Daniel Rode
09-30-2013, 8:51 PM
I've been studying how to make through dovetail joints. I made a couple practice joints and a fair bit of practice sawing but this is my first attempt at complete project.
The stock is 1/2" x 12" x 3" and 1/2" x 6" x 3" milled from home center pine 1x4s. It's super soft, it chips and tears easily but it's cheap and good for practice. I made it square and flat on all 6 sides and then chose and labeled pins/tails, inside/outside, up/down (more on this later). I also labeled each corner on both pin and tail boards.
271999
I don't have a dovetail marking guide, so I created a simple template for 3 angles and used a sliding bevel gauge to mark the tails. As the wood is very soft, I used 1:6. My home made template took about 60 seconds to make. For connivence sake, I'll probably make some marking templates at some point. The Veritas templates are really nice, but $15 each? Ouch. I'd rather spend that cash on wood.
272001
I started by using a board set my pin gauge and draw it across the face. It jumped all over the place and made what looked like a dotted line. So I switched to a pencil line and followed up with a knife cut. I had to be slow and methodical to insure the knife lines were all he same distance everywhere. This was enough trouble that I ordered a wheel marking gauge today. Then I set my half pins 1/4" from the edge, set the distance between the pins at 1/4" and proceeded to mark the ends of the tailboards. I then used the bevel gauge to mark the angles on the outside faces.
272000
Now I made my tail cuts concentrating on keeping the cut square, cutting on the waste side of the line and to getting the angle right. Cutting square being my primary concern.
272003
I sawed the half pins and started chopping out the waste. The process was to first make a cut about 1/16" from the line and the split the to that line. The next cut was on the line and at a bit more than 90 degrees. I cut and split about halfway down and repeated the process on the other side until the waste was removed. Despite very sharp chisels, the pine end grain tore within the joint but the shoulder lines were crisp.
272004
After all 4 sides were chopped out, I mounted the pin boards in the vice (outside facing me) and laid the tails on top (outside up). I was careful to match each marked corner (A with A, B with B, etc). I aligned the sides square and even to each other and brought the shoulder line of the tail board to about 1/64" of the inside face of the pin board. The I marked with a sharp pencil along the tails.
272008
...Continued in part 2
The stock is 1/2" x 12" x 3" and 1/2" x 6" x 3" milled from home center pine 1x4s. It's super soft, it chips and tears easily but it's cheap and good for practice. I made it square and flat on all 6 sides and then chose and labeled pins/tails, inside/outside, up/down (more on this later). I also labeled each corner on both pin and tail boards.
271999
I don't have a dovetail marking guide, so I created a simple template for 3 angles and used a sliding bevel gauge to mark the tails. As the wood is very soft, I used 1:6. My home made template took about 60 seconds to make. For connivence sake, I'll probably make some marking templates at some point. The Veritas templates are really nice, but $15 each? Ouch. I'd rather spend that cash on wood.
272001
I started by using a board set my pin gauge and draw it across the face. It jumped all over the place and made what looked like a dotted line. So I switched to a pencil line and followed up with a knife cut. I had to be slow and methodical to insure the knife lines were all he same distance everywhere. This was enough trouble that I ordered a wheel marking gauge today. Then I set my half pins 1/4" from the edge, set the distance between the pins at 1/4" and proceeded to mark the ends of the tailboards. I then used the bevel gauge to mark the angles on the outside faces.
272000
Now I made my tail cuts concentrating on keeping the cut square, cutting on the waste side of the line and to getting the angle right. Cutting square being my primary concern.
272003
I sawed the half pins and started chopping out the waste. The process was to first make a cut about 1/16" from the line and the split the to that line. The next cut was on the line and at a bit more than 90 degrees. I cut and split about halfway down and repeated the process on the other side until the waste was removed. Despite very sharp chisels, the pine end grain tore within the joint but the shoulder lines were crisp.
272004
After all 4 sides were chopped out, I mounted the pin boards in the vice (outside facing me) and laid the tails on top (outside up). I was careful to match each marked corner (A with A, B with B, etc). I aligned the sides square and even to each other and brought the shoulder line of the tail board to about 1/64" of the inside face of the pin board. The I marked with a sharp pencil along the tails.
272008
...Continued in part 2