Hands On

No new projects lately, just adding a tool tray to the back of my work bench and using it as an opportunity to practice hand cut dovetails.  Why hand cut?  First of all it seems to be a passage that nearly every woodworker has to go through and I really enjoy the challenge of hand tools and feel it is more of a craft. Don’t get me wrong you are not going to find me ripping hundreds of board feet by hand; power tools do make a lot of jobs easier.  Most of my “raw” working is done with power tools such as ripping boards and planning to thickness.  It’s the finish cuts and joinery where I use hand tools.  I know a lot of people get into heated debates about power vs. hand tools; but I think both have their own merits.  My table saw and router are certainly in my top ten tools I could not work without but so are my pull saws and chisels. 

Back to the dovetails….

My first few attempts at the dovetails where pretty bad; well pretty horrible.  I couldn’t get boards to meet flush, my chisel work made the edges look chewed and the gaps between tails and pins – well they if  they were straight I could of used them to hold clamps.  Try, try and try again…eventually the gaps got smaller, the edges looked a lot cleaner and the boards became flush.  

Above is a pic of one the early cuts; actually this is when I first started to really get things flush.  Edges are fairly clean but the gaps need more work.    When I first started cutting the dovetails I used the marking knife lines to gauge where I should start my saws, I even pre-chiseled the saw cut.  This led to bad gaps between the pins and tails.  I found it better to start my cuts about 1/16th into the waste  side of the marking knife line and then pare back to the knife marking line with a chisel.  This really tightened the gaps.
   

Here is my last practice run…I wouldn’t say this is fine furniture quality but it is at least good enough that I can finish my tool tray and start my next project.