Dovetails,how do you do yours?

dubtom

I started a project tonight and attempted my first hand dovetail on a piece of waste,luckily,because I made a hames of it.What way is best for removing the waste,with a chisel or a coping saw.I'm using soft wood. I tried the coping saw method first,using a dovetail saw first to cut the diagonals,but managed to let the coping saw run away with itself. I'd be afraid with a chisel and mallet of breaking the pins completly. Obviously practise makes,in my case reasonable,any tips or tricks to share?

JBCFord

I haven’t cut hand dovetails in a quite a while mostly do them on a rougher and template jig just for speed unless the client wants to pay for hand cut dovetails

As I remember tools required
Sharp tenon saw for cutting down shoulders
Coping saw for cutting out waste
Sharp chisel ¼ inc for paring [the most dangerous chisel is a blunt one ]
Sharp chisel ½ inc for paring
Bevel gauge to mark out dovetail angle
Sharp pencil !
A good solid work bench or a Black and Decker work bench still the best portable bench around

This link should get you started and have fun
http://www.technologystudent.com/joints/dove1.htm

regards jbcford

irishthump

I always use a chisel to remove the waste. It's so difficult to keep a straight line with the coping saw that you always end up having to square off the cut with a chisel anyway!

You say you're working in softwood? I'm assuming the joint is for a drawer or box corner. To be honest the dovetail does'nt work quite as well in softwood, you tend to get a lot of chipping, even when being very careful. So I would use the softwood for practice until you get satisfactory results, then move onto hardwood.

If that does'nt suit, then use the softwood but when marking the dovetails use a slope of 1 in 6 rather than the normal 1 in 8. In softwood, dovetails with a 1 in 8 slope would be very prone to pulling out.

Here is a youtube video or some dovetails being cut, it's quite short, but it's good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-o4jryTkUc

Hope that helps.

dubtom

Thanks for the replies. I ended up using a router and jig,still managed to get a fair bit of chipping but at least the joints fitted.It will take a fair amount of sanding for them to look nice:rolleyes:The guy in the video made it look so easy irishthump, wish I'd paid more attention in school.