Veritas hand cut Dovetail Saw guide system?

[dennis thompson]

Yesterday I cut the worst hand cut dovetails in the history of man.

Has anyone ever used the Veritas Dovetail Saw Guide System for hand cutting of dovetails?
If I decide to buy one should I buy the 1:6, recommended for softwood or the 1:8 recommended for hardwood, I'd like to buy just one & use it for both hard & softwoods.
Thanks
Dennis

[Pat Zabrocki]

you give yourself too much credit. there's a couple of us out here that can give you a good run for your money on that "worst hand cut dovetail in history" thing. :) Practice, practice, practice or so I've been told.

cheers
Pat

[Steven Bolton]

I have looked at those dovetail guides. For anyone who has one, when you are cutting at the end of a board, do you need to add another board for support? Hope this makes sense.

sb

[frank shic]

dennis, i haven't found the whole 1:6, 1:8 rules for dovetailing particularly useful nor do i use a marking jig when i cut by hand. i just eyeball them like frank klausz does on his video. BTW my first set of handcut dovetails looked terrible, but they fit and they held just as tightly as machine cut dovetails.

stephen, i'm not sure if i understand you correctly, but when you're cutting the boards standing vertically, they just need to be clamped. no other support board is necessary.

if you look at period furniture, the dovetails were obviously hand cut since the pins and tails vary subtly from drawer to drawer. i've seen plenty of pieces where the gaps in the dovetails were also fairly large up to 1/16". you can either take comfort in this or shoot for machine-like precise dovetails in which case rob cosman has a dvd on how to do just that.

[James Phillips]

I have one and will sell it to anyone who wants it. It sells new (with the saw) for $57 plus shipping. I will sell mine for $40 plus $5 flat rate shipping. It works well I just want to do them completely free hand for some sick reason.... Mine is the 1:8 ratio. Since glues have gotten so good this is really unimportant in my opinion.

[Cliff Polubinsky]

Dennis,

I have the dovetail and 90 degree saw guide and I really like them both. They make sawing quick and accurate. As to the 1:6 vs 1:8 question, what I've read says that with today's glues it doesn't matter which one you use.

And Steve, no additional board is necessary. Clamp the guide to the end of the board and saw away.

Cliff

[Ron Dunn]

Steve's question might be the same as mine ... when you're sawing pins or tails near the edge of the board, do you need to clamp another board alongside to have somewhere to mount the guide?

[Brian Kent]

Dennis, I just checked into the future and the freehand dovetails you cut tomorrow are superior to and more satisfying than the last ones you cut.

[dennis thompson]

Brian
They surely could not be worse
Dennis

[Mark Singer]

dovetails take practice. the guide is probably a god way to get started at technique. All the other procedures such as marking and waste removal using chisels is the same. So as you practice using the guide , you develop all of the skills and sawing comes with time. You need to trust your sawing for dovetails and other joinery. It is a skill worth practicing. In time you saw and know its good even before you begin. If not you throw it out and start over

http://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=59245&d=1172803618

[Andy Pedler]

Steve's question might be the same as mine ... when you're sawing pins or tails near the edge of the board, do you need to clamp another board alongside to have somewhere to mount the guide?

Yes. For instance, when you are cutting the half-pins on that board, in order to get the clamp to hold onto anything, you may have to put another board next to the one you're cutting. The clamp surface grabs on to half of your pin board and half of the neighboring board.

I have the guide. I'm slowly trying to learn how to cut dovetails. Frankly, I'm not impressed with the guide. But maybe it is the saw I tried using. I first tried using this with a Japanese dozuki with a very thin blade, and the magnetic guide held the light blade way too tight. I recently got a "gents" saw that has a more substantial blade. While I haven't tried cutting any pins or tails yet with that saw, I did run it along the guide and it was much more stable than the dozuki. So it could be that the guide works, but I was just using the wrong tool with it.

In any case, as others have suggested, I'm thinking this is going to be sort of like using training wheels when learning to ride a bike. I hope to get more comfortable marking and making cuts, and then be able to ditch the guide.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving!!

Andy - Newark, CA

[Steven Bolton]

Yes, it is the half pins on the ends that I wondered about. When I look at it, it looks like you might need a support board. But I don't know.

Steve Bolton.

[James Phillips]

Yes, it is the half pins on the ends that I wondered about. When I look at it, it looks like you might need a support board. But I don't know.

Steve Bolton.

No support board needed. Just cut from the other side of the guide

[frank shic]

watch the klausz vidoe and FORGET about the training wheels! ;)

[Dennis Pickerl]

Dennis: I have used the LV guide and saw for a couple of years now and I have had great success. I would recommend that the guide be used with the saw in the set since the set of the saw matches the offset of the guide so when the guide is positioned on the knife mark the saw only cuts on the waste side of the line. With a little practice I can now cut, chop and usually don't need to pare the joint for a tight fit. The purchase of the guide was my first foray into using hand tools instead of machines and it was a great confidence booster. I now use machines for the grunt work and hand tools as much as I can, currently eyeballing the LV low angle jack plane. Since I am in Canada and there is a LV store close by, it is way too easy to feed my addiction.

I just found SMC last week and I am very impressed with the amount of information available. Thanks

[Cliff Polubinsky]

watch the klausz vidoe and FORGET about the training wheels! ;)

I'm not so sure that the guides should be classified as training wheels. Is a fence on a jointer plane a training wheel? Is a shooting board a training wheel? For that matter, is a plane a training wheel. Couldn't you, with enough practice, shave a board edge straight with a chisel? Do you want to spend all that time in practice and will you ever achieve the results you'd get with a plane?

Tools are tools. Just because you aren't burning electrons doesn't mean that you can't use anything but a single tool used freehand to achieve a result. Many people can achieve beautiful results with freehand sawing. Many people can achieve beautiful results using all the guides or whatever they can. In my thinking, it's the results that matter, not whether I can saw straighter freehand than he can.

In my humble opinion.

As if any of my opinions could be humble ;).

Cliff

[Jim Becker]

I made my own out of some scrap hardwood. The exact angle doesn't really matter and the purpose of the guide is to get you used to making the cuts, especially starting the saw. The Veritas product is certainly excellent quality, however...

[Kenneth Sternberg]

The Veritas 8:1 jig works just fine for everything. The lesser angle dovetail will always be the strongest. The saw that Veritas sells to go with this is way too fine tooth for cutting dovetails. You will not use it long, before you trade it off for something else.

[Matt Day]

Kenneth - I hope the OP has made his decision, since he asked his question over 3 years ago! :)

In any event, your positive input will surely help someone searching for information on the guide in the future.

[David Weaver]

Do like jim says, make your own blocks out of wood. If you want to use them when you're cutting, you can initially (depending on what you do first, pins or tails, you'll need to think this through).

After that, you can use them as a visual reference, and adjust as needed to get dovetails the way you want them to look.

I don't mark anything but the baseline, and go tails first (with a saw reflective enough that I can see the reflection of the wood on the saw plate to make sure I start the cut square). I used to mark everything.

It takes not much time to get dovetails that are close to being piston fit once you've done a few. It takes a lot of screwing around to get them perfect piston fit. Often, the difference between the two is easily hidden by glue, and if you cut on the wrong side of a line on a drawer that's going to be hidden, you can always wedge in something with proper grain orientation.

Save the super-anal-retento stuff for half blinds or pieces you're going to submit for a competition.

[David Weaver]

wow...three year old post. I've been had!