I am in the middle of a shop clean-up and part of that means that I am taking things that I just do not use and getting rid of them. In the process, I pulled out these brass mallets.
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I just had to have them back in 2012. I did give them at least a try, but I just migrate to my wood or my "wood is good" mallets. Does anyone prefer brass mallets? The one with a wooden handle has a #4 on it.
The hoarder in me says "keep them, you will want them some day", but after almost no use in 7 years, it is time for them to go.
So, what precipitated all this? I built a new thing to hold some of my tools
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I used card catalog drawer pulls so that I could mark what is in each drawer. Will see how that works out. Sadly, I mounted one of my drawers upside down and I was too lazy to fix it (but only because the flowing grain difference did not jump out at me). That was a lot of dovetails to cut by hand (lots of drawers). I decided to simply try to cut to the line and minimize paring since I don't care that much about how these come out as long as they work so I can tolerate more errors than usual. I am getting pretty good at cutting to the line, but I have a tendency to cut too low on the back side when I trim out the waste so I need to leave more than I like if it matters (as in I do not want people to see that I took too much out when they open the drawer and look inside).
I have seen people cut their dovetails without marking lines, but I mark every line, because I cut pretty well to a line, but, I expect that I would be way off if I just let muscle memory dictate my angles.
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Was thinking about building something to hold the pieces square, should be easy to do, I just have not done it. I really like what Derek Cohen did with his Moxon vice. OK, I really enjoy almost everything that he does and posts, but that is just me maybe. I used to cut a small rabbet to help register the boards, and that really helps keep things square, but it also takes time. If I place scrap on either side, I can use a clamp to hold things still while I mark the pins.
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Obviously they are not all this good, but for being in a hurry, at least while using this soft Poplar wood, there is surprisingly little trimming, and that is usually along the base. of course since I am simply cutting to the line, I make more little mistakes than if I used a chisel to give the saw a place to rest, but I finally decided to just get this project done.
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Now comes the sorting and figuring out exactly where everything goes... And getting rid of stuff that does not fit anymore.