Shop made dovetail marker

[Daniel Rode]

As I'm learning to make dovetails, I found that dovetail marker would be an improvement over using my sliding bevel gauge. I wanted to make markers rather then buy them. I chose to make a saddle style. This one is 1:8. I'm going to use it to mark out the dovetails on it's 1:6 mate. Since it's a dovetail marker, it would seem silly not to use a dovetail. I did the rough dimensioning with my power jointer and planer but everything else, was done by hand. Knife, saw, chisel and plane. My shooting board was completed and put to use a few minutes later


The marker is 3/8" thick, 1 3/4 wide and 2 1/2" long on both faces. I was going to shorten it to about 1" after assembly but it seems to be a good length as is. It didn't come out perfect cosmetically, but it's strong, straight and square so I'm happy. It was a great opportunity to practice accurate sawing.


Dovetail-Marker.jpg

[jason thigpen]

That's a nice looking dovetail marker. I can appreciate the use of dovetails on a dovetail marker!

[Rob Lee]

Nice work..... but I'll ask what everyone else is thinking....:

"how'd ya mark the dovetails when making ing your marker? "

Cheers -

Rob

[Jerome Hanby]

Nice work..... but I'll ask what everyone else is thinking....:

"how'd ya mark the dovetails when making ing your marker? "

Cheers -

Rob

Computer science for the win. You do it the same way you write a decent c compiler. First you write a crappy compiler, then you rewrite the compiler to be better and compile it with the crappy one, finally you compile the better compiler source with the better compiler to get your final version.

In this case, you only take pictures of the final one <g>.

[Rob Lee]

Computer science for the win. You do it the same way you write a decent c compiler. First you write a crappy compiler, then you rewrite the compiler to be better and compile it with the crappy one, finally you compile the better compiler source with the better compiler to get your final version.

In this case, you only take pictures of the final one <g>.

Never wrote a compiler, but if you ever need work done on an Arabic printer driver in assembler.... I'm your guy. RTL printing, DBCS, and lam-alif processing (contextual character shaping).

Now that's geeky.

Cheers -

Rob
(who couldn't push and pop pointers to save his life now.....!)

[john davey]

Oh the GEEK alert is high on this one . Cobal programmer in the Army so I am picking on myself as well...

Nice marker by the way... Need to stay on topic ....

[Mike Henderson]

I've made similar dovetail markers for the dovetails class I teach. I made two kinds but prefer the one like yours.

Dovetail markers 1.jpg

The first kind uses a sliding dovetail to hold one piece to the other. The "advantage" of this one is you can use it either way.
Dovetail markers 2.jpg

The other is a standard dovetail marker, similar to the one you made.
Dovetail markers 3.jpg

Making those tiny dovetails is difficult, more difficult than making larger dovetails. They are all about 7 degrees.

Mike

[Federico Mena Quintero]

Very pretty!

[Judson Green]

Pretty slick!

[Daniel Rode]

Mike, I was reading your dovetail articles at wkfinetools.com and saw a picture of your saddle style marker. I made mine very similar to the picture of yours. I chose a single dovetail to make it a bit simpler to cut.

Small world, eh? Also, your dovetail articles are very thorough. I'll bet the class is excellent.

I've made similar dovetail markers for the dovetails class I teach. I made two kinds but prefer the one like yours.