Jason Lester
10-28-2018, 11:00 AM
I spent all day on Friday in a dovetailing class with Rob Cosman at the local Woodcraft. We went from 9:00 to 8:00 (some were still going when I left). It was a really good experience. I've been cutting them for a while using the Barron guide and a Japanese saw. I could do them pretty well that way, but it never really felt right. Also, there wasn't enough clearance under the back to do much over about 7/8" thick stock. I was hitting the guide when making my tool chest.
Rob started out by doing a complete dovetail using his methods. We each then went to a bench and started practicing all the cuts. We practiced starting the cut, sawing straight down, sawing at angles, and sawing perfectly perpendicular. That took most of the morning until we broke for lunch. After lunch, we kept practicing sawing perpendicular on the tail board. That seemed to give everyone the most trouble, but he stressed how critical that cut was to the final look of the joint. His standard was no more than 1/8" out over 6 inches. He measured that by having us leave the saw in the cut and checking it with a 6" square. The best I ever did was 5 out of 6, with the 6th one about 1/4" out.
We cut rabbets on our tail boards for registration and then used his sawtooth marking knife in the tail board kerfs to mark the pin board, after offsetting it the thickness of the saw kerf. That puts the knife mark exactly where you need to saw the pin board. We then sawed the pins, used fretsaws to clear the waste on both it and the tail boards, and then chopped what was left to the line. He advocates gluing the joint together right off the saw with no paring or dry fitting. The only paring I did was the corners where there were a little bit of waste. I put glue on and drove mine home. It ended up perfectly square and no gaps, the first time I've successfully done that! The only minor issue was I sawed slightly past the line on a couple.
It really does make a difference seeing someone do it in person and having someone experienced watching to help you make adjustments. Overall, a good day of work and learning.
Rob started out by doing a complete dovetail using his methods. We each then went to a bench and started practicing all the cuts. We practiced starting the cut, sawing straight down, sawing at angles, and sawing perfectly perpendicular. That took most of the morning until we broke for lunch. After lunch, we kept practicing sawing perpendicular on the tail board. That seemed to give everyone the most trouble, but he stressed how critical that cut was to the final look of the joint. His standard was no more than 1/8" out over 6 inches. He measured that by having us leave the saw in the cut and checking it with a 6" square. The best I ever did was 5 out of 6, with the 6th one about 1/4" out.
We cut rabbets on our tail boards for registration and then used his sawtooth marking knife in the tail board kerfs to mark the pin board, after offsetting it the thickness of the saw kerf. That puts the knife mark exactly where you need to saw the pin board. We then sawed the pins, used fretsaws to clear the waste on both it and the tail boards, and then chopped what was left to the line. He advocates gluing the joint together right off the saw with no paring or dry fitting. The only paring I did was the corners where there were a little bit of waste. I put glue on and drove mine home. It ended up perfectly square and no gaps, the first time I've successfully done that! The only minor issue was I sawed slightly past the line on a couple.
It really does make a difference seeing someone do it in person and having someone experienced watching to help you make adjustments. Overall, a good day of work and learning.