I am building the Small Tote in the latest issue of FWW. I am trying to duplicate the tails, and their even size. I have made 14 test runs now, see photo. I can make somewhat more random ones now. I am embarrassed to say how many questions I have asked here on this tote. Is anyone aware of written or video instruction? I watched a Paul Sellers video but hoping there is an easier way, like some magic. This forum is kind of like AI, seriously:)
Replies
If you are referring to evenly "spaced" this video might help.
https://blog.sketchup.com/diyer/drawing-dovetails-skill-builder
Using dividers is the simplest way. Megan Fitzpatrick has a nice video on how to achieve this. Sometimes small imperfections are not bad. Pull out a kitchen drawer and look at the perfectly made (by machine) dovetails. Perfect, but sort of soul-less too. I like yours better..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUiPJF_jNEA
TexasBurt, one of my goals over the next year or two is to learn to use sketchup. I usually just draw a crappy sketch and work from there. Works most of the time, but a nice drawing can help you work out the kinks in advance, as you have to think through all the steps to make the detailed plan. I'm thinking of taking the introductory course offered through this site. Thanks for sharing.
I draw EVERYTHING in sketchup and I'm no expert by any means. When I come to something I don't know how to do there are plenty of videos to teach me. Search sketchup here....there are lots of how to videos on finewoodworking. Just start out drawing anything and get use to the various tools and how they work....fun stuff too! Good luck.
In agreement that dividers is the easy and fast way to go once you spend 10 minutes fiddling around the first time to understand it (which isn’t all that hard). As mentioned in orig post, Paul Sellers has good general layout advice for dovetails but I think I’ve only seen him use dividers once.
Is the question how to lay out even sized dovetails and pins?
Yes, even width tails.
I was going to recommend a tool I bought years ago, but can't find it online anywhere. It's basically a pantograph with many fingers. You can expand it to the width of your piece and choose how many points you will have. Each point is the edge of a tail. It's a quick way to see what adding or subtracting a tail will look like.
Anyone know what this is called or who makes it? Mine has no brand name on it.
11 point divider
Yes, similar to what I have. Thanks.
Dividers work well once you get the hang of it. Megan's video is the best I've seen. I lay out using a single mark, followed by a square, eyeballed onto the mark and using both sides. The pins or tails laid out this way are always going to match. You could measure to divide the spaces perfectly, but I think that gets too machine-ish looking. I've made small quick & dirty squares in different widths for single project use.
Look at this video from about 50 seconds to 1:30 to see how I do it.
https://www.tailspintools.com/pov-tailspin-tools-video-request/
I have a blog post on dovetail layout as well. Use the blog link down low on the TST homepage to find it.
Check out Rob Cosman's YouTube channel, he has a number of videos on cutting dovetails along with how to lay them out using dividers.
So, if you want to lay out even dovetails, figure out the width of the top of the tails as a multiple of the width of the top of the pins. Say, 3 to 1. Add up the number of pins and 3 times the number of tails In your picture, it is 5+12=17. Figure out an easy way to have that number times a convenient fraction (say 1/4") of an inch be a little bigger than the width of your board (4&1/4" is bigger than your 4" board, for example). Put your ruler at whatever angle is needed for your 4&1/4" distance to go across the board from one edge to the other. Mark at each 1/4" where you want a change from pin to dovetail (at 1, 4, 5, 8, etc.) Then use a square on the end of the board to mark up to the end for your even layout. If you want the outside pins to be smaller, choose their size, and then work as above between them. You will have more tails than pins for the computation, and your ruler will go from the inside of one pin to the inside of the other, rather than from one edge of the board to the other edge.
Another vote for dividers.
I have to admit to being not very good at working out what size they are going to be in advance, so I tend to keep fiddling until something looks 'about right' but they are always perfectly even, because there is no other way for them to be.