Some encouragement for dovetailers...

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Cleaning my shop I found a bag of my dovetail practice pieces, as you can see there are about a hundred of them. Some where thrown away and others are missing.

I used to make one of those, sometimes 2 or 3 as a warm up exercise before carrying on with whatever project I was working on, until one day something made "click" in my mind and they started to be good.

As Brent Dowell and some others are onto dovetailing lately I though about posting these to encourage all those who think that dovetails are too difficult for them. The good thing about those practice pieces is that as they are not going to be used anywhere it takes away the tension of wanting them to come out good which I think it helps a lot to relax and get them better.

As you can see some are really bad, some are so-so and some are better, so it is only a matter of practice and perseverance.

ENJOY!
 

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Toni, what clicked, IMHO is muscle memory, your muscles finally learned the dovetail trick and you were away to the races :thumb:

Great collection of fire wood ;) :D
 
Very cool Toni. Really hits home that it's an acquired skill that you have to practice, practice, practice on...

Thanks for sharing those!
 
Thanks for the pictures Toni. You sure got a bunch of discipline.:thumb: You so right about not trying to make them when they "have to turn out right" for that special project on the go.

I am reminded of that every time i go up and down our strairs. Few years ago had to make a medal cabinet in day and half. Whats more with my Dad sitting behind me watching every move. Oh boy talk about pressure on the dovetails. Now i got these gaping holes, off square door and i dont know what else in this cabinet. Its on the redo list for someday.:D
 
Great stuff Toni. Thanks for the pics and the dates on the pieces make it fun to judge differences. I read an article by a guy who did "a dovetail a day" for 30 days. It was fun to look at the progress.
 
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