Dovetails, again...

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Oh, almost forgot. To the OP, I sometimes use a dovetail marking guide to layout my angle and sometimes don't. I sometimes layout perfectly even spacing and sometimes don't. I do ALWAYS, mark a square line across the end grain of my tail board, even if I'm just eyeballing the spacing of these lines. I find that actually marking the square line helps me avoid any fitting issue before they happen.

I thought I'd try to not mark the ends last night during the session, and promptly cut a twisted tail. Makes fitting the pins a bit challenging.

New question for you all, I had been practising on salvaged some pine sheeting, switched to poplar last night. My knife marks looked completely different on the clean lighter colored wood. It got me wondering, how deeply do you score with your marking knife? Just deep enough to register the chisels, or deep enough to see easily? I followed the score with a pencil to get them to stand out, but was wondering how deep to go.

[Daniel Rode]

Thanks Chris. My practice is more directed than it might appear. I need to build a pair of drawers. The practice joints I'm cutting use the same woods (white oak and clear pine) and are the same width and thicknesses. Little by little I've been improving my ability to cut the joint and also experimenting with the layout.

Last night's practice looks suspiciously like the prior 2 nights I actually glued this one up, planed it smooth and a quick coat of shellac so I could be sure I liked the contrast.

DSC02073-M.jpg

Dovetails, along with M&T joints, are IMO very important to those new to woodworking with hand tools. The skills required to make these joints are foundational. The lessons learned at this stage are building blocks.

[Daniel Rode]

For me, it's all about the lighting. I have a small swing arm lamp on the work bench that I move from side to side to get light in the right place at the right direction. Even with that, sometimes I need to hit trace the lines with pencil. A fine mechanical pencil works well but a very sharp pencil also works. I actually use a chisel to make a flat wedge shaped point if I use a standard #2.

My knife marks looked completely different on the clean lighter colored wood. It got me wondering, how deeply do you score with your marking knife? Just deep enough to register the chisels, or deep enough to see easily? I followed the score with a pencil to get them to stand out, but was wondering how deep to go.

[Chris Griggs]

That's a good practice strategy. And again, that joint looks good to me. I'd say go ahead and build the drawers, but of course, there is never anything wrong with setting ones sights ever higher. Glad to see you are having so much success.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Daniel

Your dovetails look very good to me. They look more than ready for your drawers. Indeed, they look good enough to grace the best of drawers.

Dovetails certainly bring out the emotions in forumites. It is the same with BU vs BD, freehand vs guides, etc, etc.

I am not sure what to make of those who state that they do not use markers - is this the equivalent of someone saying that they do not use a honing guide? Machismo?

I am not sure about the best American furniture, but the best Olde and modern English and Australian furniture makers took/take pride in all aspects of their work, and dovetails were no exception. Of the modern era, look at the work of Allan Peters. There were an awful lot of slim dovetails cut. They are not a recent affectation.

I generally like the work of Jim Krenov. Some do, some don't. Most of us, at any rate, credit him with vitalising awareness of design elements. One of these elements was dovetailing. Did he use a marker? I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's like sharpening - whatever helps. I use dovetail markers because they help me decide the angle and spacing that fits the piece and becomes part of the design. More strength to you if you can do this without a marker.





Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Weaver]

My parents accumulate mid-range american furniture (that's probably 150-250 years old - that kind of thing is readily available in central PA without paying an arm and a leg), and even on that, the dovetails are neatly made and the drawer sides are thinner stock. There may be some overcuts here or there, but the proportions are very similar to yours derek.

There may be sloppy dovetails on very cheap furniture, but even on the midrange furniture that I have seen (albeit I have never gone out of my way to study furniture or have an official answer on something like this) the work is competently done and obviously by a professional with good proportions. The only thing that comes to mind is the space between the pins aren't quite as tiny, probably because they didn't have to concern themselves at that time with leaving proof of execution manually via tail proportions.

The selection of the nice quartered sides on your drawer, the proportions and the nice simple bead make that drawer look very authentic and handsome. The piece itself is very similar to a lot of the kind of furniture my parents pick up (raised panel doors with pinned M&T joints and a straight forward bead). They are not educated furniture buyers so much as they know enough spot hand made stuff and to avoid junk.