Quick dovetailing questions

[Judson Green]

When you guys gang cut your tails, how many do you do at once?

And, if though dovetails, do you gang cut your pin boards too? Or is that dependant on how good your results are?

[Sean Hughto]

I rarely gang cut node than two tail boards at a time. I would never gang cut pin boards.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

When you guys gang cut your tails, how many do you do at once?

And, if though dovetails, do you gang cut your pin boards too? Or is that dependant on how good your results are?

I've only ever done two boards at once - mostly because I'm only working on one "box" at a time - I suppose if I had multiple drawers of the same size, I could do more than that if the sides were less thick.

I can't think of a good way to gang-cut pin boards - because the cuts aren't perpendicular to the board, at best you'd have radically different sized pins in the two boards. Certainly no way I can think of to gang cut pin boards to match the tail boards if you do those first (which I do).

[Judson Green]

I can't think of a good way to gang-cut pin boards - because the cuts aren't perpendicular to the board, at best you'd have radically different sized pins in the two boards. Certainly no way I can think of to gang cut pin boards to match the tail boards if you do those first (which I do).


Oh yeah, duh! I'm slapping my forehead.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I cut tails first. Off hand, I can't think of a way to gang cut pins.

The answer is.... It depends on the thickness of the stock. How thick do you want to cut while cutting your tails? I know that I have done at least two at a time. I am not sure if I ever tried four or not. Most drawers that I cut I would not really want to cut four layers at once. The more I stack at a time, the more likely something will shift.

[Cody Kemble]

I have only tried two tail boards at a time and I always get horrible results. I have no problem one at a time. I have yet to figure out why.

[Brian Holcombe]

Two tails at a time for me. I worry that four will shift.

[Jim Matthews]

I'm with the consensus, two.

Oddly, I cut straighter with two but the surface furthest from me
tends to be rougher than if I only cut one board.

I'm going to try David Charlesworth's suggestion of keeping a mirror on the bench to watch that side more closely.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I will often cut straighter with two boards. I think that it is because I have a longer reference surface for my marked lines.

[Judson Green]

I figured your chance of having a straighter cut would increase with a longer line.

So, I'm kind of surprise folks aren't sawing a fatter stack. This is my first time making dovetail drawers (two of em, the same size) with hand tools and granted I'm using softwood and thin sides (< ½"), but my first inclination was to stack all four sides.

I feel the results are OK for a first time, needed some paring after the saw and some joints are looser than I'd like, but I feel that's on account of screwing up the pin board not the tails.

[Brian Holcombe]

Judson, FWIW, my dovetails improved tremendously when I started putting heavy knife marks in for the pins. The saw sort of falls into the mark in the first few swipes, then, so long as you are sawing plumb it will be a nice fit. This alone mostly eliminated paring from the sides of the pins, which can quickly turn a friction fit into a loose fit. Now I do not pare unless it's out of square to the point that I can notice it with my eye.

I don't know if this is an issue or not, but when chopping the line on both tails and pins I use chop half way on one side, then flip the board and chop half way from the other. My lines improved by chopping the waste 1/8 ahead of the line, all the way through, then clamping a hefty but well squared board along the line and then chopping the line. It went from ugly looking end grain to clean cut and square end grain.

[Judson Green]

Yeah Brian, the second part of you're reply I've been doing from the start. The first part I've kinda been getting there, was first starting with just a knife line then a "knife notch" - I use this sometimes when cutting tenons.

[Steve Baumgartner]

For a symmetric box such as a drawer, I regularly stack two sides for tail cuts. If there are two identical drawers I usually stack all four sides. It takes some care to get the stack perfectly even (it's a revealing test of how square your end cuts are!), but I've never had a problem with them slipping while being cut. I sometimes put a pair of clamps on to hold the stack together when I align the boards, and leave the clamps there when I put the stack into the vise.

For me, the stack of four is a tradeoff. On the plus side, it is faster than doing two sets of two, and as has been mentioned the longer reference line helps to keep the cuts perpendicular to the faces. On the negative side, a thicker stack means that the saw takes a smaller bite on each stroke, which means more strokes (time) for the cut, and can produce rougher cut surfaces if your arm motion isn't perfectly the same each time. This is especially true if the sides are a hard wood like maple, but less if they are something soft like pine or poplar. A thick stack is a test of whether you saw is well-sharpened!

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I do most of my dovetail cutting with a carcase saw; I just like the feel of that saw better than my dovetail saw; but the 12" length and 12tpi or so also makes cutting wider boards easier; if I was going up to four boards at a time, I might want to reach for something coarser still, but don't think I'd try to tackle it with my little 8", 15tpi dovetail saw.

You know, seems to me if you had a well tuned bandsaw, and maybe some sort of jig to help hold things together, you could gang-cut a whole chest of drawers at once . . .

[Brian Holcombe]

I've been contemplating pretty heavy single bevel knifes for this, in the hopes that I could make an even more significant notch with the knife.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

My problem with a notch from a knife is that my saw tends to want to center in the notch - if I've marked if from the mating piece, this ends up making the resulting pin too loose a fit- I want to cut just outside that line, not centered on it. So I either mark lightly with the knife or use a pencil.

How are you handling the offset issue if you're making heavy marks to guide the saw?

[Brian Holcombe]

I start the saw on the waste side of the notch and it keeps me from getting out of the groove in the first couple swipes.

[Winton Applegate]

You know, seems to me if you had a well tuned bandsaw, and maybe some sort of jig to help hold things together, you could gang-cut a whole chest of drawers at once . . .

bandsaw ?
Bandsaw ?
BANDSAW !

Blasphemous utterances from Hades !

Is there no one moderating these posts ? ? ?
We are the pure chosen few here me' laddy.

No power tools allowed.
Well except for resawing . . . and drilling holes on the drill press . . . BUT THAT IS ALL !

PS: David Charlesworth has some good stuff to say on bandsawing dovetails ! Check out his first book or two.

Frank Klausz bandsawed his giant dovetails on his classic work bench.
But not you and I by jigger. We use hand tools and muscle power for our dovetails.
Right ?
(I said . . . right ? . . .)

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Well, I certainly don't use a bandsaw - don't have one. Just thinking out loud. Chuck Bender had some neat stuff on bandsawed dovetails, too. Used an interesting jig to get the pin boards without monkeying with the table. While it's not where I find my joy in woodwork, I appreciated the fairly simple approach, as opposed to setting up some crazy router jig and listening to that whine all day, it still involved skill and hand-eye work, even if not real "hand work".

Not where I want to go, but it seemed like an easier and cheaper way for a power-tool centric guy to get a nice look rather than spending a ton on a finicky, fancy dovetail jig.

Anyway, I better shut up before Winton get's me booted . . .

[Judson Green]

My problem with a notch from a knife is that my saw tends to want to center in the notch - if I've marked if from the mating piece, this ends up making the resulting pin too loose a fit- I want to cut just outside that line, not centered on it. So I either mark lightly with the knife or use a pencil.

How are you handling the offset issue if you're making heavy marks to guide the saw?

Maybe that's why my pins are a little loose, perhaps the notching isn't a good idea?

I try and keep the saw on the waste side but...

And I've been using my marking knife to make the notch.

And I've sold off my fancy jig! So I'm committed.... err maybe I should be committed.

[Winton Applegate]

Ahhh (as in that is a nice cool breeze)

Joshua,

I knew I could count on you. A shining star in a foggy night full of the whiffs of machine oil and ozone smell from the brushes of said electron guzzlers.

PS: in fact from now on that is going to be what I call you :

Coooool Breeeze.

[Winton Applegate]

my pins are a little loose,

Judson,
I always said to the guys here (any women wasting time here ? For Bob's sake make a thread we are getting a little duuuuuuuuuh here without you) . . .
. . . anyway I always said to the guys you had a pin loose some where.
What ? What do you mean 'not that kind of pin' . . .
But he said it . . .
oh alright . . .
never mind.

[Mike Siemsen]

I have stacked 4. You need a saw with bigger teeth than if you do 1 or 2. Try it and see how many you can do.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Mike

I find it a little ironic that I have a couple of 20 ppi dovetail saws, which are better for the thinner drawer sides I typically use (1/4" - 3/8"). However I always gang up the two boards when sawing the dovetails ... and then a 15 ppi saw works better.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Judson Green]

Judson,
I always said to the guys here (any women wasting time here ? For Bob's sake make a thread we are getting a little duuuuuuuuuh here without you) . . .
. . . anyway I always said to the guys you had a pin loose some where.
What ? What do you mean 'not that kind of pin' . . .
But he said it . . .
oh alright . . .
never mind.


Now I know why my ears were ringing!

But, I've got no pins or screws only a few crowns.
I sometimes take things very literally.
When trying to figure out why a machine wasn't working right, I called up a buddie to see if he had any ideas, he said "Its usually the nut behind the wheel." Took me forever to find the wheel he was talking about.

You can imagine the confusing 5 minutes of dialogue when the doctor told me to drop my drawers.

[Judson Green]

So here they are...

I cut the front dovetails before starting this thread, ganged 4 sides at once. Cut the back dovetails the first time soon after, but messed up the pins and made the sides too short, so the second time, last night, was better. Ganged 2 at a time and was tracing off the pins.

Definitely room for improvement but I feel its not too bad for my first time. The bottom drawer is probably the best fitting. 7 out of 8 joints are tight the 8th will need a little shiming.

Edit: And I didn't do the notching thing.

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