My quest to do dovetails...

Pretty funny. But actually kind of a neat idea.

I've been practicing a bit. Nothing to show for it yet. Going to try and do some more today..
 
My method was to have a need. I had a steel shop bench made that had room for 20 drawers. I decided to hand cut my through dove tails for all four corners of every drawer. I just made the drawer sides out of 3/4" pine boards from the lumber yard.

When I started, the first drawer was pretty loose and sloppy. Gorilla glue filled in the gaps. By the time I had cut 20 or so dove tails on 20 drawers, I was getting them good and snug. Just a nice smoot slip together.

Since then, I have tried to do it again. You loose the edge if you don't do it on a regular basis.

I will say that my first dove tails were cut with just ordinary shop tools, as I progressed, I bought and maintained a seperate saw and chisel for just this job. Helps immensely if the saw is razor sharp and the chisel too.
 
Brent, I taught myself to do handcut dovetails, what it takes is some time, serious time devoted to getting it right.

What I did is this, I cut up some wood, all about 5/8" thick, maybe 6" wide by 6" long, I cut maybe a dozen boards up.

First thing I did was put one board in my vice, then I took my saw (don't matter which one you have, push, pull etc) and I practiced cutting a straight saw kerf about 5/8" deep into the piece of wood, I just the best I could, without being too worried about how good it was, I then moved the saw over about 1/8" and cut another one, I did this to the entire length of the board, then I took the board to the SCMS and lopped off that end with all the kerfs..... repeat. :D

Make a few hundred cuts like that and you will be amazed at how much better you get in a short time. You have to look at other things too, these things will become very apparent when you cut a couple hundred kerfs, body position, even the height of your workbench, if things are good, you will be fine, if things are too high, or too low, you body will complain and you will feel it.

Then just start doing dove tails on your practice boards, don't worry about them being perfect, just do them, do half a dozen then quit, the next time you are out in the workshop, practice your saw kerfs and your dovetails. When you make a set of dovetails, they will not be perfect, but you and your body will have learned more, muscle memory works. Again, if your board is 6" long, you and make at least 4 or 5 sets of dove tails on each board, make the dovetails, then go cut them off on the SCMS, repeat.

Trust me if you do this two or three times a week, you WILL get better, and I mean MUCH better at hand cutting dovetails.

They are NOT a black art, but they certainly require that you put the time in learning how to do it, train yourself.

Sure a better saw can help, and a fancy dovetail gauge is nice, but nothing, I mean NOTHING replaces plain old sweat and practice.

:wave:

Very helpful. Thank you very much.
 
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