Dovetail layout

[jeff vanek]

I want to start hand cutting dovetails, and I've done a fair amount of research on saws and chisels, but I'm having a hard time finding good information on marking out the pins and tails, most of the videos I've seen, they don't go into layout detail. Have I just been watching the wrong videos?

[Mark Salomon]

Yes. Get the Cosman DVD...everything you want to know. I'm sure that you can order directly from his web site.

[Trevor Walsh]

There is also a great writeup in the book "Made By Hand" which has a bunch of other great information in it as well.

The way I do it is...

Layout the baselines on your boards, board thickness plus a 32nd

Take two pair of dividers, one I set to the pin width.

Layout the pin width from the ends of the tail board, with a ruler and square. AKA mark the left and the right.

Walk off the second pair of dividers from the pin mark to the opposite end of the board adjusting to get them to end perfectly, with the number of tails you want, then repeat from the opposite end.

You should now have a bunch of divider marks that you can knife in across the endgrain on the tail board, I make dovetail markers to mark the tail slopes with a pencil and saw away.

[Chris Griggs]

There are a few ways to do it, but definitely always start by marking the baseline. For actually subdividing the end grain you can use dividers as Trevor mentioned, you can eye-ball by marking the center and then subdividing further by eye (e.g. Frank Klaus), or you can use a ruler to subdivide things evenly.

I just use a ruler, never tried dividers, one of these days I will, but I'm just used to the way I do it now and it works for me. For using a ruler, first mark the width of the half pins in from the edge on the end grain or baseline. Then, holding the ruler on the face grain, angle it until it it easily divides the the board into the number of tails you want. For example, if you wanted 3 tails on a wider than 3 inch board, you would angle the ruler so that one edge of the board lines up at the 0 and the other lines up at the 6. You would then put tick marks on the 2" mark and 4" mark. This will evenly divide the entire board (not just the area between the pins) into 3 parts - if you subdivide just the area between the half pins you marked you will end up with uneven tails. The two tick marks you made represent the center of the two full pins. Mark the full pin size of of these (if your half pins on the end were 1/8 inch in than your pin would be 1/4 inch so you would mark 1/8" off each side of your tick marks. From those marks you then strike your actual lines. Actually, I usually do all the subdividng on the base line than carry the dovetail angle lines up to the end grain to ensure the pins are wide enough at the base for my chisel to fit.

I don't know if this makes sense. It's hard to describe, and a video is definitely helpful. FWW's paysite has at least a couple of quite good videos on DT layout and cutting - its where I learned most of my DT basics and where I picked up the ruler layout method. Its something like $6 a month or $35 a year. You could always just sign up for a monthly membership, watch what you need, printout/save any number of PDF articles you want and then cancel it at the end of the month.

[Dale Cruea]

I got a video of Tage Frid and Dovetails.
He has some different ideas but it did show some on layout.

[Jim Koepke]

Jeff,

There are a lot of videos online that show the basics of making dovetails.

One place to start might be woodtreks.com. There is a dovetail video listed at the bottom of the page. There is also a site search function. You might also try searching Youtube.

I have tried the complex method of using dividers and striking lines. If you are trying for perfect symmetry, then this may be the way to go. For me, it seems to take too long and doesn't really look any better than a quick layout by eye.

Using the SMC search box, I searched > cabinet dovetail layout stick < to find a post of mine and found a couple of others.

Here is a post from someone using their computer to do the work:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...out-calculator

My method is to lay them out once on a story stick and then use a stick to mark them:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...-and-Dovetails

I have them marked out on a stick that was chosen to be as long as any row of dovetails I ever plan to lay out. It will work on a much smaller piece of stock.

Further on in the thread is my method of making heart shaped dovetails or lovetails.

The stick face shown is for laying out dovetails with pins and tails the same size for the strength.

Another face is marked for laying out the tails for smaller pins.

One caveat, is my method cuts tails first. If one wanted to cut pins first, then the layout stick would need to be a bit different, but would not be difficult to adapt.

One thing to remember no matter what the lay out method is to make sure there is room enough for your chisel to get in and do the clean up between the pins or tails.

I use a Joseph Marples dovetail sloped tool to lay out the non-square lines.

jtk

[bob blakeborough]

I use the pair of dividers method. I find it to be the quickest and easiest for evenly spaced tails. That said, I really want to just eye 'em up and cut them one of these days. Not brave enough to do that on a piece yet. Just practice boards...

[jeff vanek]

thanks for the info guys, i'm on overload at the momment with all the info, i went to woodcraft today and bought the cosman 2.0 dovetail dvd today