My first dovetail - be gentle, please!

[John Keeton]

Well, it will not go in the Smithsonian for sure, but I am happy with my first attempt. Against the advice of Rob Cosman, and everything I had read, I skipped the recommended saw practice. I should not have rushed. Handling the saw correctly is really the key!! As they say, haste makes waste.

I didn't seem to have as much difficulty with chopping, and did very little paring - only in the bottom and corners of the tail recesses.

I used my Pfeil bench chisels, and they just will not fit in the dovetails without marring the side of the tails. So, I will be looking for two or three dovetail chisels with better side bevels. Wilbur Pan and Mark Singer have given some advice on choices there - the search will begin soon.

Comments and suggestions are welcome - I have thick skin, and take criticism well (lots of practice at hearing it!!) The need for saw practice is obvious, and better dovetail chisels, but the key here seems to be just to do a bunch of them!!

I want to thank Gary Zimmel for his detailed postings, and his encouraging PMs. And, of course, Mark Singer's dovetails are beautiful. To Mike Holden, I am not ready to tackle hundreds of these yet!

Also, there have been several creekers that have posted their efforts and thanks go to all of you - or curses perhaps. As a tailed tool user, this is new ground - and I like it!! The slope is getting slippery, and it appears to be steep!:D

[Mike K Wenzloff]

Right nice, John. A bit of glue and planed flush and they'll look great.

As for chisels, consider grinding down (I have used a belt sander, coarse grit for the initial shaping) the bevel edge of the Pfeil chisels. If you want to purchase new, consider Blue Sprice.

http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/temp/bspruce_0003.jpg

fwiw, I have used straight-sided firmers for paring out tails. One needs to use a smaller size than might be used with a bevel-edged chisel and angle it through the joint.

Take care, Mike

[Hank Knight]

John, Those look very nice. No need to ask for gentle treatment. There' not much I can see to beat you up about.:)

[Jim Becker]

Darn nice work, John!

[Doug Shepard]

Looks good to moi.

[willie sobat]

John,

Those look as good or better than mine and I've been doing them by hand for 13 years. I like to produce period reproductions. After looking at lots of old dovetails I have come to the conclusion that the great masters of old didn't care about the looks of their DTs. Great job.

[Rick Erickson]

Holy smokes John - those are great! Mine looked like that after about 10 attempts (following all of Rob Cosman's advice). Cutting a straight line on your pins IS KEY. The tails are easy. I've made several hundred practice straight-line cuts and almost have some consistency down. A few hundred more and I think I will be good to go :D.

[Alan DuBoff]

Looks very nice John. Keep practicing! If you had a whole set of 8 completed drawers with similar joinery, you'd be set! ;) These look Xlnt for first ones. :)

[John Keeton]

Thanks guys for the encouraging comments. The camera hides a lot of the flaws. After warming up a bit, I went back out to the shop and tried another set. I am doing tails first, but got them too tight and cracked the tail board.

So, I decided to take the pin board and try to cut another set of tails - this is the result. Turned out fair, but one cut is pretty far off. Let me tell you, cutting tails first is far easier in my vast experience of two sets of dovetails!!

Alan, 8 sets of these sounds like a long way away! But, I will get there eventually. These are certainly not 3.5 minute dovetails:rolleyes:

Mike, is that Blue Spruce chisel unaltered? And, what size is that? Really looks like what I need. I have been looking at the Japanese, but I sure like that one!

Rick, I am probably going to go back and do what I should have done first - some saw exercises. That really is the foundation of this method. I have not had to do much paring in the chopped out areas and only a slight bit elsewhere. I think if I can "master the saw" as Cosman says, this will get much easier.

Thanks, again, for all of the encouragement. These did not come without some very contorted facial expressions, and a good deal of murmuring. Unfortunately, a few years ago, I gave up swearing! :D:D

[gary Zimmel]

Must of been a good feeling after your shop time today John.

Great job! How does it feel to have the first one in the record books....
Won't be long and you will be smashing them out.
Have you figured out what the first project will be to have hand cut drawers?

You've got to love it when a plan comes together.

Great job again. You should be proud.
Can't wait to see the next ones.

Keep us posted.

How does it feel to be looking down the slope...
I bet I know someone who will have some new toys real soon.


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[Mike K Wenzloff]

John--yes, those are how the Blue Spruce are shaped from Dave Jeske.

Excellent chisels, as are the new bench chisels which also have very thin edges at the bevel.

Take care, Mike

[Mike K Wenzloff]

Those look good also, John.

Really, glue up a practice corner and plane them flush. I think you'll be even happier with the results.

Take care, Mike

[lowell holmes]

Chris Schwarz did an article about handsaw practice that has helped me

The chips and shavings group had an exercise to see who could saw the thiness shaving cross grain that was interesting and another exercise to see how if we could leave half a knife cut with a saw. I didn't do well on the exercises, but my sawing improved. I recently was able to trim 1/32 off the shoulders of a tenon with a saw.

[John Dykes]

Wow. Well done John....

No really, where are your real first ones! ;)

I would encourage you to take Mike W's advice. Take 60 seconds and glue them up and repair the gaps if you desire (the end grain wedge trick) - then plane them even.

I think you'll find you don't need to practice anymore.... you're ready for a production run. Try it and see!

Check the archive - I wasn't honest enough to post my first attempt!

Warm regards,

[Wilbur Pan]

Looking real good, John! My first dovetails didn't look that good.

For me, the key to avoiding gaps is to remember to leave the line on whatever board you are cutting second, whether you go pins or tails first.

[John Keeton]

John, that was honestly my first one. Trick is - it was better than the REAL second one that split out. I guess I should have labeled the second pics as #2.5 - the tail board was the third one cut.

Lowell is right on the saw practice. I am going to spend some time tomorrow with the saw, and try one more set later in the day and see what happens. Lowell, I doubt I would ever be able to slice a 32nd with a saw!

On the glue - unfortunately, what you see has glue on it already! I just had to see how it would come together, and Cosman says one cut, one fit. So, I glued it before I put it together.

Mike, I will be checking into the Blue Spruce. Tried to buy a set from ebay, but they are going close to retail and the auction isn't even over yet! What sizes would you suggest? My 6mm Pfeil is too large for the small slots on the ones I did. It still presses on the side of the tail. But, I would like a larger one for cutting the pin board - 3/4"??

Gary, the next project is a walnut table/hutch. My plans right now call for 2 larger drawers, and 3 smaller ones. Just enough for a newbie on dovetails! Fortunately, I have some extra wood, and the walnut and poplar scraps burn real well in the fireplace!

[Jason Tuinstra]

John, they look great. Are you sure these are your first ones? I think a lot of guys are intimidated by the tailless tools, but you're discovering what many have, hand tools bring a great deal of joy to working with wood. Enjoy the journey!

[Andy Hsieh]

those look like my dovetails now....and well, I'm past my first:o

really nice - especially for your first.:)

andy

[Rob Young]

Very nice! I'm impressed. My first ones didn't look anything like that. Heck, my 22nd ones don't look like that! I feel so inadequate now... :D

[Jim Koepke]

Have to agree with all the others, those look pretty good for a first timer.

What bugs me is when a lot of dovetails are done together, my last set will always look better than the first set of the project. So practice first may be a good idea.

One of the chisels bought in a batch off of eBay had a badly pitted back side. After a lot of grinding, it turned into a great dovetail chisel. It became a nice thin chisel for getting into tight places. Been thinking about doing the same with some smaller chisels.

Also, I always check my fit before the gluing. Maybe those who can cut with the best can get a perfect fit first time every time, but I still feel safer checking the fit first. I guess it all comes down to knowing exactly where to split the line and having a saw that leaves a smooth edge.

One time at a show, Glenn Drake was demonstrating a new saw and his "kerf starter." He used feeler gauges to off set the marking to compensate for the saw kerf. He cut his tails with only a depth mark, then marked his pins with the kerf starter and sawed down to the depth line. Worked pretty good.

jim

[Mark Singer]

John,
Excellent! You are there!
The Blue Spruce are great as mentioned. You will need wider chisels to span between pins and keep it straight on half blinds.
Your sawing is almost perfect and your second set are really nice. Very classy with the narrow pins.
Try the tails first. Gary and I both do it that way. After years of cutting pins first I switched to tails fist and that is easier

[Phillip Pattee]

John,
Your dovetails look much better than my first attempt at hand cut. I rationalized that my problem was that I used pine for my first ones. Truth is I need that saw practice. I still feel better about them than using the router and jig--which is what I had done before. I still have a long way to go on hand cut dovetails.

I got the Jim Kingshott dvd on dovetails for Christmas. He does tails first too. He makes it look easy.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

First huh?
More like first posted I should think.
Either that or you'll be master class in a month or less.

Good DT.

[John Keeton]

I rationalized that my problem was that I used pine for my first ones. ...I got the Jim Kingshott dvd on dovetails for Christmas. He does tails first too. He makes it look easy.
Phillip, I used the poplar as that is what I had in the shop, but I do think pine would be more difficult. But you are correct on the saw practice - I am heading back to the shop shortly to go back to that before going further with more dovetails.

The Cosman DVDs and shopbook have been great! I studied this concept to death before making the first effort. I need to accomplish a task in my head before I start, so my study period on this DT thing was well over a month. I read every post on the creek I could find, watched youtube videos, and sucked every bit of knowledge I could from every imaginable source. I cut dovetails in my head while waiting on the "stuff" I had ordered for this endeavor to come in.

And, the pics don't show all the flaws. I still have a long way to go before I will be comfortable with this. Also, the speed with which these were done was a crawl. I will have to build my skill and confidence level considerably before I will be ready for a major project.

And Mark, thanks again for your inspiration, and your kind words. I just ordered the Blue Spruce chisels. Al Navas highly recommended them, as well. On the tails first, I had already decided that was the way to go. Kind of ironic that shortly after that, Gary started his thread on his drawer project.

Thanks again to everyone who contributes to this forum for the help, and for all the kind comments.

[Larry Fox]

Wow John - those look incredible for early attempts. Nicely done. I have been trying myself here of late and let me just say that I have a one-gallon ziplock bags full of samples that don't look anywhere near as good as those. I think I have the sawing down and am convinced that my biggest problem is the chopping / chisel work. I am inspired by yours for sure.

[harry strasil]

Real Nice John, they look good.

FWIW to those who have a difficult time starting the saw on the line, here is a little tip I use when cutting dovetails. My Mentor showed me this little trick.

Use your sharp marking knife or even a chisel and cut down aways on the line and then cut at a 45 or less to cut out a little notch for the saw teeth to set in to line up your saw where you want it.

[Al Navas]

Harry,

There you go again - using those modern cordless tools again...:D Neat!

Another little trick, but probably a little harder to implement, as it requires a little "touch": To be able to start the saw properly, I found that using a very light touch, or de-weighting the saw, allows you to start the cut every time. This “light touch” also means that you are exerting on the saw *only* the force required to push and pull the saw on the board - no more, and no less.

I discuss this a little in one of the posts on my blog, on "cutting to the line" (http://sandal-woodsblog.com/2008/12/11/hand-cut-dovetails-cutting-to-the-line/).


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[Al Navas]

... I just ordered the Blue Spruce chisels....
You will love using those chisels! What wood did you order? Now I wonder how busy David Jeske must be.


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[harry strasil]

Al, I break people of gripping a saw too tight by giving them a raw egg to hold in the hand that grips the saw to get them to "lighten up", and it works for most people. Talk about a "LIGHT TOUCH".

[John Keeton]

Thanks, Larry, for the comments. I don't have much trouble with the chisel work, as I did a lot of handwork years ago with chisels, pocketknives, and whatever crude instruments I could cobble together. The real trick for me now is using good, sharp chisels - something I was not used to until I conquered the scary sharp system!

Harry, good tip! I will try that on my next practice round. And, you and Al are correct on the "light touch." Cosman talks about this a lot on the DVDs, but putting it in practice is another matter. I have to be very conscious of that with every cut. The natural tendency is to bear down.

Al, I ended up just getting the standard handles in cocobola. I really like curly maple, but it didn't make sense to pay more for it, and I didn't want to extend the wait, either. The website says 3-4 weeks, but I am hoping to get them sooner. It really is an effort with my Pfeils. They chop fine, and hold an edge very well, but I just can't get in close enough to the pins on my cut, and when I cut the slots in the tailboard - I ding the sides of the tails a little. Although I have a Pfeil skew, and a couple of fishtails I made, it would be nice to get closer without so much extra paring.

The venture continues!!

[Ken Werner]

John, your DTs look excellent. Well on your way.