In Chapter Eight of my eBook I show a method of creating the dovetail joints in the carcase of a Shaker Blanket Chest. In my reproduction, this New Lebanon piece included 7 1/2 dovetails in the connection between the front and sides. I typically locate the two end dovetails, then equally space the remaining dovetails using a “divided line”.

On pages 39-43 I show the steps used in creating these dovetails. Below I’ve included a video showing these same steps. There is a shortcut not shown in the video – SketchUp provides a command that automatically spaces copies of things.  You could place the top-most dovetail, then copy it to the location of the last half-dovetail at the bottom. Then you could type 7/ and press Enter. This command will automatically space the correct number of dovetails between the two end dovetails.

I don’t do multiple spaced copies that often in my SketchUp work. So I quickly forget the format and  exact keystrokes for implementing this command. Therefore, I normally use the divided line method shown in the video. It takes a little longer, but produces good results.

 

Here is a view of the SketchUp model using pine grain texture.

 Tim

http://killenwood.com