dovetailing long stock?

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I'm getting close to the point where I need to put some dovetails in the carcase of a tool cabinet I'm working on.

Thing is, the sides of the cabinet are about 4' long. My bench is around 31 1/2" tall. Any tips for how to cut something over a foot taller than the top of my bench? I'm thinking I'll gang cut the tails, so I can clamp the two boards together and hopefully cut down on vibration. Otherwise, I guess I get an appropriately sized pullsaw, and do it sitting below the piece? Or make some sort of large brace?

[Sean Hughto]

A moxon vise would add another 7 to 10 inches.

You could raise up your bench on blocks or whatever.

If you're worried about sawing height, you could stand on a platform of some sort.

Vibration shouldn't be that big a deal at a foot of projection on dovetails. Use your free hand to grip the board to further steady it if need be.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I guess vibration is what I was mostly worried about. I guess at long as it cuts well, a little extra noise isn't that bad.

I'll certainly be standing on something. Otherwise I'd have to saw underhand or backwards or something . . .

[Correy Smith]

You may overhang the work from the end of the bench and cut kneeling or sitting, er, sorry , IF your using a pull saw. My weapon of choice.....

[Richard Line]

Add an additional board, front & back, of the boards your dovetailing, set just below where the saw needs to go. Clamp these additional boards to make a much thicker pack. The whole pack is of course clamped in the vise. That should vibrate a lot less.

[Jim Koepke]

My bench has about 4" overhang at the tail vise end. When cutting some dovetails I removed the vise and made a spacer that would fill the gap about halfway to the floor. Some dowel stock was glued into the spacer to fit holes in the legs. Clamping the boards to the top and the spacer held them solid for sawing the tails and pins of a large cabinet being made for the wash room. This spacer works so well my saw bench now has some holes in it so it can be used to extend the height of the saw bench.

jtk

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Joshua

When I needed to dovetail the outer section of the dog strip for my bench (6'6" long), I clamped it in the Record face vice ..

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/BuidingaBench4_html_m5555eda4.jpg

... and was forced to saw the lines from the opposite side ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Bench%20build/BuidingaBench4_html_m2ccf9ff0.jpg

If that was not fun enough, I did not have a bench to transfer the tails to the pins, and had to do this ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Bench%20build/BuidingaBench4_html_m457445d7.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Bench%20build/BuidingaBench4_html_m3639ed1d.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Fortunately I have a bench, and the top and bottom are shorter than the bench is tall, so I can transfer the pins.

For clarification, the stock is a little under 12 inches wide, and around 3/4" thick. I suppose my leg vise does open enough that I could clamp it like Derek's shots. I'd probably have to drag the bench out from where it is a bit, but that's not too bad.

Jim's method brings up a good point - if I do a good job securing below, that will certainly help. I was thinking I'd secure the left side of the board in my leg vise, and then clamp the right side to my deadman. I could also secure it to the stretcher, or use a parallel clamp across the bench top to secure it to that.

I think working from "below" with a pull saw would be ideal, but I wonder if the pull saws I have are really ideal for cutting the tails - I guess I'd have to experiment.

Of course, just looking at the boards over my morning coffee and wondering if I matched the show faces best considering the boards I have, I looked at the shelves in the back room, and realized, that we do own a jigsaw. Perhaps not the tool I'd be most accurate with, but these aren't going to be narrow fancy tails, and for cutting the tails in the end of these pieces, all I need is straight and perpendicular, (well, straight and perpendicular and stops at the right place) which it (or rather, I) could manage. The top and bottom are more manageable in size, and could be scribed to fit and cut "conventionally". For some reason, after all the trouble I've got to prepping this stock, I find the idea of this being the place I use power hilarious.

[Tom Scott]

I'm in the process of making some dovetailed blanket chests, and just went through this same scenario. The long sides of my chests are 18"x42". I ganged the two sides together, clamped one side in my front vice, and used parallel clamps to clamp the other side to my bench. This was not a problem for vibration, but I did add a few clamps near the top and that helps. The harder part for me was then marking out the pins.

[Ryan Griffey]

I don't gang cut the pieces but I do clamp them in the vise at the same time. I raise the front board just above the scribe line. The rear board acts as a vibration dampener.

For really long/wide stock I lay the board down on the assembly table and kneel on it while sawing. Takes some practice but it works.

[Joshua Byrd]

Have you thought about a 'go bar'-type clamp? If you've got a scrap 1x laying around, you could always cut it to length and wedge it between the nearest wall and your board. If it's snug enough, you should have no trouble at all with vibration. Maybe beef it up and use a 2x4.

[Don Dorn]

Hate to admit it, but I'm too lazy to bother with dovetails under those circumstances. I'd probably switch either to rabbets with cut nails or dowels in at angles from the outside or a hefty tongue and dado. I like cutting dovetails, but if the piece won't fit well in the vise, I look to improvise. Good for you that you're getting after it.

[Jim Koepke]

It is projects such as this that have me thinking about why a shop needs an upstairs with a vise on the rail.

Or maybe a pit in the floor similar to those used for working under a car, but for woodworking.

jtk

[Jim Neeley]

I'm aware of a cabinetmaker (Rob Cosman) who has a trap door in the floor of his second-story shop for just such purposes. Where feasible that just seemed to me to make too much sense.

Just my $0.02...

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Hey! I live upstairs! I wonder if the downstairs neighbors will notice the hole in the ceiling?

Too bad the porch is in such sorry shape. I could clamp them there.

I thought about rabbets, but I figure given this thing is going to hold a fair amount of weight, I thought I'd go with tails. Plus, my fillester needs tuning if I'm going to do any exposed rabbets. I can finesse it 90 percent of the time, but when things go south, they look pretty poor.

[Charlie Stanford]

I'm aware of a cabinetmaker (Rob Cosman) who has a trap door in the floor of his second-story shop for just such purposes. Where feasible that just seemed to me to make too much sense.

Just my $0.02...

I wedge the workpiece in the stairwell of our permanent attic stairs and cut them sitting on a roll around stool on the attic floor. I arrange it, depending on length, so that the bottom of the workpiece is sitting on a stair tread with enough sticking up into the attic for me to roll up to it and saw. Marking out the mating workpiece is done the same way - just use boxes to rest the workpiece on, a low sawhorse, etc. Whatever works for the length piece(s) you are dovetailing.

You can use a two-by material as a backer, clamped below the root of the dovetails, to stiffen the whole arrangement.

Next time I do it I'll try to take a picture.

If you have stairs with railing, or access to same, you can clamp to the railing and saw them out that way. You could dovetail something ten feet long (++) if you wanted to...

[Don Jarvie]

Let me see if I can add anything. I'm making a dresser and the top and bottom pieces are 42 x 19. Pins are cut on the side pieces, 35 x 19. Since my bench isn't against the wall I clamp the piece to the front of the bench with 2 bar clamps, lay out the pins, tails and make all of the saw cuts. Take the piece out of the clamps and lay it flat on the bench and clamp it down on each side of the pins/tails are oriented so I have to chop them from the side.

Once everything is chopped, I put it back in the bar clamps on the front and do the final clean up work. I can see how the chopping wouldn't work well if I did it on the front of the bench in the bar clamps.

[Kenneth Speed]

Is there something precluding laying the pieces flat on top of the bench with the to be dovetailed end overhanging the bench and sawing downward?

I have a couple of shaker inspired benches that are roughly knee height and about 2'6" long that I use as saw horses, low work platforms, and stacked one atop the other as temporary shelves. I could, I imagine, screw a piece of wood between two of the legs and invert one bench on my workbench to get the needed height. I've done crazier things to complete a project!

If I had a shop with a pit in the floor all the nurses in the local hospital would know me by first name!

Ken


Ken

[Michael Ray Smith]

Or maybe a pit in the floor similar to those used for working under a car, but for woodworking.

jtk

Jim,

Maybe you finally identified a practical use for that Atkins flooring saw I bought a while back just because it looked cool! No, wait a minute. . . my work area is on a concrete floor. Oh, well, it still looks cool on the shelf.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

With the saws I've got that I like for sawing dovetails, I find I dislike laying things horizontally and sawing downward - although I haven't given it a try in a long while, I'd imagine I'd be better at it now, but the ergronomics is a little off for me, and I find it harder to be as accurate.

I've certainly sawed a piece laying horizontally quite a few times with a pull saw, but the ones I have aren't what I'd like to use for dovetails.

In the end, I just clamped it upright in my bench. I didn't gang saw, but did use the other side of the case to stiffen things, as Ryan suggested. I clamped the left side of the piece in my leg vise, and used a conveniently placed doghole with a small clamp to keep the right side nice and tight against the bench top. Then I clamped the lower right to the stretcher/deadman, and clamped the two pieces up near the cutline.

There was still enough vibration to be annoying, but once I got the cut started, it was fine. Starting the cut was a little finicky, though.

I stood on the stretchers of my sawbench to get myself above the cut - eventually I realized that by sort of leaning in and putting my weight on my left hand, where my thumb was guiding the start of the cut, that obviously cut down on the vibration, leaning onto the work like that. A couple of my cuts needed a little finessing with a paring chisel to be perfectly perpendicular, and the difficulty starting the cut meant I didn't follow my lines as well as I'd like on a couple of my tails, but I've always found it better to let the saw cut straight where it wants to go when you mess up at the start than try and correct a cut that begins going at the wrong the angle. Being the first part of the joint, it's not as critical, of course - I'll cut the pins to match.

I think I've justified getting a little dovetail pullsaw. Or at least some blades for the jigsaw we have. (Immediately after which, I will find the blades we have somewhere)

Transferring the pins wasn't that bad, but involved moving the bench way out into the middle of the room.

[Correy Smith]

234532234533234534234535 this my typical set-up for dovetailing cabinets sides or drawers etc.. I do not need to clamp the work in place because the force is directed and supported by the table. All you need is a surface and a sharp pull saw. There is no vibration or chatter or whatever. If your cutting creates binding and such than you will need to clamp of course but that is probably either saw set-up related or user error. I use a simple "L" jig to hold work for transferring layout. It allows precise adjustment. This is an extremely fast and accurate method. BTW as you can see I cut pins first for a few reasons. One being that it allows for much more room to see your knife in the space between pins and judge that the knifed mark is spot on. Faster and more accurate as well,IMHO. The parts here are .8x15X52&42". Waste is coped out as close to line as possible to allow just a quick clean up with a bench chisel.

[Don Jarvie]

Thats a great jig.

[George Gyulatyan]

I am going to commit a sacrilege and say... cut them at the bandsaw :D

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Wish I had one, George!

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Just to prove that I'm not fooling, and am actually asking questions about something I'm actually doing . . .

234578
234579

234580

First hand cut dados, too, - (Actually, probably first dados in general, now that I think about it)

234581

Tails came out reasonably tight. Found one spot showing a hair in the middle of one of these wide boards where I'm realizing I should hae use battens when I clamped (thinking about it, the clamps probably just made everything worse) and one tail where something went a little awry on the left hand side, but the plan is for the outside of this cabinet is going to be painted, so it's less of an issue, I guess.

Somehow I managed to get one of eight corners just a hair proud, as well.

[Don Jarvie]

I was taught to do the pins first, get then right and then leave them along. Fit the tails to the pins. The pins will require most of the work but once there done the tails to quick.

[Derek Cohen]

The method (sawing from the back) I showed earlier works very well. However if this does not convince, then also look at the idea of using a Moxon with an I-beam, as per my article: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/MoxonDovetailVise.html

You can clamp it anywhere, and it also offers the facility of transferring long pieces ..

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/MoxonDovetailVise_html_m6e878754.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Correy Smith]

Don, I completely agree with you on the pins first. I feel it gets you fine results. Do you not use the same marking gauge for pins and tails?

[Terry Beadle]

Just a wild thought....

Take the long boards to the corner post of your deck ( if you have one ).

Clamp the work piece firmly and proceed with your saw cuts. Then take it back to the bench for chisel work.

Don't forget to take a beer and some chicken to the grill. A smoking grill makes a ready excuse for inaccurate cuts and the beer ain't bad either...hoot!

I said it was wild.... ;-)