Whether tails or pins cut first, eventually it’s necessary to mark the others and saw them out. I’ve seen commonly one recommendation to mark with a pencil and then “split the line” which I’ve interpreted to mean saw from the waste side, leaving half the line. I’ve also seen recommendation to mark with a knife, then saw from the waste side to the knife line. I’ve been chopping dovetails in cherry for a blanket chest 42″ x 17″ x 21″ H, and marked with a 5mm pencil. Practicing on 4″ wide scrap, I found it necessary to saw the line away. I cut the tails and pins for the chest the same way, and had to pound the chest together, chipping 3 or 4 tails. I’m wondering if you vary how tight you saw tails and pins if working with soft or hard wood, with 1/2″ or 7/8″ thick boards, with drawer width or chest width material, et cetera. Or do you always saw the same regardless. Thanks.
Discussion Forum
Get It All!
UNLIMITED Membership is like taking a master class in woodworking for less than $10 a month.
Start Your Free TrialCategories
Discussion Forum
Digital Plans Library
Member exclusive! – Plans for everyone – from beginners to experts – right at your fingertips.
Highlights
-
Shape Your Skills
when you sign up for our emails
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. -
Shop Talk Live Podcast -
Our favorite articles and videos -
E-Learning Courses from Fine Woodworking
-
-
Replies
I'm far from an expert on
I'm far from an expert on dovetails, but I was taught to mark with a knife--pencil being too broad and impossible to get right into the corner. The injunction was to split the knife line. If done by folks who had spend a lot of time practising, the joint could fit togther with a a bit of tapping with a mallet, direct from the saw. Maurice Fraser, who I had classes from, would do that at a "recruiting" demonstation at the now defunct craft students league at the YWCA in NYC. If you have to err, leave the line so you can pare to it. I did/do a lot of work with chisels when cutting dovetails.
If you're removing the line
If you're removing the line and the joints are still too tight, then your cuts are not square to the marked surface. If tou mark with a knife, you would take half of the line (one side of the "V"). Using a pencil you would leave the entire line.
Dick
I use and Exacto knife to mark. My teeth are registere just so one side touches the line on the waste side on softwood. On hardwood I simply split the line as it won't compress as the soft-wood will.
Hi Don,
I like to think of it like this.
When I'm laying the tail board on the pin board to mark it, the tails are completely covering all the area on that pin board that I have to evacuate. All the area of the pin board not being covered by the tails has to survive. That being said the WHOLE pencil line has to remain on the pin board when you saw.
It doesn't matter to me how thick the pencil line is because I'm attempting to saw on that point just where the line ends. I'm leaving the whole line there.
Another way to visualize this. If you lay the tail board on the pin board to mark it, imagine that instead of using a knife or a pencil, you took a can of bright yellow spray paint and used that. When you finished spraying and pulled away the tail board, you would see exactly the area that you had to remove - unpainted. All the paint gets left behind. You would saw on the bare wood, just edging the painted area, but leaving it in tact.
(The above was a hypothetical to illustate and help visualize the concept; I don't suggest actually using yellow spray paint.)
I'm attaching some photos from a current work in progress showing me sawing to, but leaving the line on a half-blind pin board.
If all the stars align, I'm well hydrated, there's a good song on the radio, I sometimes nail it just right and tap the thing together without touching those saw cuts again. But more often than not I have left a touch too much material here and there and have to pare to that line in a couple of places to bring it all together in a civilized fashion.
All this said, there are countless good ideas about cutting dovetails. This method works for me, but I'm not putting it forth as the best or only way to go.
Hope this was helpful.
Frank
How tight?
Just right! (ha! beat you to that one, Ray!)
When cutting dovetails, it seems that you need to be either really good or really patient. I'm somewhere in between - I can saw pretty close, and have the patience to get it to fit well. When working with softer woods, I do make the fit a little tighter than with hardwoods. Splitting a pencil line rarely works for me. It does make the fit too tight, which is better than too loose, however. I like to transfer the marks with a knife, then highlight the knife marks with a pencil. I follow the knife line as best as I can with the saw, then pare away any remaining knife marks afterwards.
There is also the issue of what kind of wood you're working with. You could cut the joint very close if you're working with pine because the wood can compress as you assemble the joint. You'd have to allow for more clearance if you are using oak. Also, if you are using yellow or white glue the wood will start to swell after you apply the glue which has to be allowed for.
Don,
Great questions. All of us who do dovetails have faced it. Luckily, the way to find the answer is quite simple, and it is the same method that all of us have used.
I am not being funny about this. The only way to find out the answer is to make about twenty dovetailed boxes or drawers, and use different woods as you go. You will notice that pine handles different than poplar which is different than cherry and soft maple which is different than hard maple, etc.
Simply, softer woods are not much of a problem because they compress as you press the tails between the pins. If you use one hardwood and one softwood such as poplar and walnut, you get some compression, but not as much as if you use two softwoods.
IF YOU USE HARD MAPLE ON BOTH SIDES, you get no compression.
The BS about "Splitting the line" was dreamed up just to drive us crazy. All it means is "pay close attention and remove as much as you need to." I have read some who say to split the line if using softer woods and eliminate the line when using hardwoods.
THE ONLY WAY TO FIGURE THIS OUT is to cut a set of dovetails every day for a month - yup, one box a day for a month. After a few weeks, you begin to relax, and you need to keep referring to your list of what to do, and reall concentrate on making the cut where you want to.
The problem with initial learning in dovetailing is that it is like learning a golf swing. There are so many things to keep in mind at the same time that the only way to learn it is continued practice.
If cutting to the line is not working as well as you'd like, try modifying how you do it. For example, Charlesworth or Schwartz or someone once suggested making a little chip on the far end of a cut line when cutting the cheek on a tenon. You can do the same thing when doing dovetails and pins. You already have the cut line, so just take a little triangluar chip in the waste area on the side farthest from you. Now the saw naturally falls into the chip. Actually, with a sharp chisel, you could use your cut line as a stop cut, and make a sloping cut down to it on the waste side. Once you get good at using the saw, your saw naturally goes into the slot on the waste side of the cut line, IF YOU HOLD THE SAW VERY GENTLY, which is sometimes hard to remember when you are in the heat of the battle. BUT WITH MORE EXPERIENCE, you relax, and things begin to fall into place. I remember decades ago when I learned to ski. I skied too slow. Someone told me that wonderful things begin to happen when you start skiing a bit faster. They were right. Well, wonderful things happen when you relax while cutting pins and tails, and you hold the saw GENTLY.
I heartily recommend Rob Cosman's three DVDs on cutting dovetails, and his book. It is a great way to learn. His writing is clear and his photos are crisp and explanatory.
But the answer to your question is simple and clear. Practice practice practice. Make some firewood. Do a box a day for a month, then you can give lessons.
I hope this helps. I think we should have a self help group like AA for people learning to cut dovetails. "Hi, My name is Mel, and I am a dovetail cutter". And the group replies in unison, "Luv ya, Mel. Tell us your story."
Have fun. HAVE FUN. Relax. It will come. Learning to cut dovetails is like learning how to handle women. It comes with practice. (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha).
Mel
"Wonderful things happen when you ski faster."
Yes - generally an icy spot turns up, followed closely by a mogil, followed by *&% etc. Ha Ha Ha
Don,
There was a discussion about this last summer, so I found the thread and lets see if I can figure out how to link to it.
http://forums.finewoodworking.com/comment/327504#comment-327504
Rob Millard
http://www.americanfederalperiod.com
I know that many people attempt to cut the dovetails to the final dimentions on the first pass with the hand saw, but I always cut them just a little bit oversized and then pare them to the line with a chisel. Less chance for errors this way. Attached is a picture of a drawer I just finished using this method.
Jim
I just happen to be restarting the learning process, and discovered after trial and error, that when making the tails from walnut, and the pins from curly maple, the maple being the drawer front, it really was necessary to take the entire line. The way I have been marking the pins is also with a 0.5 mm pencil, and to get inbetween the tails for very narrow pins, I extend the lead all the way out and draw the line very gently. I wouldn't be able to see a knife mark anyway. Then I darkened the line with the same pencil. What nobody else has mentioned is the technique of undercutting (cheating) on the pinboard with half blinds. Have been enjoying using my new prog pitch LN saw and some specially ground chisels to get in the corners,
Thanks for the link, Rob. Worked perfectly.
My experience, and I did some experimenting tonight, is that dovetails in hardwoods cannot be cut equally as tightly as dovetails in softwoods. I laid out six dovetails in some 6" wide 1/2" thick pine. I laid out two dovetails in 4" wide 3/4" thick cherry. After cutting the tails, I marked the pins with a chip knife and cut all the same, cutting on the waste side and ending in the knife line.
The pine joint I was able with firm hand pressure to push within 1/8" of being closed, and the tails and pins all met extremely well. The cherry joint I was only able to push together about 1/4", and hand to firmly mallet closed. The pins and tails in the cherry also met extremely well.
After quite a few tails and pins in 3/4" cherry blanket chest (with lots of paring) and quite a few practice pieces, I don't think thin and thick stock, softwood and hardwood, can all be marked and cut the same. Thicker stock needs a bit of play, as does hardwood.
On the 4" wide 7/8" thick cherry base to the blanket chest tonight, I left a strong 1/32" gap between the pin and tail boards when knifing the edges of the pins. This gap effectively made my pins a whisker thinner. This allowed me to mark the pins the same way as before, and to saw from the waste side to the middle of the knife line as before.
I'd love to hear from others who chop similar dovetail joints, using the same layout and sawing procedures, in say 1/2" and 3/4" pine, 1/2" and 3/4" cherry, to see if the joints go together equally easy; or as was my experience requiring more force with thicker and with harder stock.
I wasn't able to see the
I wasn't able to see the knife lines well until I mounted an articulated drafting light on the back corner of the bench. Repositioning the light creates shadows in the knife lines so I can see them, even with &^%$# bifocals.
Something else that helped was a suggestion I saw in Tage Frid's first book. He suggested laying a sheet of white paper or a mirror on the surface of the bench. I have a shoulder vise for dovetails, so there is some surface in front of the upright board on which to lay a sheet of bright white paper. It helped significantly to highlight the knife lines in the end grain.
Hi Don
Thanks for your communication of the white paper idea. I will give it a go next time.
Much of the time I get away with a saw cut to saw cut fitting. This is not meant to be a boast, but just that I seem to be clearing out the correct amount of waste.
I did post dovetail making tips here a little while ago: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/MakingBetter%20Dovetails.html
Here are the relevant issues:
1. Mark your transfers accurately! You simply cannot saw accurately without accurate marks to aim at.
2. Mark the transfer lines with a knife. A thin line presents less waste area to get wrong.
View Image
3. I cut to the line - actually, I truely aim to split this line. If the line is still there at the end, I place a chisel in it and pare vertically.
4. To saw to the line I add a slight chamfer at the start. This begins with the chisel in the knifed line. Again you can see that this effectively means I am splitting the line.
View Image
The only issue with thin knifed lines is that they are harder to see. Your idea (or Frid's) of white paper is really about more light. I always have a fluoro magnifier around, plus I deepen the knife lines and may even lighten/darken them with a grubby finger or chalk.
Hope this helps.
Regards from Perth
Derek
While I haven't hand-cut
While I haven't hand-cut bazillions of dovetails, my limited experience and thinking about the mechanical issues involved brought me to the same conclusion - marking accuracy is the key. And, I think getting there is a matter of using the right kind of knife, "tuned" and sharpened appropriately. A flat-sided blade, as you're using, Derek, will follow the edge of the tail precisely, and creat a V-shaped cut with one side vertical, as opposed to an Exacto-style blade that makes a V cut with both sides angled.
I prefer the Japanese-style marking knifes, as the longer cutting edge is often advantageous. But, two are needed - left and right sided. With the dual-edged marking knives, it may also help to tune the flatness of the back, just as with a chisel or plane iron.
In comparison, when marking with a pencil, the mark will always be off by half the diameter of the tip, or thereabouts. Certainly, one can compensate for that when making the saw cut, but the compensation isn't always predictable because the line position can't be precise.
Today I was able to incorporate some of the responses while dovetailing a 7" wide wall cabinet of 13/16" cherry.. Testing found that my dovetail marker was not quite perfectly perpendicular, so I used a square to lay out the tails on the end grain. And I marked these with a thin knife rather than a .5mm pencil. I brought up the tail board tight to the pin board, and as before marked the pins with a thin knife. The first required three rounds of pairing, the next two joints less, and the last almost none. Granted, this case is only 7" wide where the blanket chest was I think 18" wide with many more tails and pins, but these results I thought were much better.
Using 3/4" thick hardwood rather than 1/2" pine, I now know to expect some paring to be required, but utmost layout accuracy helps reduce the amount of paring required. Thanks to all who replied.
Sounds like you're on your way to success, Don.
Accuracy, Accuracy, Accuracy
Everyone was right - the key is accurate marking and sawing. Finishing up another cherry blanket chest and much better fitting dovetatils. Went back to marking with .5mm pencil rather than knife. Also focused intensely on sawing straight with the lines. Still some paring, but not excessive, and didn't have any gaps to fill. Thanks for correcting my foolish idea and slapping some sense in.
An old master told me, "you
An old master told me, "you should be able to tap your joints together with your hat". He didn't say what kind of hat.
hats
Great analogy. Unless one happens to be a Conquistador. ;-)
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled