Fixing a botched dovetail

[Dan McGonigle]

I started on a hall table a few months ago, got the legs, side and rear aprons and both front stretchers cut, joined and fitted. Those parts have been sitting idle for a while and I just reassembled the table tonight to get back to work on it. The upper stretcher, above the drawers and connecting the front two legs, developed a small twist and I’m just not happy with the fit. I’m going to make a new one. The stretcher is joined to the front two legs with dovetails. Would it be better to cut new dovetails matched to the existing sockets in the top of the legs ? Or fill in the dovetail sockets and chop new ones matched to the new tails?

[Mike Henderson]

The question is "Can you mark the new tails from the existing sockets?" If you can, I'd just make new tails to fit the existing sockets.

Mike

[Pat Barry]

If the existing tails fit nicely then you could use those to scribe and cut new tails to match.

[Robert Engel]

What Pat said. Cut them a little oversized and pare to fit.

Or is you can't mark the tails directly you could use a piece of paper to trace the edges.

[James Jayko]

Some weirdos intentionally cut the pins first; look for a video on YouTube and you can do it backwards.