 tpi Veritas rip dovetail saw in my future for doing these small pieces

Now those are some realistic 1st dovetails...unlike many that we see around here. They look like my first ones. Obviously there is room for improvement, and better tools will help, but the real solution is simply practice, practice, practice. Mine still aren't great, but I've come a long way.

Interesting thing about dovetails, though, is that even if they don't look nice, with a little glue they can still be a very strong joint. I'd be interested to see how these same dovetails look after being glued up (glue will cause the wood to swell and fill some of the minor gaps) and planed so the surfaces are even. While that much planing isn't really feasible with a drawer that is already cut to dimension, it provides a good look at the difference between a "rough" dovetail and a "cleaned up" one.

Thanks for sharing these pictures and keep practicing.

[Dave Beauchesne]

Chen - Tin:

My experience - I cut about 40 practice ' tails ' total on thru pins and tails prior to tackling a Tansu that was a wedding gift for my son and his Japanese bride. They looked like yours ( much worse actually to start ) but by the time I got to the Tansu, I was comfortable enough to forge ahead. The project consisted of 104 tails in the carcass and drawers.

The project went pretty well; it was at about tail # 100 that there was virtually no paring required, and I was getting so I could really ' see ' where the discrepancies were. A lamp on a pivoting arm was crucial. In my case, it took that long, and I think that would be the norm - practice makes perfect.

Mind you that was 2.5 years ago, and I have not done near enough shop time since - I will be getting back into it here soon.

BTW, I have a LN 15 ppi saw; the stock I used was 1/2 '' - at about tail # 90 starting it correctly kicked in.

Well done, keep it up.

Dave Beauchesne

[Don Dorn]

Thanks for your honesty in posting the "real" first ones. It's obvious to me that you're going to get on top of this before you know it. I advise practicing a corner each time you go into the shop. It's good practice and also warms you up for accurate marking, sawing, chiseling (if you would continue that) and fitting. This skill transfers to many other aspects so I think you'll find it will take your woodworking to another level. I've been at it for a few years and am still learning - it's the fun part. Good job - keep it up.

[Jon Toebbe]

If the numbering indicates the order you cut 'em, I can already see noticeable improvement between set number 1 and 2. Don's advice is excellent -- once the weather warms up and I can setup my "shop" on the porch again, I plan to start a "dovetail-a-day" program. Maybe I'll be brave enough to post photos... Given how wonky the weather's been here in Colorado that could be as early as next week or as late as June.

[Andrew Gibson]

IMO Number 2 looks like a solid joint, glue it up, clean it up and it will look good.
I would argue tht joints of this quality are in antiques all over the place in secondary places like drawer sides and such.

I would say give it a half dozen more corners and you will really be on top of the tails.

[Chuck Nickerson]

Good start, they look like my early dovetails.

Save these early joints. Later, you can use them to practice the techniques for fixing dovetails.

[James Taglienti]

Not bad for firsts! Paring to that line is tough, huh?

I have some old furniture in our house with really bad through dovetails in the back, I mean like the guy didn't even try. Someone told me the apprentices cut the ones in the back. This apprentice must have been six years old.

[Jim Barrett]

Well, in between the Christmas festivities today, I took a few minutes (90? ) to try my hand at some dovetails. I had just gotten my Veritas dovetail saw and had a small piece of cherry that I had milled up. The cherry was an end of a board that had a split in it so I cut it off, resawed it (with a table saw, though), and then dimensioned by hand. These pieces are about 3/8" thick, 3" wide and the long pieces are about 5" long. My Veritas carcass saws got a nice workout, as did my new shooting board!

1. Hogging out the waste with a chisel is kind of a pain. My next purchase will be a fret saw.
2. I need a better marking gauge...mine wandered a bit and didn't leave a straight line.
3. I need better lighting, like a swing arm lamp. It was really hard sawing to the line when I couldn't see that well.
4. I see a 20 tpi Veritas rip dovetail saw in my future for doing these small pieces

A fret saw will help immensely...practice chiseling to a line....take a piece of scrap and scribe a line 1/8" away from the edge. Then take your chisel and creep up to that line...when you are oh so close put the chisel in the scribe and establish that nice crisp line. Practice this as you will gain confidence on how close to come to a line without "bruising" it.

What are you using now for a marking gauge? Are you using a pencil, knife or pen to scribe your line? I like using a pen...works great for me (and Rob Cosman)

Lighting...ahhh...yep you need to see that line so you can cut to it An inexpensive task light from amazon.com works fine....do a search on amazon for a task light. Think you can get one for ~ $20

I think your Veritas saw you have now will work fine. I would scribe a bunch of lines in a piece of scrap wood and cut to the line...keep cutting until you feel good about your results. The goal is to go right from the saw to the finished product....of course it is a goal...at least my goal!

Good luck and keep practicing!

Jim

[Ryan Griffey]

The chopping for the tails should be started with the widest chisel you own that will fit in the gap. You can lightly chop that at the line and then pare back to the chop to retain that crisp shoulder. If you use a fret saw just make sure you do the final chopping at the line with a wider chisel. The wider chisel will help you maintain a straight line. This solved a lot of my problems when I learned.

[Chen-Tin Tsai]

Hey, everybody. Thanks for all of the advise. I went and got a fret saw from Woodcraft yesterday and it made cutting out the waste much easier. I didn't end up cutting any more dovetails as I didn't have any stock to play with, but I did cut out some of the "pins" in my practice board and chisel out some waste. I also went looking for one of those inexpensive swing arm lamps, but couldn't find any. Did they stop making those? I normally see them at Wally world or Target for around $10 for the clamp version, but couldn't find it at either... Was this the "hot" gift for this Christmas season?

I also realized I was exerting too much downward pressure with the dovetail saw when starting the cut. It seems the teeth was creating these little bumps where they dig in instead of cut a clean kerf. Now I realized that starting the kerf just require laying the saw and lightly drawing it back. It was funny: I tried the Rob Cosman method (starting at the far edge), the Joel Moskowitz method (starting evenly) and the Adam Cherubini method (starting at the close edge) as explained by Derek Cohen's webpage and it all ended up badly when I put too much pressure on it. However, with light pressure and a smooth stroke, it worked nicely.

Incidentally, the piece with the dovetails cut as a practice was supposed to be a small box, until I screwed up the end piece on the other side. When I put it together and show it to my folks who were in town, they said: "is that a napkin holder?" I said, "er, yeah, of course it is!" I slapped a couple coats of finish on it and put it on the table!

[Jim Barrett]

Take a look here for a task light:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ef=oss_product

Jim