I am working on the “Dovetail Box with Wooden Hinges” by Doug Stowe. I noticed this morning that I made a recurring error (for me) on one of the four pin boards. Three of them were correctly made with the wide side of the pins facing inside, but one had the wide side facing outside. There’s no fix for that, and I’ll have to make one new pin board. I tried something new for me that also didn’t work so good anyway. Before cutting the waste out of the tail boards, I used the saw kerfs to transfer the markings to the pin board with a modeler’s saw. I put blue tape on the pin boards before transferring. I was careful to line the boards up and clamp them using a wood block. I will go back to slowing down and marking the pins using a marking knife after removing the tail board waste )”WIDE SIDE INSIDE” for the pin board).
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I did that once... "recurring" is a whole 'nother issue! I go around the problem by laying out everything, pins & tails in advance without having to transfer. Check my profile for the website with the tools to do it. (my tools, my website and sadly, my face in the video) The layout process works great... accurate saw work is still the heart of it.
It is an easy mistake to make when laying out dovetails. If you will arrange the orientation of the sides, front and back and mark with a triangle witness as shown, there will be no question as to what is inside, outside, front, back etc. as you layout and cut your pins and tails.
Thanks for the triangle placement on the edges, 27B_6. I use triangles but haven't marked like that.
Interesting video _MJ_.
Thanks, has been pretty well received. Made a big diff for me, which was the start of the project.
I do all the marking and STILL get confused. I just find dovetails difficult so have spent most of my woodworking life avoiding them. I love it when they go right though!
Ecyor, is that your 1st or last name? I just had to know.
Mikaol
ecyor is royce (my first name) spelled backwards. My nickname growing up was roy, so for woodworking purposes ecyor or short ecky.
Progress on the dovetail box with wooden hinges - 1. Completed the dovetailed sides, front and back. 2. Completed the mitered base. (Wow, the 1 and 1/8" groove on the inside edges of the frame was a pain just using saws and a shop made tiny chisel.) 3. Completed the mitered lid (but I laminated a 1/4" panel with 1/8" sweet gum top and bottom). I put the miter keys on anyway just for decoration. Again, kind of a pain to make with handsaws and had to fill in small spaces with sanding dust and liquid hide glue. 4. I'm working on the hinges now. The bronze rod from online metals was 3/16" diameter instead of 1/8". I first cut the fingers and shaped them round with gouges and sandpaper, then proceded to blow them out when trying to drill the holes. So, I mortised and tenoned a new wider test piece on the end after sawing off the old finger remains. The new end is 1/2" instead of 5/16". I drilled the hole in the test piece without cutting or shaping the fingers. First, a smaller pilot hole halfway on both ends, then the same from both ends with the 3/16" bit. It worked so far and the bronze rod fit without breaking out the wood. So after I do that three more times, I can cut the fingers, remove the waste and shape the rounded parts. When it's attached, I'll post a picture.
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