You folks are a terrible influence

[Jerome Hanby]

I just looked at someone's project post and thought, blah machine cut dovetails. If I ever managed to get my dovetail jig to turn out anything half as presentable as what I was looking at I'd probably carry them with me wherever I went just to show them off! Not sure when this hand cut (or at least variable spaced to look hand cut) prejudice took up residence in my head, but I'm pretty sure who's to blame!

[Glen Butler]

Sounds like this thread belongs in the neander forum. I have been frequenting it more lately and I really want to try hand cut dovetails. I have done just fine with a dovetail jig, but there is no art to it.

[Jerome Hanby]

I don't think it belongs there, if you ever catch me hand cutting dovetails there will be someone with a gun forcing me...

[Victor Robinson]

I've caught a lot of contagious addictions, desires, and attitudes from these forums including various neander-type inclinations, but for some reason hand-cut dovetails is something I have never had, don't currently have, and don't foresee having, interest in. I don't know why...guess I'm just immune.

[Jerome Hanby]

Me neither (see the gun point post above). It just struck me as humorous what popped into my head while looking at that project and I knew exactly where the though originated!

I like my chisels, since I got my Work Sharp setup and got a plane actually working like it's supposed to work, I like my hand planes, and I have a Shark Japanese style saw that I use quite often for little jobs and anything that requires flush cutting, but I would never even dream of trying to tackle an all hand tool project. Well, maybe if someone wanted a piece of furniture where none of the lines were straight and didn't mind waiting decades for me to complete it...

[Rod Sheridan]

Having built furniture with only hand tools, I agree that the components aren't perfectly flat, straight or even the exact same size.

However it didn't matter as each joint was hand fitted to match its mate.

The only time exact uniformity is required is with machines since they cannot compensate for individuality.

My FIL cuts dovetails by hand with very little marking. Having spent 50 years as a cabinet maker, he has made tens of thousands of dovetails by hand. A couple of scribes with a marking gauge, some marks with a chisel made without measuring and saw/pare and poof, one end of the dovetails. Transfer with a marking knife, saw, pare and they fit with a tap of your fist.

When he was teaching me to make dovetails, I was measuring and drawing and checking and drawing until he grabbed the pencil and said " we're making dovetails, not drawings. You get paid for the drawer, not drawing".

Looking at his dovetails, they're slim, elegant, and not perfectly uniform, yet pleasing to the eye and they seem to hold the furniture together. Machine made dovetails often look like box joints to me, precise, certainly strong enough, great for utility applications.

If I have a hand made piece of furniture however, I would rather see slightly impefect hand cut dovetails than machine made ones. In this day of machines and excellent adhesives, there's no need for a dovetail, so for me, the use is is more decorative on fine furniture so I'd like to see hand cut joints.

Regards, Rod.

[David Nelson1]

I'm still learning to hold the saw!

[Peter Quinn]

Machine made dovetails often look like box joints to me, precise, certainly strong enough, great for utility applications.

If I have a hand made piece of furniture however, I would rather see slightly impefect hand cut dovetails than machine made ones. In this day of machines and excellent adhesives, there's no need for a dovetail, so for me, the use is is more decorative on fine furniture so I'd like to see hand cut joints.

Regards, Rod.

This is my feeling exactly. I do not bother to make dovetails with jigs and routers. Either I make them by hand for drawers which are more important to me, or I make something much simpler and strong enough for my purpose. Machine made dovetails do not excite me or please me any more than a pinned rabbit or box joint, perhaps even a bit less in fact. Each wood worker has their own methods and goals, for me I prefer the sound of a chisel in wood to the sound of a router.