I recently saw a plan for a box with fluted sides and mitered corners on the Lee Valley site.
The plan shows the mitered corners being reinforced with dovetail shaped keys. The plan suggests using a router with a jig to cut the sockets in the corners. I like hand cutting dovetails. I don’t have enough experience to determine the difficulty of hand cutting the sockets, for the keys, on the mitered corners. How challenging would it be do this?
Thanks for sharing your experience
Seth Stephens
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Replies
I think it could be done after the box is assembled fairly easily with a saw guide.
Take a piece of 8/4 stock and cut a groove in the center with either a 45° router bit or 2 passes over the tablesaw with the blade set at 45°. Cut this groove to a depth of half the thickness of the material. Then bevel one of the edges perpendicular to the groove to whatever angle you want the dovetail to be. This should make a reasonable guide for your saw. The groove registers on the corner of the box and the bevel provides a surface to guide your saw. Just lay out you dovetails as normal, well almost, the actual height of the dovetail will be deceptive because of the angle so I might wait to cut the keys until I had the dovetails cut so I could get an accurate measurement, unless you like doing trig.
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